China’s president Xi Jinping could become more belligerent and provocative as his country’s population declines, an expert has said. Gordon Chang claimed Xi must be panicking over the decrease because it will weaken his ability to intimidate others.
He told Fox News: “Xi must be in a panic. His primary form of diplomacy is to intimidate others. If you’re going to have the world’s largest economy, if you’re going to be the most populous society, yeah, you can intimidate others.
“But if your country is rapidly shrinking – and that’s what’s going to happen to China – then no one’s going to be particularly scared.”
The population of China fell in 2022 for the first time in 60 years, marking a historic turn expected to mark the beginning of a long period of decline in its numbers.
China’s National Bureau of Statistics reported a drop of about 850,000 people for a population of 1.41175 billion last year. It is the first decline since 1961, which was the last year of a famine sparked by the country’s Great Leap Forward.
This was the result of a failed economic policy which led to mass starvation and death between 1958 and 1962.
A United Nations forecast reveals that China’s population will decrease 100 million by 2050 and 600 million by 2100 due to the country’s aging population, shrinking workforce and falling fertility rates.
Mr Change told the US broadcaster: “Population decline will severely undercut the ability of the economy to grow.
“China’s demographic dividend was largely responsible for the growth of the Chinese economy in the ’80s and ’90s. That was an extraordinary bulge in the workforce. Now we are seeing the opposite of that.”
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This year India is set to surpass China’s population, reports have found.
In a few years it will surpass China’s working-age population — people 20 to 69.
The United Nations has estimated that if China’s birth rate remains at its super-low level and the country fails to position itself as an attractive destination for migrants, the country will lose nearly half of its population by the end of this century, a contraction of roughly 700 million people.
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