Published: January 18th, 2023,
Last updated: January 18th, 2023
China had to announce some difficult numbers on Tuesday. On the one hand, although economic growth in 2022 of just under three percent exceeded the even more pessimistic forecasts of many analysts, it was still well below the official target. In addition, the People’s Republic recorded fewer births than deaths in 2022 for the first time in decades. The latter in particular represents a turning point: China’s population is aging and declining before it reached the prosperity level of industrialized nations. The declining population will therefore create significant political-economic problems for China in the future, as Finn Mayer-Kuckuk explains. Pension funds are at risk, as is general economic momentum.