Recently, I was organizing some notes on economic cycle theories and suddenly recalled Zhou Jintao’s discussion on Kondratiev waves. I feel that re-examining it now is quite interesting.

He has a viewpoint I find particularly worth pondering: making money in life depends on Kondratiev waves. The idea is that whether you earn money or not doesn’t entirely depend on how capable you are; largely, it depends on whether you are riding the wave of the economic cycle. From the Industrial Revolution to today, the world economy has gone through five major cycles, from the steam-powered textile industry, steel and railroads, to electrification, automobiles, computers, and finally the information technology wave of recent decades. Each wave has created a group of people.

Zhou Jintao especially emphasized a phenomenon called the three wealth opportunities in life. During a person’s main 60-year period of economic activity, the Kondratiev cycle offers only three opportunities—this isn’t something you can choose; it’s determined by economic laws. According to his prediction, the first opportunity was around 2008, the second in 2019, and the third around 2030. His advice to young people at the time was quite straightforward: if you are born after 1985 and are under 30 now, your first opportunity was the wave in 2019. If you missed it, there’s nothing you can do because it’s fate.

His theoretical framework is actually multi-layered. The largest is the Kondratiev cycle, roughly 50 to 60 years per turn. Within this big cycle, there’s the real estate cycle (a 20-year loop), then the capital expenditure cycle (9 to 11 years), and finally the inventory cycle (3 to 4 years). A complete Kondratiev cycle includes three real estate cycles, six capital expenditure cycles, and eighteen inventory cycles. As he puts it, your life essentially consists of one Kondratiev wave, three real estate cycles, nine fixed asset investment cycles, and eighteen inventory cycles.

Regarding real estate, his judgment on China’s property market left a deep impression. He believes the real estate cycle takes about 20 years to turn around, and a person can encounter at most two real opportunities in their lifetime. He clearly pointed out that 2014 was the peak of China’s real estate cycle, and the rise in first-tier cities in 2016 was just a rebound within a bear market. He also advised investors to consider selling non-primary residences by the first half of 2017. Most of these predictions later proved accurate.

He is also well-known for a series of remarkably accurate forecasts. In 2007, he foresaw the signs of the subprime mortgage crisis; in 2015, he warned of the second shock of the Kondratiev recession, which was followed by a sharp plunge in global stock markets. In 2016, he predicted China’s economy was near the bottom, and commodities would rebound. These weren’t baseless guesses but were based on a profound understanding of Kondratiev cycle laws.

From his framework, we are currently in the depression phase of the fifth Kondratiev wave. The prosperity period of information technology was from 1991 to 2004, then entered a recession until 2015, followed by a ten-year-long depression starting in 2015. He once said something striking: the next ten years are destined to be spent in depression—that’s an unchangeable economic law. Especially during 2018–2019, he called that period the “year of eternal damnation” of the Kondratiev cycle, when asset prices would hit their ultimate lows.

Against this backdrop, his investment advice is quite straightforward: first, maintain liquidity—hold cash or gold; second, avoid long-term investments in assets with poor liquidity; third, patiently wait for the next Kondratiev wave to rise. He emphasized that making money during a depression isn’t the primary goal; preserving value is first, liquidity second. These two principles are core to navigating cycles.

Looking back now, his understanding of Kondratiev cycles offers a grand perspective for understanding the relationship between the economy and life. In his writings, he once said: recognizing that everything has its own laws—rocks turn into dust with a lifespan—cycles are determined by their own laws of operation; don’t try to transcend them. This statement still offers inspiration today.

From this point in time, we have already passed that depression phase, and the next wave of Kondratiev opportunities is gradually emerging. Re-examining Zhou Jintao’s Kondratiev cycle theory may help us see the future more clearly. After all, understanding cycles allows us to grasp trends, and understanding laws helps us find opportunities amid change.