China’s decline became undeniable this week. And now that?

I have been writing columns for years predicting China’s decline.

This week, the decline has become undeniable.

The downhill road won’t be easy, neither for her nor for us.

The news is that the death rate in China exceeds the birth rate for the first time in more than 60 years.

The last time was the famine caused by the economic policies of Mao Zedong which caused about 36 million deaths from starvation.

Now, it is young Chinese couples who, like their peers in much of the developed world, they don’t want to have children.

So far, demographic change has been minimal: 9.56 million births last year versus 10.41 million deaths, according to Chinese government statistics.

This out of a total population of 1.4 billion.

The country will not run out of people soon.

But the long-term trend lines look dire for Beijing.

In 1978, when Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms began, China’s median age was 20.1 years.

In 2021 it was 37.9, surpassing that of the United States.

China’s fertility rate is 1.18.

The replacement rate needed to maintain a stable population is 2.1.

In 2018, there were about 34 million more men than women in China, the result of a one-child policy that led couples to abort girls at a higher rate than boys.

China’s working-age population has been declining for years; a government spokesman estimated it will be reduced to 700 million in the middle of the century.

If you think the world already has too many people, this might all sound like good news.

But it’s not.

China is increasingly likely to get old before it gets rich, condemning hundreds of millions of Chinese to a painful old age and often lonely.

According to Ruchir Sharma, former head of emerging markets at Morgan Stanley, population decline is often accompanied by economic decline:

about one percentage point drop in economic growth for every percentage point of decline in population.

And China, as an export center and a vast market, has been a major driver of global economic growth for four decades.

Its weakness will have repercussions on the world economy.

But the scariest aspect of China’s decline is geopolitical.

Panorama

When democracies have economic problems, they tend to withdraw into themselves and avoid risks.

When dictatorships have them, they tend to be concentrated abroad and risk-taking.

Regimes that are unable or unwilling to address domestic discontent through political and economic reforms often attempt to do so adventures abroad.

This point is worth reflecting on now that Beijing is also experiencing the lowest rate of economic growth in nearly four decades.

The immediate cause in this case is the catastrophic bad management Of Xi Jinping of the COVID crisis:

the punitive lockdowns, the refusal of foreign vaccines, the abrupt end of restrictions, the constant lies.

But the Chinese economy was already in trouble before the pandemic:

the bursting of a real estate bubble, unprecedented capital flight, the end of Hong Kong as a relatively free city and Chinese companies like Huawei becoming less popular in Western countries due to problems of espionage and intellectual property theft.

A pragmatic government could have tackled these challenges.

But Xi called a group of “yes” to the Politburo for his unprecedented third term as supreme leader.

If economic conditions deteriorate, they are more likely to find answers to their problems through aggression than through reform.

Let’s think about Argentina inflationary on the eve of the invasion of the Malvinas or in Iraq bankrupt shortly before the invasion of Kuwait.

What should the United States do?

Three things.

First, deterrence.

The better Kiev fares militarily against Moscow, the more deeply Beijing will learn its lesson about what to take Taipei It wouldn’t be as easy as it seems.

buy first Taiwan large stockpiles of easy-to-use and hard-to-hit weapons like Stinger and Javelin missiles, the most hesitant Chinese military planners will step on a sea urchin.

The more the US does to help Japan, Australia and other allies to strengthen their armies, the greater the deterrent effect it will have on China’s regional ambitions.

policies

The administration is already doing a lot of this.

It has to do more and much faster.

Secondly, the commercial relaxation. Trying to punish Beijing with tariffs Donald Trump aggravates the relationship and hurts both parties economically.

We should offer to reduce them in exchange for assurances from China that it will finish its hacking campaigns against US institutions.

If you cheat, the rates can go back to prevail and duplicate.

Finally the human rights.

At all times, the State Department should speak loud and clear on behalf of Chinese dissidents. Jimmy Lai and Qin Yongmin, among others, should be as familiar to Americans as they used to be Andrey Sakharov Y Nathan Sharansky in the 70s.

Their names should be mentioned in every bilateral meeting with Chinese officials, not only out of concern for their lives, but also as a reminder that our fundamental differences with Beijing are non-strategic.

They are moral.

In the long run, the best hope we can have for China is its people.

The biggest investment we can make in the next few decades of turmoil is to live up to them.

c.2023 The New York Times Society