3. Like a developed country, the senior population is increasing each year due to high longevity or better healthcare. In 2024, China had 10,930,000 deaths, which is 170,000 less than the 2023 figure (0.153% drop). This could be attributed to better healthcare or longevity factors; less death contributes to the aging population, but the death figure of 10,930,000 is higher than the birth figure of 9,540,000 by 1,390,000 (and 0.153% is less than 0.576%), which means in 2024, the dragon year, the net population is down but not aging. However, out of the total population of 1,411,750,000, the productive group is 60.77%, senior (>60) is 21.98%, and under-age is 17%, the government still likes to see an increase in newborns since the senior group will increase because of longevity. The senior above 65 in China is 220,230,000 in 2024, 15.6% of the total population. This number has been continuously increasing from 90,000,000 (year 2000) to the 2024 figure (144.7%), whereas the US figure for seniors above 65 has grown 38.6% from 2010-2020 (China 54.1% correspondingly). Understandably, China is concerned with the aging issue.  

4. China's male population is always more than female, but it has been reducing from 2000-2022. In 2024, the male population is 719,090,000, and the female population is 698,190,000 (104.34: 100 ratio). This ratio is considered good from marriage, children, and family point of view. In 2024, the reduction of the male population is 1,230,000, and only 160,000 reduction of females. Perhaps we will see fewer dating dramas from China than movies about families raising children. There is no detailed breakdown data on male productive groups and female productive groups, presumably because China has no discrimination against women entering the workforce. In general, maternity leave is generous, and seniors are more available to take care of babies in China.  

5. Another concern of population change is the city population versus the rural population in China. In 2010, China's city and rural populations were about equal, approximately 670,000,000, but they grew differently to city 943,500,000 (increase of 10,830,000 over 2023) and rural 464,780,000 decrease of 12,220,000 over 2023). The city population is 67% of the total population, which increased 0.84% over the 2023 figure. This rapid shift has a tremendous social impact and demand on government services from housing, education, transportation, and healthcare in the cities, and problems of insufficient workers in rural areas.  

From the above data and analysis, one can draw some conclusions. For a nation to manage its economic development to grow in a steady state, managing population and track its separate groups is necessary to maintain (1) a healthy productivity growth and a right-size productive population, (2) a reasonable age distribution with appropriate aging rate and birth rate, and (3) plans for infrastructure and social services in anticipating the shift of population in cities and rural areas. It is interesting to note that China, with its rigorous planning processes, has achieved decades of GDP growth as well as modernized its infrastructure, industries, and defense capabilities. This draws some China experts and national strategists to narrate a 'fear China' story and drive an anti-China policy. On the other hand, there is also a group of China experts and national strategists painting China as a doomsday scenario with housing problems (bubble to burst), over-production issues (eventually crashing the world’s economy), and financial instability with huge debts. Some even claim China's collapse is imminent. These claims are somewhat contradictory viewpoints. There is no reason that the U.S. and China cannot have a collaborative relationship since they are two similar large countries facing population management and productivity.  

Both countries must manage their population to maintain competitiveness. China recognizes the need to manage its population to maintain productivity, and she faces population shrinkage, an aging problem, and a low birthrate, as well as the need to adjust government services to meet the demand of population shift, like the increase of city population. The U.S. also must manage its population to maintain competitiveness. The U.S. has a set of problems different from China's. These problems are not caused by China, giving no reason for maintaining a hostile US-China relationship. The first issue related to the population in the U.S. is the immigrant problem. The government needs to have a set of immigration laws that help the U.S. maintain the right size of population and the needed productivity. Sure, illegal immigrants must be stopped, but more importantly, right immigrants must be encouraged. The U.S. also has a low birth rate and an aging population issue. It makes a lot of sense for the US and China to cooperate in healthcare (medicine, senior care, etc.) rather than pointing fingers at drug problems. The two countries must recognize that drugs are causing productivity loss and shifting the population to unproductive categories. The U.S. also faces the same problem of training the needed workers in the productive group. However, one should realize that adopting a complementary approach is more beneficial than taking a hostile approach. What is the benefit for the U.S. to drive away the Chinese talented students who study in the U.S.? Why is it more advantageous for China to duplicate talents in every field that existed elsewhere? None! In the big picture of managing the national population, it is best to cooperate and share talents. Both the U.S. and China need to maintain full employment, but their net productivity is better for the world when they are more complementary than being duplicated or redundant.  

