The outlook of Russian and Chinese demographics isn’t just worst than the US. It’s one of the worst in the world with a sudden decline in working age population in the upcoming 1-2 decades, while at the same time not having first world economies.
There must be a surplus of workers as long as China has the hukou system. If they can offer free movement to all of their citizens within 1-2 decades, wouldn't that be a good outlook?
Russia on the other hand doesn't look good but as the energy and food supplier of China, do they have to maintain their demographics?
>Chinese demographics isn’t just worst than the US. It’s one of the worst in the world with a sudden decline in working age population in the upcoming 1-2 decades, while at the same time not having first world economies.
Naive analysis of demographic pyramid, especially with respect to great powers competition, for which I'd argue PRC has probably the most potent demographic trend in recorded human history: 1) PRC is generating as much STEM / high skilled talent as OECD countries combined, and magnitude more than US can absorb via births + immigration even with low TFR. Hence all the news in recent years of PRC closing academic, S&T gap and moving up value chain. 2) reduction in absolute population numbers = less import dependencies and more strategic flexbility. Meanwhile Chinese households has some of highest savings rates while industry has high automation adoption to weather population decline vs west whose onerous first world safety nets that are likely not sustainable long term. More skilled people + even less unskilled people for country has excess people wants to reduce net resource imports = recipe for improving strategic competitiveness.
Also note that developed PRC coastal region are functionally first world economies with capacities that are rapidly closing gap with US+co. The useful lens to evaluate PRC demographics is that roughly every decade for the next several decades, the internal talent mix is replacing a Nigeria with a Japan, sure less aggregate people, but more skilled people, still a substantial amount with PRC pop denominator. And people who structure their finances without expectation of first world welfare coverage. That gives PRC better demographic trend vs US for closing relative strength gap for strategic competition in the coming decades.
A more broader comment on Zeihan is outside of US, he is a generalist and rarely know enough about the POLITCS to really credibly comment on global geoPOLITICS. Like imagine trying to sell his audience US is blessed with river networks and deep coasts for ports and then neglect to mention PRC actually has the most navigable river networks and advanced ports. That's the politics in geopolitics. Politics can shape geography and demography which apart from very extreme cases, are far from destiny.
Bringing in educated, skilled, productive, and socially-compatible individuals can certainly help a nation and its economy.
On the other hand, bringing in unskilled, unproductive, and socially-incompatible individuals can very quickly become a total disaster for a nation and its economy, too.
There's not much room for error. The negative impacts of allowing in just one additional unsuitable individual can easily cancel out the positive contributions of several productive individuals.
The only reason it's considered bad is because the system of socially-subsidised retirement leads to older people being artificially unproductive, but that's just one way of supporting the elderly; It would be feasible to institute a new system where aging people are given stronger labour protections, and are provided with support to change their patterns of work in response to changes to their physical and mental capabilities. Many would even see this as a positive thing, since work can provide a sense of meaning and retirement can be a major stressor.
The service he provides is to brief US-centric companies on potential geopolitical trends, risks, and opportunities. You'd be misusing the information if you had little business with the US, or expected a crystal ball.