“Will depopulation sink China?”, February 9, 2023, Adnan Akfirat, Friends of Socialist China, at < https://socialistchina.org/
“China’s growth rate falls as population declines”, January 19, 2023, Nick Beams, World Socialist Web Site, at < https://www.wsws.org/en/
Introduction by dmorista: The news that China's population shrank, for the first time in 60 years, was met with glee by Capitalist Propagandists who work in the Corporate Controlled Media, whose main purpose in life is to denigrate any advance or change in the societies not directly ruled by Finance Capital. There were more thoughtful responses, including in the two articles posted here. There were important responses of the Chinese State, to the challenges in human health over the past few years, primarily in coping with the Global Covid-19 Pandemic. The Chinese response was vigorous and finally ended as internal political pressures built up after 3 years, and a massive campaign of economic and political pressure was applied by the U.S.-led Finance Capital Bloc. Comparing the response of China to that of the U.S., we can remember the lack of Public Health Capacity in the U.S., the nurses and physicians clothed in Garbage Bags and washing and reusing disposable face masks, and the portable morgues in the trailers of 18 wheelers etc. China responded well but after 3 years and continuous introduction of new variants into China by travelers, and the desire by the now huge Chinese middle class and professional class to get back to Life as Normal, the Public Health Zero Covid Policy was abandoned. It is easy to forget that if China had mortality rates similar to the U.S. and other Western Nations some 5 million, mostly elderly and immune compromised Chinese would have died, rather than the under 6,000 (or perhaps 20,000 according to other tallies) who actually did die in China, in the first 3 years of the Pandemic. A significant number of them are dying right now as the policy has been changed.
In much longer term public health planning China instituted the one-child policy in 1978. They did this after deliberations and consideration of how the growing population of China could be fed. That policy was the first universal benevolent population growth limitation policy in human history. It worked, more-or-less and was finally relaxed just a few years ago. However, like all developed nations, the fertility rate of Chinese women has fallen dramatically. That rate is well under the 2.1 children per woman per lifetime that is considered to be “replacement fertility”. The lowest female fertility rate on Earth is in South Korea where it has fallen to under 1. Women in South Korea have clearly stated that they have purposes in life other than to serve as breeding stock. The grim reality in most developed nations is including China and the U.S. is that Children are extremely expensive to raise and in many ways the various socioeconomic institutions make having children even more difficult.
The One-Child-Policy was savagely criticized by U.S. Propagandists for being harsh and arbitrary. Of course these media figures are not as keen on analyzing the cruel and dangerous policies enacted by around 15 Primitive Forced Birth states in the U.S. There are no articles profiling the U.S. Fascist Operatives poking through the internet and cell-phone records of American women attempting to criminally charge them with leaving such Forced Birth States to obtain needed reproductive health care elsewhere.
The first article, “Will depopulation sink China?”, takes on the economic issues and points out that one way China is responding to population changes is that it has increased its use of robots in manufacturing. In fact a couple of years ago China passed the U.S. as the country with the fifth most “robot dense” manufacturing sector. The latest figures for the top 10 robot using countries are, as of 2021, South Korea (1,000 per 10,000 employees), Singapore (670 per 10,000 employees), Japan (399 per 10,000 employees), Germany (397 per 10,000 employees), China (322 per 10,000 employees), Sweden (321 per 10,000 employees), Hong Kong (304 per 10,000 employees), Taiwan (276 per 10,000 employees), United States (274 per 10,000 employees), and Slovenia (249 per 10,000 employees). {See, “China overtakes USA in robot density: according to World Robotics 2022 Report”, Dec 05, 2022, Anon, International Federation of Robotics, at < https://ifr.org/ifr-press-
The WSWS article, “China’s growth rate falls as population declines”, contains plenty of interesting and worthwhile observations but does spend about half of its effort looking at economic trends and questions of recession versus economic expansion. The WSWS takes a dimmer view of China than do the supporters of China at the Friends of Socialist China.
Will depopulation sink China?
In the following article, Adnan Akfirat, Chairman of the Turkish-Chinese Business and Development Friendship Association, and a member of our advisory group, analyses the recent demographic changes in China, which see the population not only age but start to fall, with India on course to become the world’s most populous nation this year, if it has not already done so.
