China’s Demographic Achilles’ Heel
American and Chinese policymakers have grown increasingly convinced that China will eventually overtake the US as the world’s largest economy, fueling expectations of an inevitable clash between the two rival powers. But these predictions fail to account for China’s rapidly aging population.
MADISON, WISCONSIN – Chinese President Xi Jinping recently sought to assure a bipartisan delegation of US senators that China and the United States could still avoid a military confrontation despite the rising tensions between them. “The Thucydides Trap,” he said, “is not inevitable.”