In conclusion, every country faces many issues in managing its population to be productive and content with a 'balancing act' adjusted by the government according to the condition and resources the nation has. The U.S. has persuaded the TSMC Corporation of Taiwan to build semiconductor factories in Arizona, the problems it faces lend support to our argument here: duplication is not productive. Immigration is one of the effective adjustments the U.S. used successfully in the ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s; exchange programs are another adjustment benefitting mutually. We must admit that no government system is perfect. The idea of democracy (People are the masters of the nation.) should endorse the concept that the government's responsibility is just to manage its people population to be productive and content with the assumption that people may want to move by legal immigration process.  

A few days ago, I watched a video in which an older gentleman in his eighties talked about the Lunar New Year. He spoke about all aspects of the "New Year," which gave me a lot of new knowledge about Chinese traditions. Before introducing the main points of his talk, I would like to report the good news to everyone: China's Lunar New Year has been officially approved by UNESCO as a world-class intangible cultural heritage. Now this festival is not only a traditional festival of the Chinese nation, it has become a festival for the whole world.

Let's talk about two other special things about this year of the Snake:

First, the first day of the Chinese New Year this year is January 29th in the Gregorian calendar, which is five days earlier than the Start of the spring (立春) (February 3rd). So, in this year of the snake, we have the first Start of the spring. This year, we have a Run June (潤六月). Therefore, the next Start of the Spring (February 4, 2026, in the Gregorian calendar) is 12 days earlier than the New Year's Eve of the Year of the Snake (February 16, 2026, in the Gregorian calendar), so there will be two Start of the spring in this Year of the Snake. (Perhaps many people regard the 24 solar terms as days calculated according to the lunar calendar. They are formulated according to the laws of the movement of the sun, so they are the solar calendar. The most obvious ones are the summer solstice (around June 21 of the solar calendar) and the winter solstice (around December 21 of the solar calendar).

Second, the lunar and solar calendars coincide once every 19 years (if you check your lunar and solar birthdays, you will find that your lunar and solar birthdays coincide with each other on your 19th, 38th, 57th, etc. birthdays). In these 19 years, there are seven lunar years with double the Start of the springs, seven years without the Start of the spring, and five years with single the Start of the springs. This year, the Year of the Snake is one of the seven years with double the Start of the spring.

Starting this year, the Year of the Snake, mainland China will list the Lunar New Year's Eve as a holiday, so there will be a four-day holiday for the Lunar New Year. It can be said that it celebrates the four seasons of spring, summer, autumn, and winter, symbolizing the prosperity and happiness of the people throughout the year!

Although the first day of the lunar calendar is now called the Spring Festival, people still call it Nian (年). We still greet people by saying, "Happy New Year! 過年好!" So how did this Nian (年) come about? Many people may know that in the past, The oldest legend is that Nian is a monster. Every winter, on the last day of the twelfth lunar month, it always comes out to disturb the people, destroy nature, harm the common people, and bring pain and disaster to people. The common people told the Jade Emperor in the sky about this matter. According to legend, the Jade Emperor knew about this and sent the Purple Power Emperor to the lower world to subdue the monster Nian that was harming the people. From then on, people could celebrate the New Year festival in peace and happiness.

Before concluding this short article, I wish all readers a happy Year of the Snake!



