> It will be more difficult for China to sustain high growth with a shrinking population. Actually, scratch that. It will be impossible. Many countries with sh

> It will be more difficult for China to sustain high growth with a shrinking population. Actually, scratch that. It will be impossible. Many countries with shrinking populations have fast economic growth. Case in point: Eastern European countries have much faster GDP growth rates than Western Europe, even though populations have been declining across Eastern Europe (at a faster rate than in Western Europe). > The cynic in me would say that the CCP would turn a blind eye to leting Covid rip through the country in order to purge the ranks of economically unproductive seniors. The cynic in you would then have to explain why China went to such great effort to protect its population from CoVID for almost 3 years, while the West let it rip. Many in the West love China catastrophism. It's comforting to think that the US' main rival will collapse, all on its own. That's why Peter Zeihan is so popular. However, China's population decline is going to be gradual: it's going to go from 1.4 billion people now to 1.3 billion people in 30 years. This is offset by the younger generation being much better educated and economically productive than the older generations. The number of highly skilled workers will actually continue to increase over time. The main risk to China is not gradual demographic decline. It's the rivalry with the US, which threatens to wreck the globalized economic system that China (and most of the world) depends on, and which could turn hot in the near future.