When it comes to a nation's potential, few factors matter more than demographics. The pace of a country's population determines a great many things, from the vibrancy of its society to its global competitiveness.
That's what makes the case of Russia so striking. Despite the ambitious neo-imperial agenda that has been charted by Vladimir Putin in recent years, the country is locked in a pattern of massive, protracted demographic decline that has the potential to fundamentally alter the complexion of the state. I have written on this subject for publications like The National Interest and The Moscow Times, and most extensively in my 2013 book Implosion: The End of Russia and What It Means for America.
What is less well understood is that China is facing an equally ominous demographic profile. Just how significant of a problem this is for the People's Republic of China (PRC) is reflected in the most recent data update from the U.S. Census Bureau. That information projects that, in the years ahead, China's current population of 1.4 billion will face marked decline, and could fall by more than half by 2100. These projections, moreover, are broadly consistent with those of institutions like the World Bank, which project a population plateau in the near future, followed by deepening decline in subsequent decades.
This trajectory is due to multiple causes, most prominently the ruinous long-term effects of Beijing's now rescinded "one-child policy." That policy, launched in 1979 and formally ended in 2015, helped lock the country into one of the world's lowest fertility rates. The effects are profound: births in China are now at historically low levels, even as life expectancy has continued to rise and the share of the country's elderly is swelling. Moreover, things are only projected to get worse in the years ahead.
China's government is mobilizing in response. In 2016, it formally implemented a "two-child policy," and in 2021 expanded it to a "three-child policy" in recognition of plummeting fertility. Over the past several years, it has also done things like relax birth limits, expand child care subsidies and reduce the medical costs to citizens of having a baby. But these steps haven't made much of a difference to date. China's population is still in persistent decline, while national birth rates remain among the lowest in the world.
So, what might all this mean?
For one thing, demographic decline will put increasing pressure on the country's military. Today, with more than 2 million active personnel, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) ranks as the largest in the world. As China's population shrinks, sustaining a fighting force of this size will become increasingly difficult—and costly.
The Chinese military won't be crippled in the near-term. But over time, demographic pressures can be expected to erode its pool of available manpower. That, in turn, might change the way China fights, leading it to prefer shorter, sharper wars and to rely more and more heavily on unmanned platforms to supplant increasingly scarce personnel. And if the PRC decides to keep the PLA at its current size, it will need to dip more deeply into the country's working-age population—something that will impact China's labor force.
It might also precipitate conflict over Taiwan. In his 2022 book The End of the World Is Just the Beginning, geopolitical analyst Peter Zeihan argues that China's worsening demographic outlook is compressing Beijing's strategic timeline, potentially increasing pressure to move against Taiwan sooner rather than later, while its power is still at its peak.
Economically, meanwhile, a shrinking population likely suggests slower growth and growing labor scarcity. By mid-century, China may see its working-age population shrink sharply, with the potential to reduce productivity, innovation and manufacturing output in the process. At its most basic level, fewer people mean fewer workers—making it more and more difficult for China to hit economic growth targets over time (even with increased automation). Additionally, China's population is "graying," as the segment aged 60 and older gets progressively bigger. Today, that cohort is roughly 280 million, but it is growing rapidly and by 2035 could reach 400 million. In the process, it will impose supplemental costs on the state in the form of pensions and health care, adding strain to government budgets. The end result is likely to be a less economically competitive, more encumbered China.
All this matters a great deal to Washington. These days, U.S. policymakers are acutely attuned to the broad, multifaceted challenge that China now poses to the United States and the broader West. But they would also do well to understand that the nature of that challenge is changing, as China itself does.