Regular Instapundit poster Stephen Green links to a Lawrence Person’s Battleswarm Blog column on China’s demographic challlenges. Some choice items:
China’s working-age cohort grew from 58% of the country in 1978 to 74% in 2010. But in less than twenty years, the UN predicts that number will be roughly back where it was in ‘78. By then, China will have twice as many seniors as children under 15.
Per capita wealth remains low, on the level of Mexico, the Maldives, and Kazakhstan. That means this mass of retirees won’t just contribute less to the economy, but will also require immense financial support — the kind China’s fractured pension and healthcare system isn’t remotely prepared for.
China’s 2020 Census, [tallied] 14.65 million births the previous year — the lowest level since 1961. Japan, which is also aging, provides a best case scenario. With a median age of 48.6, Japan is the 2nd oldest place on earth. Today, its share of the world’s manufacturing exports has fallen from 12.5% to just 5.2. Japan did not fade into global irrelevance. It’s still a great power. But it never fulfilled what once seemed certain: its rise to rival the U.S. as a superpower. And it never will.
I remember the “Japan will own the world” period, and its subsequent demise. Most ‘Japanese cars’ sold in the U.S. are built right here by U.S. workers. Is the hope China’s “arc of history” follows a similar meteoric path an unrealistic one? In a word … no.
