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I was hoping for a technology-focused discussion here, but I'll point out that China is at or near it's 21st century peak in terms of relative world power. Chi

I was hoping for a technology-focused discussion here, but I'll point out that China is at or near it's 21st century peak in terms of relative world power. China is facing a massive demographic cliff (due to 35 years of the One Child Policy). It's been predicted for decades that "China will grow old before it gets rich" and it's way too late to change. From the 2030s onwards, China faces a massive elderly population and dwindling workforce. The United States has favorable demographics for the next few decades and will certainly be able to keep parity with China. Admittedly the US has started developing issues around demographics (falling fertility rate, and falling immigration), but it's not as dire as China current situation.

barkingcat 6y ago
When it comes to population control and China, there's no such thing as "it's way too late to change." China can enforce mandatory population growth easily enough (anyone wanting a marriage license must produce a child within 6 months, if not, the marriage is annulled), and if that is on the 10-15 year time horizon, they can easily allow cloning technology be used on humans for the short term.
- pmontra 6y ago
  > anyone wanting a marriage license must produce a child within 6 months So they start 3 months in advance? /s Whatever, I think it's much easier to limit the number of children than to enforce a minimum. Both can be very unwelcomed for many reasons I don't want to get into, but not everybody can have children.
  - barkingcat 6y ago
    That's the point though, if the spouse cannot have a child, the marriage is annulled and the fertile partner gets a different spouse. The idea is, "unwelcomed" is not an issue. In the Uighur regions, China is already practicing a form of marriage enforcement to make sure there's more han babies in the region.
    - newen 6y ago
      Where are you getting this information from?
- gruez 6y ago
  So couples will just... not marry?
  - inglor_cz 6y ago
    You could theoretically levy an extra tax from childless people over certain age. That might work a bit in a non-democracy, where those people have no vote over their taxation levels.
mytailorisrich 6y ago
> I was hoping for a technology-focused discussion here Your comment is geopolitical. So I replied accordingly. Technology does not live in a bubble. What is happening is a geopolitical struggle, and when you mention the US barring Arm from Chinese companies or issues with SMIC, this is geopolitical, not purely technology and trying to restrict the discussion purely to technology would be missing the big picture (hence my comment on having a long term plan). China is far from its peak. When Chinese GDP is 4x the US's GDP then sure, but we're far from that. I don't understand the demographics argument. China's population is 4x the US's. Global population needs to stabilise (and is bery slowly getting there). To think that the US can simply compete with China (and India) through population growth is bonkers.
zozbot234 6y ago
Japan has a massive elderly population, and it's still a highly developed country. If China gets stuck in the middle-income trap it will be due to its institutions, not demographics.
- someperson 6y ago
  The point is Japan is stagnating. Between 1980 and 2020 Japan averaged 0.41% GDP growth per year. Meanwhile most of the world did much better. In relative terms, Japan was a far more important player in 1980 than it is today. It may be hard to believe, but the same will inevitably happen to China, and it's near-impossible to change because the damage has already been done. It's the inevitable legacy of enforcing Deng Xiaoping's One Child Policy for 35 years.
  - mytailorisrich 6y ago
    The same might apply to China but by then they'll have a far larger economy than the US's. What should not be forgotten is that Japan's population is only 1/3 of the US's, that it has extremely limited land resources, and that it is very developed (see GDP per capita). None of these apply to China. If China had the same GDP per capita as Japan then its economy would be 12x larger than Japan's and 2.6x times larger than the US's. China is still relatively poor per capita and thus still has a huge margin before reaching a peak, even if breakneck growth cannot be maintained.
  - DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
    Having an aging economy didn't stop Japan from becoming the world's most advanced economy (based on economic complexity: https://oec.world/en/profile/country/jpn https://oec.world/en/profile/country/jpn).
slim 6y ago
"China will grow old before it gets rich" and it's way too late to change china can enforce "3 children per household" anytime
- Yaa101 6y ago
  They don't have the food for that...
- gruez 6y ago
  Forcing people to have children is never a good idea. It will result in millions in unwanted (and thus poorly raised) children.
  - justaman 6y ago
    I wouldn't expect any government to consider this point before making this decision.
- inglor_cz 6y ago
  Not really. Not sustainably so. The only authoritarian regime that tried to do so was Romania under Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. He banned abortion and contraception overnight. There was a massive spike in birth rate that year, but people soon found ways around the ban and birth rate started falling sharply again. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decree_770 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decree_770
  - coolspot 6y ago
    You can more subtle about that. For example since 2007 Russia started to pay “Mother’s capital” for each child born after a first one. ~$10k for a kid. China has enough money to give away.
    - inglor_cz 6y ago
      Hungary has tax bonuses for mothers of bigger families. This is a policy constructed to encourage the middle class to breed, unlike the "just give money for each child", which would be more of an incentive for the non-working underclass. Total Fertility Rate in Hungary has grown from abysmal 1.2 to still bad 1.55 or so, still far from simple reproduction, but at least it goes in different direction from most of the developed world.
iorrus 6y ago
China has one of the world's largest populations, they also have an authoritarian government that can implement policies to increase birth rate. Long term China is fine. Europe not so much.. US even less so.
- Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
  Highly urbanized population like China's doesn't want to procreate that much, whether the government has stimulating policies or not. If said population is wealthy (which is more and more the case with China), policies are even less effective - people already have what they need. Saying that, best bet for China seems to be counting on rural population, and investing heavily in their education.
- samus 6y ago
  All of these can implement policies to resolve this issue. The West could do so simply by encouraging immigration, though it's probably hard to gather the political will for that. China could think about such policies, but birth rate and the population pyramid are less flexible and more difficult to fake than GDP growth. Also, being an authoritarian (not totalitarian) state means that their government is not completely immune to popular demands: the one-child policy was more like a 1.5-child policy because of its huge numbers of exceptions and special considerations. I sincerely hope that they have become more careful when trying to steer population growth.
glangdale 6y ago
You are getting a lot of incredibly daft and weird responses, but you are in fact correct. Even if China would suddenly implement a 'enforced population growth' strategy tomorrow (which would be remarkably bonkers) that would create a baby boom that would have economic dividends only at some point in the future - their current demographics would play out for some time (and spare a thought for the woman compelled to have 3 kids AND look after her own parents and her in-laws!). The number of women at childbearing age has already dropped substantially (both due to an aging population and a tendency to favor boys and abort girls). A lot of bizarre fantasies about what the Chinese government can and can't do - they are an authoritarian state, not a totalitarian state. The idea that they can enforce multiple births in a culture that is trending sharply away from having multiple kids by waving a wand is just ridiculous. Further, they have barely deployed any serious incentives to have more kids - it would be cheaper and easier to do Scando-style childcare and subsidies. The other basic fact that your responders ignore is that Western countries have huge immigration rates compared to China, which hardly has any immigration. Their rate is 750 times lower than the USA, for example, and the bulk of immigrants to China (historically) have been from ethnic Chinese populations abroad (notably Vietnam); these populations are also aging.
- inglor_cz 6y ago
  What China might be able to do is to invent artificial wombs (they are scientifically plausible and some work on them has already been done, but obvious ethical issues are acting as a brake on their development) and try to rear the resulting kids in some kind of communal schools. That would not probably work either, but it is possible. They have definitely tried worse things before in China. China invested a lot in biotechnology and has few ethical concerns in this regard. This scenario might be within the realm of possibility for them.
  - JetSpiegel 6y ago
    Brave New World?
  - glangdale 6y ago
    Just getting weirder and weirder. Now Chinese society is not only a totalitarian government that can command all aspects of human life in their country (narrator: "they can't"), they can make things that are current impossible-even-in-mammals (e.g. lamb fetuses) work in humans. It seems equally plausible that they might cure aging, instead, which would certainly solve the workforce problem.

