SHANGHAI

CONFUCIAN RESEARCHERS IN China have discovered that a major population decline in the Middle Kingdom may not lead to the societal collapse predicted by Western commentators but instead could well lead to a golden age where millions of elderly Chinese and their younger fellow-citizens co-operate in harmony to cope with the imbalance between the generations.

“Like the river that finds itself moving from fast-flowing canyons to slow moving flat plains, the Chinese people can adapt to a gentler pace of existence, where people work longer but ever decreasing hours and robots and other machines take bear the load where human participation is at its weakest,” says Shaolin monk, Kwhy Jang Kayne, whose Social Habits firm, Confucius was a Communist, works closely with the Chinese Government. “The Western analysis has always been inappropriate for China. The Mandate of Heaven is more than mere profit and loss. We Chinese have been around for over two millennia. We have endured hardships that would have destroyed lesser civilizations. We can survive what is coming. Remember, looked for, we cannot be seen; listened for, we cannot be heard; touched, we cannot be felt. We are always more than the sum of our parts.”