China, the Great Leap Backward

These days because of globalisation anything that happens in China affects the whole world. The Covid-19 pandemic was a classic example. It started there, in the city of Wuhan, and it is still raging across China. Now the focus is all about the population size and the economy. For the first time for decades the number of Chinese people who died in the last 12 months exceeded the number of births. China has a huge popluation of more than 1.4 billion. But for the economy to flourish Beijing needs more babies to be born so as not to screw up the demographic balance between those in work and those approaching or enjoying pensionable age. Since pretty well everything seems to be "made in China" the factories churning out all the stuff that gets shoved into huge containers on ships need to be working flat-out to cater for the billions of customers. That's now all going wrong for Beijing and the for-ever president Xi Zinping who so far in 2023 is having a ghastly year what with all the Covid lockdown protests and his massive U-turn that led to the lifting of all restrictions. Again, that decision will affect the globe because as the Chinese people return to travelling overseas, Covid infections are going to spread. But the biggest worry is the economy, and the birth/death ratio will play a key part in damaging both China's and the rest of the world's economic future. Ever since the Great Leap Forward in the 1960s, Beijing has tried to keep a tight control over birthrates. The one-child policy per family may have seemed a good idea at the time but for years Chinese couples got used to planning for just one child. Now that Beijing wants them to have more babies, a lot of young marrieds are saying no no no. Beijing has offered all kinds of incentives, like money for more children, but to no avail. It seems Beijing can order its people to have only one child but does not have the power to order families to have two or three or four. Perhaps instead of providing financial incentives to give birth more often Beijing will resort to penalising families for failing to have more than one child! Anyway the Greap Leap Forward is now the Great Leap Backward and the rest of the planet will be watching with some trepidation.