"China faces a shrinking workforce that will struggle to support a rapidly aging population. Its centuries-old position as the most populous nation in the world is likely to be assumed by India this year, according to projections by the United Nations.This has the prognosticators out in force, of course.
Although long predicted, that reversal has arrived far earlier than expected. Leading Chinese scholars and the United Nations estimated as recently as 2019 that the downward trend would not begin until early in the 2030s."
A lot of people are pointing out that Japan had already entered a period of shrinking, aging population and a stagnating economy. However Japan was already a thoroughly modernized country, from Tokyo to the hinterlands, whereas China (where 29 percent of the population is over 65) is in danger of getting old before it really gets rich.
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