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The US-China relationship is moving towards a cliff for no rational reason. The two nations of comparable land size are situated on the Earth’s opposite hemisphere, separated by oceans. There are no border issues or historical conflicts between the two nations. The major differences are one, the governance system and two, the people under each's governance system-population. From the governance point of view, the U.S. embraced democracy, capitalism, and liberalism for 250 years, but one must be honest that the U.S. democratic system is still far from perfect. The nation is moving more towards division, with conservatism and socialism balancing capitalism and liberalism. On the other hand, China tried to build a republic nation, abandoning its monarch dynasties and struggling for one hundred years without complete success. China's people revolution was a treacherous experience with foreign invasions and interference. China embraced Marxism and discovered that ideology is empty without pragmatic governance acceptable to its people to realize democracy (People are the masters of the nation). China walked away from the Soviet-style communist system and experimented on its own with decades of mistakes and bitter consequences.
China is different from the U.S. mainly in its population size (today 1.4 billion people) and its 56 ethnic groups. But China has five thousand years of history with experience, wisdom, and innovation in her genes and her 56 ethnic groups are far more homogeneous culturally than other countries with fewer ethnic groups/races. Comparing all aspects, education, industries, science, and technologies (including military development), there are very few differences between the two nations since each has learned from other countries at different times and developed on its path. The U.S. expanded smoothly in the 19th century, learned from the European powers, and emerged as the number one economy in the world. China is a latecomer in industrialization, but she also learned from the West (including the U.S.) and rose rapidly in the last few decades to become the number two economy of the world.  
The real significant difference between the U.S. and China is their population. In the U.S., there was fear that the poor one billion Chinese people would eventually compete with the U.S. for world resources. This is a groundless theory, perhaps rooted in the 17th and 18th centuries when American immigrants fought the American Indians for land and resources. Hindsight tells us that with industrialization and sciences and technologies, humans on earth can lift their standard of living more rapidly as exhibited in the last two centuries than in the previous 10 or 20 centuries. The groundless theory worried that if the billion people in China achieved a middle-class standard of living, they would take away all the resources Americans need. The Chinese people proved the groundless theory wrong. China worked hard and was able to lift its billion people out of poverty. Indeed, today many more Chinese tourists are traveling around the world. But the fact that China became the world factory trading as the number one trader with 125 countries supplying them with goods needed. It simply dispelled that groundless theory. Just look at the African continent, its prosperity and development owe a great deal to China's economic policy to make win-win deals with every country in the world. China is the only country that has turned huge deserts into green acres for forest and agriculture use. China is the largest developer and user of green energy. China has made advances in infrastructure, highways, high-speed rails, intelligent ports, and electric energy distributions to support its development. China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) designed to share resources and commerce to produce win-win economic results has grown over 125 nations and organizations which proves that collaboration will produce win-win results.  
 
China could not have accomplished the above results without her people working hard. However, the population can be a liability (dragging the country to poverty) or an asset (raising the country's GDP and prosperity). China was extremely poor after WW II (the Japanese invasion of China resulted in 14 years of bitter war, Japan was depleting China's resources to fund its world war), China's GDP was only $30.55B in 1952, but it grew to $1,211B surpassing Italy in 2000, to $2,286.88B surpassing France in 2005, to $2,752.88B surpassing UK in 2006, and to $6,087.88B surpassing Japan in 2010. In 2023, China's GPD is $17,888.97B second only to the U.S. ($27,360B). In per capita GDP, the U.S. is $81,695 (GPD/Population) and China is only $12,681(1/6.44 of the U.S. figure). From this figure, one would understand that the population number (the US has 334,914,895 people and China has 1,408,280,000), especially its productive age group (857,980,000 in the age range of 16-59 in China and 217,594,207 in age of 15-64 in the U.S.) are important numbers to watch, since GPD and per capita GPD are used to gauge a nation's productivity and prosperity. Both China and the U.S. have understood that the total population must be separated into productive age groups, senior group (in China is 60 and above and in the U.S. is 65 and above) and under-age group (in China is 15 and under and in the U.S. is 14 and below) to understand the nation's wellbeing. China's statistics bureau just published some data that we can use to analyze the issue of productivity and competitiveness of a nation and its future outlook. 
 
China's statistics bureau published a report which can be summarized as follows: 
1.The total population of China is 1,411,750,000 (Rounding to 10,000) in 2024, is reduced to 1,390,000,000 continuing the trend of reduction (A concern of the Chinese government). The productive group is 857,980,000 (60.77%), the senior group is 310,310,000 (21.98%), and the underage group (including other nonproductive) is 239,990,000 (17%). The Chinese government is concerned over the reduction of the productive group and the increase of the senior group in percentage points. The government is also concerned with the nation's birth rate which affects the underage group. 
2.China was concerned with the growing population when its productive group did not generate a high enough GDP. Hence it had a one-child policy for many years. When China improved its GDP with a high percent growth rate, the government wanted to keep the fast GDP growth, so it abandoned the one-child policy and encouraged more births. However, like many developed countries, the birth rate drops as people have a more affluent life. China's birth rate has been dropping since 2018. This year, 2024, a dragon year, China's birth figure is 9,540,000, increased by 520,000 over the 2023 figure, the first time increase in seven years. However, culturally, dragon year always produced more babies, this small increase of 0.576% may disappear in the year of the snake. 
 


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