Please cite this article in press as: Xiaohui, C., et al., China’s metabolic patterns and their potential problems. Ecol. Model. (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2015.03.009 ARTICLE IN PRESS G Model ECOMOD-7487; No. of Pages 11 Ecological Modelling xxx (2015) xxx–xxx Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Ecological Modelling journa l h om epa ge: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolmodel China’s metabolic patterns and their potential problems Chen Xiaohui a , Wang Tiansong b,c , Samuele Lo Piano d , Kozo Mayumi a,∗ a Faculty of Integrated Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokushima, Minami-Josanjima 1-1, Tokushima City 770-8502, Japan b Shenzhen Climate Change Technology Centre, Shenzhen 518055, China c Scientific Information Centre for Resources and Environment, CAS, Lanzhou 730000, China d Scuola Normale Superiore, Piazza dei Cavalieri, 7, 56126 Pisa, Italy a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Available online xxx Keywords: China Societal metabolism Demographic change Labor shortage Energy carriers One child policy a b s t r a c t In this paper we deal only with the demographic and energy issues associated with China’s metabolic pat- terns and present several serious problems that China would face in the future. For this purpose we use our general multi-scale methodology, Multi-Scale Integrated Analysis of Societal and Ecosystem Metabolism (MuSIASEM for short). The second section briefly presents the basic ideas behind this methodology. MuSI- ASEM is shown to be a combination of (i) Georgescu-Roegen’s flow-fund production theory in economics; (ii) hierarchy theory in ecology and (iii) hypercycle theory in chemical reaction cycles. The third section deals with China’s population size and its structural problems associated with the metabolic patterns of the country and presents a few potential problems. A shortage of labor hours would be a serious threat to China’s economic prospectus unless labor productivity per hour increases dramatically. It is shown that the hourly monetary return in 2050 must be 24.5 US dollar (for 1800 yearly working hours) and 27.6 US dollar (for 1600 yearly working hours), to maintain China’s GDP levels predicted for 2050. The fourth section first presents the metabolic patterns of China by four of four quadrants-four angles figure for the secondary and tertiary sectors. This section also discusses a prospect of China’s oil import depending on three plausible scenarios. Oil import “guestimates” are 1290, 2010, and 2730 (million tonnes) in the year 2050 based on the three scenarios. Since the world total oil production in 2010 is 3945 million tonnes, the import oil burden for China will be alarming in the near future. The fifth section concludes the paper. © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction China has achieved rapid economic growth since Deng Xiao Ping launched economic reforms in 1978. This economic develop- ment can be seen as a transition from a centrally planned economy toward a market based economy, while keeping the communist regime. This transition entails another important transition from an agricultural society toward an urban industrial society. During the period of 1999–2003, for example, real GDP grew on average by 8% per year, three times the world average growth rate (Liu and Diamond, 2005). China has achieved the highest GDP growth rate, around 12% in the year 2011 and is still growing at 7% GDP growth rate up to 2014 (Trading Economics, 2014). The Chinese government is determined to get another quadrupling in GDP size by 2020 (Aldhous, 2005). However, to accomplish such a goal China ∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +81 886567175.. E-mail addresses: mayumi@ias.tokushima-u.ac.jp, kozo.mayumi@gmail.com (K. Mayumi). could face formidable problems in relation to demographic dynam- ics (e.g., Vaupel and Yi, 1991; Adamchak, 2001; Cai and Wang, 2006), energy demand and supply (e.g., Adams and Shachmurove, 2008; Ito et al., 2010; Shan et al., 2012; Lin and Ouyang, 2014), and environmental problems (Chak et al., 2008; Kan et al., 2012). Concerning demographic problems, there is a variety of potential problems that might hamper China’s future economic development (Vaupel and Yi, 1991; Adamchak, 2001; Cai and Wang, 2006). China’s population of more than 1.3 billion is still growing. It is a little less than one-fifth of the world’s population (about 7.2 bil- lion as of January 2014). Demographic transition has occurred more rapidly in China than in most developed countries. China’s popula- tion is aging: the elderly may number 300 to 400 million by 2050. Efforts to reduce the population growth will increase the propor- tion of elderly. To increase the size of the work force, a substantial delay in the age of retirement may be necessary. To reduce the num- ber of births, some judicious mix of delayed childbearing and lower fertility will be required. The population policy choices, such as the one-child policy made in China, will determine the future size, age http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2015.03.009 0304-3800/© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.