My Take | Demography is not destiny for China or anyone else

Here are two often repeated clichés about China’s future. It is growing old before it becomes rich, and it has grown powerful before it becomes rich.

Since the county’s economic miracle is likely to have come to an end, and it is facing a demographic decline, perhaps there will even be a collapse in the coming decades. It’s basically game over.

At this point, the anti-China crowds might want to cheer and uncork champagne. The only problem is, probably all of them will be from countries that are facing the same greying population problem – except those from America. The United States, it turns out, has a pretty healthy demographic outlook, at least relative to all its major competitors. But that spells a different set of problems relating to immigration and the fractious domestic politics it has created, something we will return to below.

As is often the case in discussions about China, the global context is missing. Not only is China not unique in facing those problems, but also is not in the worst position, even in East Asia – everyone has the same or a similar problem. In short, depopulation is a global issue, not just China’s.

Consider Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. Here’s an example of why people should always remember correlation is not causation. A while back, since all these places, and China and Singapore, have experienced an “economic miracle”, there was this idea about their common background of Confucian culture, with its emphasis on family, duty and thrift, which supposedly promoted economic development. Perhaps now someone will argue Confucianism leads to demographic decline!