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China News

India Passes China as World's Most Populous Nation, UN Says (bloomberg.com) 66

Posted by msmash from the changing-dynamics dept.
India has overtaken China as the world's most populous nation, according to United Nations data released Wednesday. From a report: India's population surpassed 1.4286 billion, slightly higher than China's 1.4257 billion people, according to mid-2023 estimates by the UN's World Population dashboard. China's numbers do not include Hong Kong and Macau, Special Administrative Regions of China, and Taiwan, the data showed. The burgeoning population will add urgency for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government to create employment for the millions of people entering the workforce as the nation moves away from farm jobs. India, where half the population is under the age of 30, is set to be the world's fastest-growing major economy in the coming years.

Asia's third-largest economy is now home to nearly a fifth of humanity -- greater than the entire population of Europe or Africa or the Americas. While this is also true for China for now, that's expected to change as India's population is forecast to keep ticking up and touch 1.668 billion by 2050 when China's population is forecast to contract to about 1.317 billion. "India's story is a powerful one. It is a story of progress in education, public health and sanitation, economic development as well as technological advancements," said Andrea Wojnar, Representative United Nations Population Fund India and Country Director Bhutan on State of the World Population Report.
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India Passes China as World's Most Populous Nation, UN Says More

India Passes China as World's Most Populous Nation, UN Says

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  • Why exclude Macau and Hong Kong? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Flavianoep ( 1404029 ) on Wednesday April 19, 2023 @09:16AM (#63461408)
    Excluding Taiwan makes sense, since PRC has no control over it whatsoever, but why exclude Macau and Hong Kong? Although they have special status within China, they are part of China, they are under China's control.

    • Because on paper China doesn't control them and the UN is all about paper if nothing else.

      I agree with you but that's why.

    • SARs don't count I guess for whatever reason? Anyway the population of Macau is like 600k so barely a rounding error at this point. HK is more significant at 7.4m but probably wouldn't change things for long. That's about half a year worth of population growth in India.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Entrope ( 68843 )

        From the footnotes quoted before, the "some reason" is probably continuity of data: they started the series before Hong Kong and Macau were really under Chinese control, and adding them to China's numbers now would make the data slightly discontinuous.

        It seems appropriate at some point to combine the footnotes into one saying "As of 202x, the Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau were included. This corresponds to an increase of Y million people compared to the previous methodology."

        • and adding them to China's numbers now would make the data slightly discontinuous.

          That is a poor excuse though. Data is generally correctable and not some fixed unchanging concept.

          That said I do like discontinuity errors in graphs. Reminds me of the Dutch COVID cases. Because they outsourced their testing and then insisted on verifying the data before making it official they started falling behind. At one point they were announcing daily new cases, new hospitalisations, and an estimated backlog of data still to be analysed. Then they gave up and decided to not analyse any data, not check

    • https://www.unfpa.org/data/wor... [unfpa.org]
      under Technical notes and sources:
      1 For statistical purposes, the data for Netherlands do not include this area.
      2 Including Christmas Island, Cocos Keeling Islands and Norfolk Island.
      3 Including Nagorno-Karabakh.
      4 For statistical purposes, the data for China do not include Hong Kong and Macao, Special Administrative Regions (SAR) of China, and Taiwan Province of China.
      5 As of 1 July 1997, Hong Kong became a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China. For statistical purpos

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by keltor ( 99721 ) *
      Despite having control of Macau/HK, most of the day to day government business functionally operates differently from the rest of China.

    • Well, if we are talking about people under China's control we have to include Trump as well. That should buy a few milliseconds of extra time for China.

    • Absolutely. Despite China's pissing, moaning, and sabre-rattling to the contrary, Taiwan is not part of China.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by khchung ( 462899 )

      For better comparison with historical trends and for easier analysis.

  • Let's import some. (Score:3)

    by Brain-Fu ( 1274756 ) on Wednesday April 19, 2023 @09:20AM (#63461418) Homepage Journal

    India clearly has too many people, and US doesn't have enough.