barkingcat 6y ago

When it comes to population control and China, there's no such thing as "it's way too late to change." China can enforce mandatory population growth easily enough (anyone wanting a marriage license must produce a child within 6 months, if not, the marriage is annulled), and if that is on the 10-15 year time horizon, they can easily allow cloning technology be used on humans for the short term.

pmontra 6y ago
> anyone wanting a marriage license must produce a child within 6 months So they start 3 months in advance? /s Whatever, I think it's much easier to limit the number of children than to enforce a minimum. Both can be very unwelcomed for many reasons I don't want to get into, but not everybody can have children.
- barkingcat 6y ago
  That's the point though, if the spouse cannot have a child, the marriage is annulled and the fertile partner gets a different spouse. The idea is, "unwelcomed" is not an issue. In the Uighur regions, China is already practicing a form of marriage enforcement to make sure there's more han babies in the region.
  - newen 6y ago
    Where are you getting this information from?
gruez 6y ago
So couples will just... not marry?
- inglor_cz 6y ago
  You could theoretically levy an extra tax from childless people over certain age. That might work a bit in a non-democracy, where those people have no vote over their taxation levels.

mytailorisrich 6y ago

> I was hoping for a technology-focused discussion here Your comment is geopolitical. So I replied accordingly. Technology does not live in a bubble. What is happening is a geopolitical struggle, and when you mention the US barring Arm from Chinese companies or issues with SMIC, this is geopolitical, not purely technology and trying to restrict the discussion purely to technology would be missing the big picture (hence my comment on having a long term plan). China is far from its peak. When Chinese GDP is 4x the US's GDP then sure, but we're far from that. I don't understand the demographics argument. China's population is 4x the US's. Global population needs to stabilise (and is bery slowly getting there). To think that the US can simply compete with China (and India) through population growth is bonkers.

zozbot234 6y ago

Japan has a massive elderly population, and it's still a highly developed country. If China gets stuck in the middle-income trap it will be due to its institutions, not demographics.

