The end of China as a great power: demographic collapse | Notice

the Chinese population, would be 1.41 billionwill fall to 330 million by the end of the century, predicts Yi Fuxian of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This surprising finding is included in an article that will be published in the Winter 2024 issue of Review of Contemporary China. He is not the only one concerned. “China has embarked on the path of demographic non-return” writes Wang Feng from the University of California, Irvine. Yi puts it this way: “If left unchecked, China’s population trap could precipitate civilizational collapse. »

Why do we care? Rapid demographic change may push an ambitious China to become even more militant and accelerate dangerous projects.

The crisis is obvious. Yi's staggering 330 million figure assumes that China will be able to stabilize its total fertility rate – generally the average number of children born by a woman in her lifetime – at 0.8. China's TFR in 2023 was 1.0. and decreases over time. A country generally needs a TFR of 2.1 to maintain a stable population.

Yi estimates that China's TFR could even fall to 0.7, meaning China could have even fewer people by 2100.

How far will China's population decline? THE 2024 revision of the UN World Population Prospects shows a low estimate of 403.8 million people by the end of the century. The UN figures closely follow those of China, which has overestimated the size of its population for two decades. Yi's prediction, while considered extreme today, will likely be closer to reality when the clock strikes 9 p.m.

China is now 4 times more populated than the United States. At the turn of the century, one might imagine that it had roughly the same number of inhabitants as America.

China is in a difficult situation. No other society has ever faced greater population decline in the absence of war, disease or famine. These one-off events throughout history have led to disastrous population declines, but societies almost always bounce back. China itself quickly rebounded from the Great Leap Forward famine of the late 1950s and early 1990s. Then the country's population fell by at least 30 million people. Some estimates are double that figure.

Today, China's population decline is caused by profound changes in society, persistent economic failure and a growing gloom enveloping the country. Young Chinese now present themselves as the “last generation” of China.

These antinatal attitudes are in part the result of the regime's incessant indoctrination in favor of the one-child policy. Deng Xiaoping, Mao Zedong's successor, instituted this policy in 1979 as one of his first initiatives after coming to power. During the existence of the coercive program, “probably the greatest social experiment in human history”, China's fertility declined, going from 2.9 births per woman to 1.1 births in 2015.

China moved to a two-child policy in 2016 and, when that didn't work, to a three-child policy in 2021. Successive policy relaxations were not enough. The country's population peaked in 2021.

China could adopt a 27-child policy, but it would have no effect. “Despite the totalitarian idea that population trends are something the government can 'fine-tune,' the reality is that birth trends tend to correspond very closely to the family size desired by actual parents,” Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute told me. “It is possible to use bayonets and police power to drive down the birth rate against the will of a people; it is far more difficult to use state force to drive up the birth rate. birth rate.”

In fact, as Wang Feng points out, “no country has managed to increase fertility through government policies.”

Wang believes declining demographics are prompting China to adopt soft foreign policies. As he writes: “Economic and political challenges, which will amplify with demographic changes in the decades to come, should compel Chinese leaders to seek and maintain better relations with the United States and Western Europe, with countries that both have markets for Chinese export products. and the innovations and new technologies that China needs. »

Wang perfectly sums up how the Chinese leader should calculate the country's interests. Xi Jinping could, however, see things differently. Its main form of diplomacy in recent years has been intimidation. He can intimidate if others believe his China will dominate or even rule the world; he cannot do it if others see his country shrinking rapidly. Given Xi's goals, he advocates the imperial era idea that China should rule. Tianxia or “All Under Heaven” – he knows he doesn't have much time.

Xi must know that ancient societies tend to be peaceful and that China is aging rapidly. If he wants the Chinese people to support his glorious visions of a planetary government, he surely understands that the time to act is now. He must know that there is a window of opportunity that is closing.

How did Xi get the idea that he could impose his will on all of humanity? “By teaming up to disguise a sick old cat as a ferocious lion, Chinese and American scholars have fueled the political ambitions of Chinese leaders and steered U.S.-China relations down the dangerous path of a furious battle between a dynamic tiger and an aggressive tiger. lion”, underlines Yi Fuxian. “A strategic miscalculation based on incorrect demographic data is costly and dangerous.”

“More people means more power,” posted “Fang Feng” on China’s Strong Country Forum. People's Daily when the Chinese population increased. “It's the truth.”

The world should be concerned that China's leader both believes otherwise and realizes he must act before it is too late.

Gordon G. Chang is the author of Plan Rouge: China's Project to Destroy America and The Coming Collapse of China. Follow him on @GordonGChange.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author.