Commentary
During a recent interview with Joe Rogan, the geopolitical analyst Peter Zeihan made a rather stunning comment. China, he said, only has 10 years left. A decade left to do what, exactly? In short, disappear.
Due to the country’s ticking demographic time bomb, the ballooning property bubble, anti-lockdown protests, and high unemployment rates among Chinese youth, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) can kiss its dreams of global domination goodbye. Or so Zeihan believes.
However, one can’t help but feel that Zeihan is, shall we say, a little too optimistic. He’s not necessarily wrong. But the idea that China will be of little threat by 2033 seems a little too optimistic. As Pew Research Center recently noted, China’s population will decline from its current population of 1.4 billion to 1.313 billion by 2050. By 2100, that number will fall to 800 million. China’s demographic decline is indisputable. However, as history has shown us, premature jocularity is routinely punished in the cruelest of manners. The year 2100 is a long time away. China still has a few decades left in the disruptive tank….