For starters, the article is very anti-China, albeit in a more subtle way than many articles from western sources. The headline itself also grabs in people ostensibly worried about population growth. The facts presented may well be true, but they are missing context which cannot be provided in a bullet points format. The author simply ignores parts of their own sources in order to present their own contradictory point. For example, the line “Wedding registrations in 2022: 6.83 million, the lowest since the 1970s.” links to an article from Tsinghua University, which only mentions the declining marriage rate in the last paragraph of the article. It’s primarily about how China is well positioned to manage their demographic changes.
Li Daokui, director of the Academic Centre for Chinese Economic Practice and Thinking at Tsinghua University, said in the same seminar that it is a common misunderstanding that a decrease in total population will set back demand and erode innovation power and economic growth. “It’s not total population size that determines the long-term growth potential of China’s economy, but whether the ample human resources could be enhanced and fully taken advantage of,” he said.
Another example: the author quotes from the Global Times article that quotes Qiao Jie. What the Stop Population Decline author fails to note is that their source explains some of what China is doing to raise its fertility rate.
China’s National Healthcare Security Administration announced in February the inclusion of labor analgesia and assisted fertility technology in the coverage of medical insurance as part of broader efforts to safeguard people’s reproductive rights and willingness to have children. Healthcare authorities have always attached great importance to population issues, the administration said, adding that eligible fertility support medicine, including bromohentine, triprelline and clomiphene, are already covered by medical insurance, which has helped many patients. None of this context is provided in the article, as it is intended to dig in to existing anti-China sentiment while also concern trolling over falling birth rates.
The author also projects problems onto China which are only inherent to declining populations in neoliberal countries. In a people’s state such as China these same topics are essentially irrelevant, as quoted above for example. An ageing population certainly is a challenge in terms of healthcare demands, but none that cannot be solved by a nation that prioritizes the well being of its people over arbitrary economic indicators or the further enrichment of its capitalist class.