My Take | What if China never exceeds the US as a global power?
- Demographic trends in coming decades favour the United States but not China, but falling into the ‘middle-income trap’ may yet mean escaping the so-called Thucydides’ trap
American politicians fret about China becoming a bigger threat than the former Soviet Union. Fuelling their paranoia, many Chinese gloat about the inexorable rise of their country.
One thing you may notice is that such individuals in both nations almost never mention the respective demographics of the two countries. While the rise, decline and fall of nations depend on many factors, population growth and decline inevitably play a big role.
In that sense, studying the population and labour projections of China and the United States may be far more enlightening than reading the erudite predictions of nationalistic pundits and politicians in the two countries
To cut a long story short, the demographics are generally favourable to the US and quite bad for China, in terms of population growth and ageing. That’s the case not only relative to China, but to most other major economies today, according to a new study in Foreign Affairs.
Under such a scenario, Beijing may have to entertain Plan B or C, under which the next 80 years may still be another American Century and switch to a more accommodating posture.