    We should import more of their people to solve both problems simultaneously.

    Somebody's gotta train them up in job skills we need, though. Without local parents to pay for that, nobody will want to. And it's all downhill from there.

    It's a shame, really.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by iAmWaySmarterThanYou ( 10095012 )

      What makes you think the US is short on people? People to do what?

      • Articles [nbcnews.com] like [brookings.edu] these [census.gov].

        We can see the future of the USA by looking at Japan. [japan-forward.com]

        Our economy does not function well when the population is in a state of decline. Jobs go unfilled, which drives the costs of services up, thus driving up inflation, and pushing the option to retire ever-further out of reach. Right now, immigration is the only thing that is bolstering our population enough to keep it functional. We need to double-down on that if we are going to have the services we need be available and affordable wh

        • More is not the solution. (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Fly Swatter ( 30498 ) on Wednesday April 19, 2023 @10:55AM (#63461730) Homepage
          Constant growth is unsustainable over the long term. We should be changing how our economy works so that it fits the situation instead of throwing more low wage people at the problem.

          We have plenty of people, just not enough wage equality which leaves too many behind within the economy. No one left behind should be the economic battle cry.

          • I agree in principle, aiming for sustainability is better. In practice, humans aren't up to the challenge.

            In the short term, we are already not breeding enough and already relying on immigration to keep things functional, and its not quite enough as important jobs remain vacant and that is driving up inflation (one of the many causes). While we are figuring-out how to attain sustainability, we need to keep the boat from sinking, and right now that means importing people. India is a good place, since they

            • The only immigration we are relying on is to fill the low wage jobs and labor jobs that no one wants to do because it requires physical exertion. Our existing workers are all 'above' manual work, at least for the wages that work currently earns.

              But I think the biggest problem is that we don't value such jobs high enough; this is where wage equality is needed. Someday maybe we will realize that a member of a crew fixing a broken infrastructure like a bridge or pipe is just as important to society as that

        • The idea that we need more people to support e.g. the elderly is only half correct. What is needed is sufficient productivity. If imported people have low average net productivity, they are instead a drag on the economy.

          Also, while this argument is made on behalf of the elderly, it should be noted that in Calif, something like 1/3 of the population receives some kind of public assistance. Maybe the argument should be made that we need more population in order to support the increasing number of people re

      • What makes you think the US is short on people? People to do what?

        People to make next quarters numbers bigger duh.
        And how else are we supposed to keep wages low if we don't import cheap foreigners?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Teckla ( 630646 )

      India clearly has too many people, and US doesn't have enough.

      The U.S. is already over-consuming its resources. If anything the U.S. needs less people.

      • You go first.

        The thought behind my comment is exactly why that kind of thinking doesn't help. It leads us to no solution whatsoever. Better resource utilization to encourage population growth is necessary for any stable society.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Teckla ( 630646 )

          You go first.

          I'm not advocating removing people from the U.S. But a good start would be to limit immigration such that the population level is approximately static. i.e., Start off by not making things worse.

          The thought behind my comment is exactly why that kind of thinking doesn't help. It leads us to no solution whatsoever.

          It's feasible for the U.S. to reform immigration so that the population level in absolute numbers is more or less static.

          Better resource utilization to encourage population growth is necessary for any stable society.

          Increasing population would completely obliterate any gains made by reducing resource usage. We would continue to see the U.S. pillage its resources, plunder its aquifers, pollute everything, etc.

    • India clearly has too many people, and US doesn't have enough. We should import more of their people to solve both problems simultaneously.

      Clearly you're not in the U.S. or you would see the massive spike in Indian people in this country. And I don't mean contractors. I'm talking citizens or about-to-be citizens.

