China’s Looming Demographic Catastrophe Will Challenge Xi Jinping’s Ambitions for Greatness.

China's population is expected to drop by half by the end of the century to 730 million.

While China is facing an unprecedented wave of COVID-19 in the country, the figures for the last two years are known: the birth rate there has liquefied by 30%. This is the most dramatic drop in China since the terrible period of the great famine of the late 50s and early 60s.

In the world's most populous country, only 10.6 million babies were born in 20…