China is taxing condoms and birth control to boost births. Demographers say it won’t work: A 13% hike on contraceptives is nothing compared with the $77,000 cost of raising a child — and China’s fertility slide is driven by economics, not access to protection.
@TheConversationUS For all the fears of China's power (and it is considerable and will inevitably change the world) they have a structural problem. Historically low birthrate, negligible immigration. Its population will fall significantly over the next 20-30 years.
@SonofaGeorge @TheConversationUS well, not much different from the developed countries. I personally am from Eastern Europe where problems are very similar to China. But even if you look at the US, it's been surviving on immigration. Yet, Trump only acts on popular opinion when trying to curb immigration.
He is successful in it because he is deprived of empathy, but his success is crashing the economy and he will quickly lose popular support. This backlash to immigration is also the driver of the growth of the far right in the EU. Which puts us all in the very same situation you describe in China.
By the way, if Russia is an evidence for something, it is that tyrants with an aging population get more ruthless, not less.
