As the “Beer Flu” continues to kill more and more Chinese people, and tens of thousands grow sick, the situation of Mainland China grows more dire by the hour. Serious now, all China’s problems seem to be getting worse quickly. It is a lesson we here in the Fifty States need to take to heart. Beer flu is far from the only one.

According to some reports, the infection and death rate are higher, here in this first two+ months of the “medical emergency” than in a similar period for the Spanish Influenza epidemic of 1918, which ultimately killed 50 million (according to CDC, others claim higher) of 500 million infected, in a world population of just 1.8 billion. That is 10% of infected people – although again, claims are made that actually 20% of those who were infected died. That is one in 5 ill people, while more than a quarter of ALL humans got sick.

Today, with nearly 8 billion people on this lovely planet, a similar infection rate would be 2.2 billion people. China alone has nearly 1.5 billion people – that would mean 420 MILLION Chinese could become sick. Even if modern medical technology could reduce the fatalities from 1 in 10 (or 1 in 5) who get ill down to just 1 in 100, that means potentially 4 million dead in China, and 22 million dead worldwide. (A similar death rate to 1918 would be a staggering 220 to 440 million dead.)

However, that assumes a similar rate of infection. There were no cities of 11 million people ANYWHERE in 1918 – and population densities worldwide have exploded in the last century. People are living more and more crowded together. Even in the West, but especially in China, the rest of East Asia, and South Asia. It isn’t just a matter of more people and the same amount of land. The world has grown far, far more urbanized since 1918.

You can see the results of that in this 10-year-old map of Eastern Asia:

The rest of the world – especially the 3rd World – is little different. If the Beer Flu spreads to countries such as Nigeria or Egypt or Bangladesh, with limited medical resources and crowded conditions, the infection rate may increase exponentially. Instead of a quarter of the population getting ill, it could rise to 50 percent or more.

But let us concentrate (for now) on China. Recent photos of Wuhan itself show a city that is at a complete standstill. A city of 11 million people with virtually NO traffic (vehicular, bicycle, or pedestrian) in the urban core areas. Virtually the only activity in the city is building hospitals (which those who have seen pictures of the interior think are more like hospices than hospitals), and various forms of medical treatment and transportation. Across the nation, industry is retooling to produce emergency equipment like masks and other protective gear, instead of goods to ship to the rest of the world. More than 50 million people now live inside the no-travel quarantine zone, which is expanding daily. In Hong Kong, now virtually sealed off from the Mainland, there is panic over food and other supplies, according to Reuters.

China’s economy is grinding to a halt. Which in turn causes political tensions within the Communist Empire to rise – and rise at a more rapid rate. Accelerating the collapse of the present (Communist) dynasty, just as every previous dynasty has fallen.

The next map shows why we can (and should) call China an empire.

The vast overextension of credit to fuel the rapid economic expansion – making China a middle-income “developing country” has combined with many other factors. Not just geopolitical ones like topography, climate, and lines of communications. Trump’s so-far successful trade war against China has worked. (American allies AND the domestic front are beginning to benefit from reindustrialization in the Fifty States and more outsourcing to nations like Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and India. China has been unable to achieve the “economic miracle” that the Republic of Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Singapore have. And they have severely damaged the brightest spot: Hong Kong.

They are behaving like typical governments, in other words – and especially like Communist and hardshell Socialist countries: Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, and the like.

Which does not bode well for a successful fight against coronavirus – or whatever other disease or trouble comes along.

As I have already discussed in recent months (see below), China is tottering on the verge of collapse: strange as it is, they are facing two demographic problems: The first is (seemingly illogically) a lack of population – at least of the right age of population. China is getting old – as fast as Japan did in the 1980s, which led to its collapse in the last thirty years. As fast as Europe, and much, much faster than the Fifty States. Its population is getting older (on average) quickly, creating a burden on them and their economy as more and more people are elderly and no long as productive as members of society..

The second is the huge imbalance of sexes in China. A product of the now-abandoned one-child policy and the cultural desire for sons rather than daughters: men now outnumber women significantly. Such imbalances in sex also unbalance society. A surplus of men often results in massive internal unrest AND a tendency to become very aggressive. (A severe imbalance due to high death rates of men in war also creates an unstable society, but usually not as aggressive, unless there is a reason to try and get revenge.)

When combined with the economic, medical, and other social problems, the People’s Republic of China is indeed in very desperate straits. And the rest of the planet needs to be aware and be prepared for it.

The Price of Liberty: Recent Commentary about Red China

Is Red China dying?

China, democracy and liberty

The China Crisis

Is China still a Communist nation?