From ancient times until today, an enormous population has been a foundational way for China to project its strength. But anxiety about managing so many mouths has always loomed. “China has a population of 600 million people, and we must never forget this fact,” Mao Zedong said in 1957, shortly before setting off a calamitous famine.
China's masses, though, are getting to be less massive. And that’s a problem.