      In my area, which is small-average sized when including the surrounding communities, several Indian restaurants and clothing stores have opened in the last few years. The number of In
    • There is no such thing as a country not having enough people - rather selfishly, I'm assuming that every single new resource-consuming human added pushes the world closer to a crisis. Adding new people to pay for the old people in a country is a giant ponzi scheme - it doesn't make sense. At some point they will get old too, and them you'll need to import even more young people to support them!
  • China's much further along in terms of industrialization & modernization than India. They got a huge push after the entire world switched to them for cheap manufacturing labor. The one child policy didn't help either (though I've heard it was largely ignored).

    I saw an article talking about China going the way of Japan. Low birth rates leading to stagnation and recession (since like every modern capitalist country they depend on population growth to stop that). The same trap every country falls into.

    • China's a dictatorship, not a modern country. "Modernization" doesn't mean you use simple gadgets from imported chips to spy on your population to keep it inline.

      • Define modern?

      • >>China's a dictatorship, not a modern country.

        One doesn't affect the other. You can have a modern dictatorship and an antiquated democracy.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          Exactly, you can have a very modern economy - be practically a first world nation, even have "democracy", but be considered a dictatorship (or at least authoritarian).

          Singapore is the example - development wise, it's a fully developed first world nation with world class healthcare, high living standards and everything you'd consider in a developed nation. But it too got to that position through authoritarianism.

          On a scale of democracy, Singapore ranks close to the bottom as a "failed democracy" (among faile

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Tablizer ( 95088 )

          >>China's a dictatorship, not a modern country.

          > One doesn't affect the other. You can have a modern dictatorship and an antiquated democracy.

          China has NO democracy [1]; US has an antiquated democracy: Electoral College [2] and a design that entrenches 2 parties.

          [1] China holds elections, but they are highly rigged and manipulated by the central gov't. Plus, it's hard to make good voting decisions when your news is also manipulated. China has a relatively modern economy, but that's despite their po

        • If the word 'democracy' can be used for two-party states where big business, the media and campaign funding drive electoral success, and any meaningful change can be blocked by a small number of biased and unprincipled old timers working for their party rather than the people... then I think the definition of the word is being stretched to breaking point!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by keltor ( 99721 ) *
        Authoritarian Regime is probably a better fit. While the Politburo and the Central Committee definitely have combined absolute power, Xi isn't Mao.

      • India is well on the way to becoming a dictatorship, its just being ignored by most western nations.

  • ..that parts of the subcontinent (which includes Pakistan and Bangladesh) will become uninhabitable due to climate change before the end of the century.

    • Yes, this is going to be a problem. Not just for them though, for western countries too. Because people usually don't let themselves die without saying anything, they tend to want to move to more hospitable climates (we are not talking about a few ships of migrants here).

      Also, this will definitely create political instabilities, if not just because they will accuse the developped countries of having contributed more to climate change than them, and will expect more and more support (including land/relocaliz

  • Gotta make our military bigger to handle the larger threats. Might want to stock up on some more nukes too.

  • "Rebirth" could fix all of our problems.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

  • How long had China been the most populous country? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by doconnor ( 134648 ) on Wednesday April 19, 2023 @10:02AM (#63461508) Homepage

    I did some quick research once it it appear China had been the most populous country for at least the last 2000 years.

  • You know there are 2 ways to lower the carbon footprint of a nation. The 1969 constitution did away with any measure to control the population and here we are 54 years later with a population that has almost tripled. When is the right time to put the brakes on?

  • China have been overcounting their population for years. Nothing new.

    • They actually counted less. Many people had more than one child and they didn't count those into their census. Most chinese people I met have more than one sibling who were born back in the 90s. Now that they have cancelled the one child policy, we can see a lot of them having 3-4 children.
  • The world's two largest populated countries living next to each other. What could possibly go wrong?

  • This is probably going to make me sound awful, but...

    Should we not start putting some restrictions on how many babies the poorest families churn out in places like India? India is a country in which more half a billion people live in poverty (despite the laughable claims that 400 million people were 'brought out of poverty' in the last 15 years), suffer from malnutrition, have no access to electricity or clean water or even the most basic standard of permanent housing. The families that live in poverty in I

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