Xi Jinping’s Achilles Heel
China’s birth dearth is becoming more acute as its population ages.
By The Editorial Board
President Xi Jinping has made no secret of his ambition to make China the dominant global power of the 21st century.
But the latest Chinese census reveals a major vulnerability: What if the Middle Kingdom doesn’t have enough young people?
After some delay China finally released its census results Tuesday. Though the population grew a little last year—to 1.412 billion in 2020 from 1.4 billion—the more salient fact is that its population continues to gray as Chinese women are having fewer babies.
The proportion of people 60 or older increased to 18.7% of the population (from 13.3% in 2010), even as it recorded the lowest number of annual births (12 million) since 1961.
Beijing has seen this coming. In 2016 Chinese couples were allowed to have two children instead of one, reversing a policy in place for 35 years.
Last month the People’s Bank of China recommended the government abandon its population control policies if it hopes to compete with America, but even that may be too late.
Once fertility falls, the trend is hard to reverse no matter what incentives governments offer.
Many governments have tried, and some believe that Poland or Hungary (which now spends nearly 5% of its GDP to encourage its citizens to have more children) may have the answer.
But generally these policies have either failed outright, or shown at best modest fertility gains.
The social and economic implications are enormous, involving everything from the dynamics of the Chinese family to the growing demands on China’s already stressed and underfunded health and pension programs.
In March the government announced it will gradually raise the retirement age from 60 today, no doubt in expectation of these results.
The retirement costs would be difficult in any country, but China hasn’t achieved broad prosperity beyond its coast and major cities.
Other nations also face graying populations and a declining total fertility rate, which is the average number of children per woman.
The Japanese, Singaporeans and South Koreans are wealthier than the Chinese but have, respectively, total fertility rates of 1.36, 1.1 and 0.9.
Europe’s overall is 1.522.
The U.S. rate is 1.7, while China’s is 1.3.
The trend confirms that Beijing’s often brutal family planning interventions have left China with a demographic time bomb.
We should also acknowledge that the ruling Communists were often encouraged by Westerners in the 1960s and 1970s who feared the world would soon be overpopulated.
Now the demographic bill is coming due. Mr. Xi may believe the U.S. is in decline.
But he may learn that the greatest obstacle to his ambition to replace the U.S. as global leader doesn’t come from abroad.
It is the aging Chinese population that is a legacy of his Communist Party predecessors.
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