The issue with demographic decline is not just quantity of people, but also quality of people. China (and any country) will want individuals that speak the language, are culturally compatible, with useful skills, and so on. The limited number of people any country can draw on once you consider this starts to make it clear that migration doesn't solve anything.

And even with migration, if those migrants don't themselves end up with high fertility rates then you've done nothing but kick the can, and not especially far. Because of all of these issues, I think there's approximately a 100% chance that China will do the equal but opposite of the one-child-policy should their demographic issues fail to start reversing more naturally.

▲

jaza 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

"The equal but opposite of the one-child-policy" is easier said than done. A brute-force approach worked for stopping more babies (I don't know if it's true, but what I heard back was that back in the 80s Chinese officials literally killed unauthorised babies moments after they were born - that's probably exaggerated, however they really did carry out forced sterilisations and forced abortions). It wouldn't work so well for creating more babies. You can't force people to have more children. Many countries are offering financial incentives for producing babies right now - cash at birth, free house, free childcare, etc - with limited success. I don't see how China could deliver (hahaha aren't I punny) a significantly different result if it goes down that same road.

	▲	red_admiral an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> You can't force people to have more children. "People" here means women, and womens' rights are a very recent thing in world history. With a sufficiently evil and authoritarian government, it might be possible. It certainly has been tried in the 20th century: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_of_Honour_of_the_German_...
	▲	ben_w 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> You can't force people to have more children. There's a difference between "it would be evil to" and "it is impossible to". Barring medical issues, it is absolutely possible force this. There's even some jurisdictions where it's not a crime. If I read these two maps right, China's the only place, out of those where marital rape is not a crime, that abortion is not also prohibited: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Marital_rape_laws_by_coun... - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Abortion_Laws.svg (That said, I don't know how up to date such maps are, and have no way to verify laws; don't suggest machine translation from Chinese to English, it is bad).

▲

teiferer 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> The issue with demographic decline is not just quantity of people, but also quality of people

"Quality of people". Spoken like a true tech person.

	▲	inglor_cz an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Spoken like someone who does not want to play useless word games. Would you choose an employee, or worse, a spouse, with no positive qualities? If no, you are judging people by their qualities too.
	▲	Johanx64 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		When a company hires people, will it take in just anyone with a pulse? Tech people look at things in terms of - is this true or not. And "Quality of People" is perfectly accurate description. How it makes you feel about it completely irrelevant.