East Asia's Coming Population Collapse

In the decades immediately ahead, East Asia will experience perhaps the modern world’s most dramatic demographic shift. All of the region’s main states—China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan—are about to enter into an era of depopulation, in which they will age dramatically and lose millions of people.

There is more to national power than head counts, of course. But depopulation will disadvantage East Asia’s states in ways that will become increasingly difficult to overcome. Demography is not destiny, but the power of demography means the long-heralded “Asian century” may never truly arrive.

Read: Foreign Affairs (2024-05-08)