Adnan notes that whilst a young population has a positive impact on economic development, it is not the only way to develop. What is really important is to increase labor productivity. He further dissects the media claims that these trends are a harbinger of an economic crisis in China, noting that, “on the contrary, the history of western developed countries has proven that fertility rates tend to decline and the desire for children tends to decrease as societies become wealthier with better living standards.”
He also looks at ways in which China is dealing with this issue, noting that with around 10 million graduates every year, the country’s population advantage is shifting from quantity to quality. With massive investment, China has already surpassed the US in robot density and has the aim to double its robot manufacturing by 2025 compared with 2020.
Adnan concludes: “Since China has developed thanks to socialism, not cheap labor, population decline will not sink China’s economy.”
This article originally appeared in the Turkish daily newspaper Aydinlik.
China has been the most populous country in the world for hundreds of years. In 1750, its population was estimated at 225 million. This was more than a quarter of the world’s population at that time. India, which was not a united country at that time, had a population of about 200 million and was in second place.
India will become the world’s most populous country this year. The UN estimates that India’s population will overtake China’s on April 14, 2023. India’s population this year is expected to be 1 billion 425 million 775 thousand people. (1)
China falls back to second place
China will fall to second place in the world in total population for the first time in more than 60 years, since 1960, when the UN began keeping China’s population records. The population of the People’s Republic of China fell to 1 billion 411 million 800 thousand people last year, while the population growth rate fell to negative. The population growth rate in China this year is minus 0.6 per thousand people.
China’s National Bureau of Statistics announced that deaths outnumbered births in China this year and the total population decreased by 850,000 people. Last year, 9 million 560 thousand babies were born in China. However, this number was 10 million 620 thousand in 2021.
The death rate per thousand people in China was 7.37 per thousand last year. The difference between the birth rate and the death rate per thousand people was 6 per ten thousand. China ended the one-child policy in 2016 and lifted all restrictions in 2021. But birth rates have continued to fall.
As the number of new births falls, China increasingly becomes an aging society. By the end of 2022, China’s population aged over 60 reached 280 million people. The proportion of elderly Chinese reached 18.9 percent. By 2035, this proportion is expected to rise to 30%, or more than 400 million people. China’s working-age population (those between the ages of 16 and 59) totaled 875.56 million by the end of 2022, 62 percent of the population. The number of working-age Chinese peaked a decade ago. By 2050, the country’s median age will be 51.
The average retirement age in China is 54, one of the lowest in the world. There are discussions about raising the retirement age. However, objections and opposition to this view are growing. China’s economic miracle was driven by an increasing proportion of working-age adults compared to children and the elderly from the 1970s to the mid-2000s. With fewer mouths to feed, parents were able to invest more in each child than they otherwise would have been able to.
A young population has a positive impact on economic development, but it is not the only way to develop. What is really important is to increase labor productivity.
Causes of population decline
In China, people are marrying later and having children even later due to longer schooling.
The YuWa Institute for Population Research, a Beijing-based think tank, found that China is one of the most expensive places to raise children, and concluded that it is these economic concerns, rather than the ban, that are the reason why women do not want to have more children.
Women in China prefer to have children at a later age. Since 2000, the average childbearing age in China has increased by three years, from 26 to 29. In all middle-income countries, of which China is a part, the average childbearing age has increased by only one year.
The average age at marriage has also increased in China. According to China’s 2020 census data, the average age of marriage for women increased from 24 in 2010 to 28 in 2020.
China also has one of the highest abortion rates per 1,000 women aged 15 to 49, according to estimates by the Guttmacher Institute.
Another problem is that more people migrate out of China than migrate into China.
In 2021, for example, China experienced a net migration of an estimated 200,000 people. In the early 1990s, about 750,000 people a year were leaving China. (2)
The West’s fascination with China’s population
Some Western media outlets have used China’s declining population growth as a flag to prove that China is “collapsing”. Unfortunately, the Turkish press has joined the chorus. In fact, they have only one argument: “China’s ‘demographic crisis’ means that the economy is faltering and the pace of development is declining.” They cite a long list of figures and calculation methods and come to a single conclusion: China will not overtake the US economically! They reintroduce the fallacy that China is developing with cheap labor.
The New York Times went even further. “China’s Decline Became Undeniable This Week. What Now?”, it headlined, claiming that China will age before it gets richer; that a shrinking population will cause economic decline; and that China’s weakness will spread to the world economy. (3)
On the contrary, the history of Western developed countries has proven that fertility rates tend to decline and the desire for children tends to decrease as societies become wealthier with better living standards.
