206
Majority of Australians think China will be world’s most powerful country by 2035, poll finds
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2025
206 points (95.6% liked)
Global News
4258 readers
584 users here now
What is global news?
Something that happened or was uncovered recently anywhere in the world. It doesn't have to have global implications. Just has to be informative in some way.
Post guidelines
Title format
Post title should mirror the news source title.
URL format
Post URL should be the original link to the article (even if paywalled) and archived copies left in the body. It allows avoiding duplicate posts when cross-posting.
[Opinion] prefix
Opinion (op-ed) articles must use [Opinion] prefix before the title.
Country prefix
Country prefix can be added to the title with a separator (|, :, etc.) where title is not clear enough from which country the news is coming from.
Rules
This community is moderated in accordance with the principles outlined in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which emphasizes the right to freedom of opinion and expression. In addition to this foundational principle, we have some additional rules to ensure a respectful and constructive environment for all users.
1. English only
Title and associated content has to be in English.
2. No social media posts
Avoid all social media posts. Try searching for a source that has a written article or transcription on the subject.
3. Respectful communication
All communication has to be respectful of differing opinions, viewpoints, and experiences.
4. Inclusivity
Everyone is welcome here regardless of age, body size, visible or invisible disability, ethnicity, sex characteristics, gender identity and expression, education, socio-economic status, nationality, personal appearance, race, caste, color, religion, or sexual identity and orientation.
5. Ad hominem attacks
Any kind of personal attacks are expressly forbidden. If you can't argue your position without attacking a person's character, you already lost the argument.
6. Off-topic tangents
Stay on topic. Keep it relevant.
7. Instance rules may apply
If something is not covered by community rules, but are against lemmy.zip instance rules, they will be enforced.
Companion communities
- [email protected] - International and local legal news.
- [email protected] - Technology, social media platforms, informational technologies and tech policy.
- [email protected] - Fascinating articles, captivating images, satisfying videos, interesting projects, stunning research and more.
- [email protected] - News and information about Europe.
Icon generated via LLM model | Banner attribution
If someone is interested in moderating this community, message @[email protected].
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
There was a moment around the year 2000 when this might have been the case but China's demographics and unwillingness to permit meaningful immigration will see a decline of 20-25% of their working age population over the next 30 years due to a plummeting fertility rate. This phenomenon isn't unique to China, but China is one of the hardest hit for many reasons. A decline of hundreds of millions of workers is going to destroy their economy - especially with such a large elderly population set to retire. There is no chance they fully transition to a services based economy by then. Not even close. They still have hundreds of millions of citizens living subsistence farming lifestyles.
Now compound this with all of the structural issues like command and control policies which destroy whole industries because the dictator in charge has a mood swing, a property bubble from which they will never recover, an economy built on unnecessary public spending, and an educational system which continues to emphasise blind obedience over individualism, and I think it very difficult to believe China becomes the most "powerful" country by 2035.
China has proven itself able to change drastically and quickly. High speed rail and renewable energy. Both massive undertakings tackling massive problems for China and both done far faster and on a much larger scale than anywhere else. If there's one country I actually trust to be proactive about securing its future, it's China. I'll take the wait and see approach to the supposed imminent demographic collapse
I agree that authoritarian governments have more latitude than democracies. The CCP displaced up to two million people when it built the The Three Gorges Dam. There was no recourse. No ability to object. People who had lived on the land for generations were simply told to leave. Some were lucky to be given meagre government apartments to live in elsewhere, but that was it. It's much easier to build large infrastructure projects when you don't have to worry about pesky things like property laws, health and safety, and human rights.
If your argument is that authoritarianism will win over democracy in the long term, it's an interesting debate. Most of human history was some form of authoritarianism. Some form of might makes right. There have been small democratic experiements in history (see Greece), but modern democracy is a relatively new experiment. I hope it succeeds, because I like it a lot more than the alternatives.
My argument is that I don't think the demographic collapse will be as devastating as you made it out to be. Did you even read my comment?