someperson 6y ago
The point is Japan is stagnating. Between 1980 and 2020 Japan averaged 0.41% GDP growth per year. Meanwhile most of the world did much better. In relative terms, Japan was a far more important player in 1980 than it is today. It may be hard to believe, but the same will inevitably happen to China, and it's near-impossible to change because the damage has already been done. It's the inevitable legacy of enforcing Deng Xiaoping's One Child Policy for 35 years.
- mytailorisrich 6y ago
  The same might apply to China but by then they'll have a far larger economy than the US's. What should not be forgotten is that Japan's population is only 1/3 of the US's, that it has extremely limited land resources, and that it is very developed (see GDP per capita). None of these apply to China. If China had the same GDP per capita as Japan then its economy would be 12x larger than Japan's and 2.6x times larger than the US's. China is still relatively poor per capita and thus still has a huge margin before reaching a peak, even if breakneck growth cannot be maintained.
- DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
  Having an aging economy didn't stop Japan from becoming the world's most advanced economy (based on economic complexity: https://oec.world/en/profile/country/jpn https://oec.world/en/profile/country/jpn).

slim 6y ago

"China will grow old before it gets rich" and it's way too late to change china can enforce "3 children per household" anytime

Yaa101 6y ago
They don't have the food for that...
gruez 6y ago
Forcing people to have children is never a good idea. It will result in millions in unwanted (and thus poorly raised) children.
- justaman 6y ago
  I wouldn't expect any government to consider this point before making this decision.
inglor_cz 6y ago
Not really. Not sustainably so. The only authoritarian regime that tried to do so was Romania under Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. He banned abortion and contraception overnight. There was a massive spike in birth rate that year, but people soon found ways around the ban and birth rate started falling sharply again. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decree_770 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decree_770
- coolspot 6y ago
  You can more subtle about that. For example since 2007 Russia started to pay “Mother’s capital” for each child born after a first one. ~$10k for a kid. China has enough money to give away.
  - inglor_cz 6y ago
    Hungary has tax bonuses for mothers of bigger families. This is a policy constructed to encourage the middle class to breed, unlike the "just give money for each child", which would be more of an incentive for the non-working underclass. Total Fertility Rate in Hungary has grown from abysmal 1.2 to still bad 1.55 or so, still far from simple reproduction, but at least it goes in different direction from most of the developed world.

iorrus 6y ago

China has one of the world's largest populations, they also have an authoritarian government that can implement policies to increase birth rate. Long term China is fine. Europe not so much.. US even less so.

Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
Highly urbanized population like China's doesn't want to procreate that much, whether the government has stimulating policies or not. If said population is wealthy (which is more and more the case with China), policies are even less effective - people already have what they need. Saying that, best bet for China seems to be counting on rural population, and investing heavily in their education.
samus 6y ago
All of these can implement policies to resolve this issue. The West could do so simply by encouraging immigration, though it's probably hard to gather the political will for that. China could think about such policies, but birth rate and the population pyramid are less flexible and more difficult to fake than GDP growth. Also, being an authoritarian (not totalitarian) state means that their government is not completely immune to popular demands: the one-child policy was more like a 1.5-child policy because of its huge numbers of exceptions and special considerations. I sincerely hope that they have become more careful when trying to steer population growth.

glangdale 6y ago

You are getting a lot of incredibly daft and weird responses, but you are in fact correct. Even if China would suddenly implement a 'enforced population growth' strategy tomorrow (which would be remarkably bonkers) that would create a baby boom that would have economic dividends only at some point in the future - their current demographics would play out for some time (and spare a thought for the woman compelled to have 3 kids AND look after her own parents and her in-laws!). The number of women at childbearing age has already dropped substantially (both due to an aging population and a tendency to favor boys and abort girls). A lot of bizarre fantasies about what the Chinese government can and can't do - they are an authoritarian state, not a totalitarian state. The idea that they can enforce multiple births in a culture that is trending sharply away from having multiple kids by waving a wand is just ridiculous. Further, they have barely deployed any serious incentives to have more kids - it would be cheaper and easier to do Scando-style childcare and subsidies. The other basic fact that your responders ignore is that Western countries have huge immigration rates compared to China, which hardly has any immigration. Their rate is 750 times lower than the USA, for example, and the bulk of immigrants to China (historically) have been from ethnic Chinese populations abroad (notably Vietnam); these populations are also aging.

inglor_cz 6y ago
What China might be able to do is to invent artificial wombs (they are scientifically plausible and some work on them has already been done, but obvious ethical issues are acting as a brake on their development) and try to rear the resulting kids in some kind of communal schools. That would not probably work either, but it is possible. They have definitely tried worse things before in China. China invested a lot in biotechnology and has few ethical concerns in this regard. This scenario might be within the realm of possibility for them.
- JetSpiegel 6y ago
  Brave New World?
- glangdale 6y ago
  Just getting weirder and weirder. Now Chinese society is not only a totalitarian government that can command all aspects of human life in their country (narrator: "they can't"), they can make things that are current impossible-even-in-mammals (e.g. lamb fetuses) work in humans. It seems equally plausible that they might cure aging, instead, which would certainly solve the workforce problem.