China’s solutions to population decline
It is clear that socialist China will not leave the development and prosperity of its people to nature.
Indeed, the number of students in China’s colleges and universities is constantly growing. Chinese higher education institutions produce around 10 million graduates every year. This means that China’s population advantage is shifting from quantity to quality. The CPC’s 20th National Congress emphasized that relying solely on population numbers and remaining in the labor-intensive industrial chain will not be China’s future path.
China has found the most effective and viable solution to the decline of its working-age population. According to the International Federation of Robotics “World Robotics 2022” Report, China has surpassed the US in robot density.
China’s massive investment in industrial robot technology has placed the country at the top of the robot density rankings, surpassing the US for the first time. The number of industrial robots relative to the number of workers in China has reached 322 units per 10,000 workers in the manufacturing industry. Thus, China ranks fifth in the world in terms of the intensity of robot use. The world’s top 5 most automated countries in manufacturing in 2021 are: South Korea, Singapore, Japan, Germany and China.
Marina Bill, President of the International Federation of Robotics, said: “China’s rapid growth shows the strength of its investments so far. There are still many opportunities for automation in China.” (4)
China is by far the world’s fastest growing robot market. The country has the highest number of annual installations and has had the largest stock of working robots every year since 2016.
The Chinese government is not content with this success. According to the action plan published on Thursday, January 19, 2023, China will seek to double its manufacturing robot density by 2025 compared to 2020.
The action plan, jointly published by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and 16 other relevant departments, stated that a “robotics+” action will be launched to expand the use of robotics.
The use of service and specialized robots will be significantly increased by 2025, and the capacity of the country’s robotics industry to promote high-quality economic and social development will be markedly improved, the plan said.
The plan also lists actions to build a collaborative innovation system for robot production and application and to improve robot application standards. (5)
Since China has developed thanks to socialism, not cheap labor, population decline will not sink China’s economy!
- https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-63957562
- https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/12/05/key-facts-about-chinas-declining-population/?utm
- https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/17/opinion/china-population-decline.html
- https://ifr.org/ifr-press-releases/news/china-overtakes-usa-in-robot-density
- http://en.qstheory.cn/2023-01/20/c_849697.html
China’s growth rate falls as population declines
Two sets of data came out of China this week with major implications both for the social and economic relations in that country and the world economy as a whole. They point to a significant slowing of growth and make clear, as the threat of world recession grows, that China is not going to provide an economic buffer as it has in the past either in the short- or long-term.
Economic data revealed that Chinese growth last year had dropped to its lowest level in decades as the population fell by 850,000 in 2022—the first such decline since the so-called Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
The National Bureau of Statistics announced that growth in 2022 was 3 percent, a very marked slowdown from the 8.1 percent growth in 2021. It was also well off the government’s target of 5.5 percent, already the lowest since the beginning of the 1990s.
Apart from 2020, when the economy expanded by only 2.2 percent due to the onset of COVID, it was the lowest growth figure since 1976.
The main reason for the lower growth was the public health measures introduced in the battle against COVID. This was reflected in retail sales, which increased by only 0.2 percent as compared to a rise of 12.5 percent in 2021, and the fall of industrial production growth to 3.6 percent, compared to 9.6 percent the previous year.
The COVID restrictions, despite the clamour in certain upper middle-class layers, accompanied by a fanfare of publicity in Western media, were broadly supported in the population which considered the government was taking the necessary action to protect public health.
However, in December, under intense pressure from the imperialist powers and from companies which threatened to move their operations out of the country, the government scrapped virtually all protective measures, leading to a surge in infections and deaths.
Having dropped protective measures, the Xi Jinping regime is making a desperate attempt to convince the major capitalist powers that China is back in business.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum gathering in Davos on Tuesday, China’s retiring vice-premier Liu He, who has functioned as the chief economic adviser to Xi, claimed the country had passed the peak of its COVID-19 infections and was returning to normal faster than had been expected.
“The majority of society has recovered to a normal state of affairs,” he said. “The speed of reaching the peak and speed of recovering normality were relatively fast, in a way exceeding our expectations.”
Following the policies of governments around the world, China has not only abandoned safety measures but has virtually shut down data on deaths and infections, amid concerns there could be surge because of widespread travel during lunar New Year celebrations.
With the economy already on a path to lower growth even before the pandemic struck, Liu made an appeal to the financial oligarchs and investors at Davos, assuring them China was committed to a market economy.
