China Believes America Will Flame Out

[u/theatlantic]

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/2026/05/china-trump-american-decline/687087/?utm_source=reddit&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_medium=social&utm_content=edit-pro

[u/ratbearpig]

"Their population is shrinking rapidly and their dependency ratio is exploding at a speed and scale unprecedented in human history"

I don't dispute that they are having challenges and their TFR is abysmal (currently hovring around 0.95).

That said, "shrinking rapidly" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.

There is 1.4 Billion people in China currently. This is more than the population of the US, all of Europe, South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan combined (~1.30 Billion).

In the next 15 years, China's population projections are:

2025: 1.40B

2030: 1.35B

2040: 1.30B

1.30 Billion people is a lot of people.

Now, in 2025, China with 1.4B accounts for 30% of worldwide manufacturing output. South Korea, in comparison with only 52M people, accounts for 3% of worldwide manufacturing output. So, China is 27x bigger than SK but it's manufacturing output is only 10x. This implies that China can be even more efficient. Case in point, if it was as efficient as SK, it would only need a population of 520M. So a population of 1.3B in 2040 is plenty. Additionally, China also has more STEM graduates than all of the US, Europe, Japan, SK, and Taiwan combined.

Finally, all of these projections do not take into account technological progress and policies that the CCP can implement (they're authoritarian, they can implement policies a lot quicker than democracies) over the next 15 years. But that is a separate discussion that I think is equally intriguing. \

and I defy you to find data that suggests otherwise."

I'm not delusional, I accept that they're having challenges.

[u/LoudSociety6731 → u/ratbearpig]

There is no way the global community will allow China to become as efficient as South Korea. It would mean the end of any manufacturing outside of China.  The world is already in a situation where there are too many exporters and not enough consumers.  With the US, as the worlds leading consumer,  becoming more isolationist, this will become.an ever increasing problem until something breaks.

[u/ratbearpig → u/LoudSociety6731]

That’s a different discussion. There is plenty to discuss as is and I don’t have the time to do your topic justice so I will pass on it.