Chinese President Xi Jinping uses intimidation to get what he wants, but he can't succeed "when your economy is contracting and your demography is collapsing," China expert Gordon Chang told Newsmax on Wednesday.
China's population has dropped to its lowest level in six decades, according to data published Tuesday by the National Bureau of Statistics. There were 1.41175 billion people living in China at the end of 2022, a drop of about 850,000 from the year before.
Data from the NBS also shows China's economy grew 3% last year, well short of the Chinese Communist Party's 5.5% target at the start of 2022.
Chang said that number is probably closer to zero.
"The fourth quarter was a disaster, and right now we also see China contracting so the underlying number points to a shrinking economy," Chang said on "John Bachman Now."
The shrinkage in population could also complicate China's plan for continued economic expansion, Chang said.
"It's going to be about a billion people they will lose between now and the turn of the century," he said. "This is going to be the steepest demographic decline in history in the absence of war or disease, and we just don't know how China will be able to deal with it because we haven't seen this before.
"I think that essentially Beijing is going to realize that all of their problems are going to be magnified by a declining population because the country is going to be different. It is going to be a much smaller place."
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Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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