‘Falling regional births point to growing populcrisis’ | SCMP

The nurse is looking at the baby with such
love and tenderness. You can tell even 
through the mask

I read somewhere recently-ish that China would start feeling an economic and social impact from a shrinking and aging population while the US, mainly because of immigration, would keep a young and growing population. And that therefore the narrative of an inexorably rising China, with a world-dominating economy, may not happen. That’s looking at the medium term, say 20-50 years, rather than soon.

The article above suggests some serious concern about falling birth rates, like right now. In some places up to 21% falls y-o-y. That’s dramatic (to say the very least). Last year deaths in China outpaced births. 

Couple that with a report I posted last week: that China may have a smaller population than it thinks because regional officials have been inflating their census figures (latest 2020), because of unintended consequences of some policies, like.bigger population = more subsidies. 

“Population is destiny”.