“Some people say that China is pursuing a planned economy, but this is fundamentally impossible: Chinese people will not walk this path,” he said.
The Xi regime has cracked down on some technology giants in the name of a “common prosperity” program. Reflecting the balancing act of the regime, acting in the interests of the Chinese oligarchy which dominates the Chinese Communist Party, Liu said this was to prevent economic polarisation and was aimed at trying to keep inequality in check.
“We are absolutely not about egalitarianism and welfarism,” he reassured his Davos audience.
He also addressed some of the major issues confronting China arising from the high interest rate regime initiated by the US Federal Reserve and other central banks as they seek to suppress the global upsurge of the working class in response to the highest inflation in 40 years.
Liu said Chinese growth would most likely return to its normal trend and the risks in the property sector had been stabilised by what he called a “blood transfusion”—the injection of liquidity into the market.
But, he added, any Chinese recovery would be “export challenged” and trade would “not be as strong a driver for China’s own domestic growth performance as perhaps some Chinese economic planners would want.”
Liu then made an indirect reference to the policies of global central banks, which are not being followed in China, saying “some countries have chosen the policy that will result in a hike-recession-recovery loop.”
He called for “more attention to the negative spillover effect of major countries rate hikes on the emerging markets and developing countries, so as not to add more debt or financial risks.”
Liu noted that inflation was being boosted by a more complex set of factors than simply demand, which central banks were attempting to dampen with interest rate rises. Supply-side measures were needed to repair supply chains, which would require global coordination. He warned against adopting a “Cold War mentality,” referring to the increased economic and military pressure being exerted against China, spearheaded by the US.
As the Chinese government tries to navigate the present, increasingly complex international economic environment, there are also long-term factors at work. These militate against any return to the high growth levels of the past, which have played a central role in the maintenance of global expansion over the past three decades.
These factors were highlighted by the news that the population of the country had declined last year for the first time in six decades.
In comments reported by the Financial Times, Wang Feng, an expert on Chinese demography at the University of California, said: “This is a truly historic turning point, an onset of a long-term and irreversible population decline.”
COVID is being blamed for a decline in birth rates last year, but the origins of the population decline go back to the one-child policy imposed by the regime in the 1980s, with major economic implications.
The period of high Chinese growth—sometimes reaching levels approaching 10 percent per annum—was based on the continued inflow of workers from the countryside into the cities. The regime itself recognised more than a decade ago this policy could not continue and has sought to increasingly base Chinese growth on the development of more advanced technologies to increase productivity.
However, this strategy has now hit a major obstacle in the form of the US drive to cripple Chinese technological advance with a series of widening restrictions, because it fears China’s advance will further undermine its own global economic position.
The Chinese regime rests on the capitalist oligarchy which started to emerge as “market economy” was increasingly installed in the 1980s. It then developed in leaps and bounds as China was increasingly integrated in the global economy following the crushing of the working class during and after the Tiananmen Square massacre of June 1989.
But it must now contend with a massive social force—the population of 1.4 billion people and a vastly expanded and urbanised working class.
It seeks to maintain itself by invoking the legacy 1949 revolution, while claiming it is possible to provide a prosperous future by integrating the country into the framework of world capitalism under the fraudulent banner of “socialism with Chinese characteristics.”
This perspective has increasingly run up against “capitalism with imperialistic characteristics” in the form of the US drive to reduce China to a semi-colonial status, if necessary through war.
The regime has long ago abandoned any notion of social equality, as Lui’s remarks at Davos again made clear. Insofar as it retains political support among the population and in the working class, it is because it was seen as engineering the economic growth that lifted living standards.
The measures against COVID were instituted because of the widespread expectation in the population that action should be taken by the government in defence of public health.
These pillars of support may not have yet entirely collapsed but they are in an advanced state of disintegration. While it is impossible to predict the exact course of events, rising social tensions point to the development of class struggle against the regime whose central strategy is increasingly exposed.
Zero-COVID in China ultimately collapsed because it was a national policy trying to deal with a global problem. The perspective of a national economic rise of China is equally constrained by global forces.
The rapidity with which the regime has abandoned zero-Covid, leading to an untold number of deaths virtually overnight, is an indication of its real class nature and the way it will react to opposition from the working class. With the previous growth model running out of steam, such opposition could assume explosive forms.
No comments:
Post a Comment