A Shrinking China With Global Implications.
China’s population is shrinking for the first time in more than half a century with far reaching Worldwide implications. (The Washington Post)
map of China
“China’s National Bureau of Statistics on Tuesday announced a decline of 850,000 people to a new total population of 1.4118 billion — the first such decline in 60 years. The birthrate reached its lowest level on record, at 6.77 per 1,000 people, down from 7.52 in 2021.
The last time China’s population declined was in 1961, after three years of famine caused by Mao Zedong’s disastrous Great Leap Forward industrial policy, along with floods and drought.”
In the 1980’s America became alarmed at the rapid rise of Japanese economic power and its implications for American workers. Growing up in the Midwest it was unpopular to drive a Japanese produced vehicle even though they gained massive popularity in other parts of the nation. The media portrayed Japan as the economic boogeyman ready and willing to usurp American economic dominance. Then the Japanese economy stagnated and China, with a population many times that of Japan or America began a meteoric rise on the World stage. China’s superpower status and seat at the power table is going to be called into question because their population is no longer growing but will be shrinking rapidly in the next several decades.
