Commentary
As Communist Party leader Xi Jinping begins an unprecedented third term with a team of loyalists, China faces an array of economic problems—financial strains, a collapse of the property sector, and the ill effects of COVID-19 lockdowns, just to name three currently attention-grabbing headlines.
One problem that gets little media attention but nonetheless may ultimately subsume all the others is the nation’s aging demographics. Because of years in which birth rates were below replacement, China now faces an intensifying shortage of young workers and hence a shortfall in the availability of the hands and minds needed for growth. By some estimates, the working-age population is already shrinking. China will seek offsets—artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics—but none can fully lift the economic burden of this expanding labor shortage….