Last week, the UN’s global population project announced a major shift in the way the world looks. Next year, India, not China, will be the world’s most populous country. Right now, China has 1.43 billion people to India’s 1.41 billion, but by mid-century there will be more than 1.6 billion Indians to around 1.3 billion Chinese.
At one level, this development ought to delight Beijing, which compelled its population into a “one child” policy for some 40 years. Yet there may be a few disconsolate faces in Beijing. The idea of China being the most populous society in the world has long been linked to the country’s rise. Officially, China dismisses any idea that being at the top of global rankings matters: in January this year, vice foreign minister Le Yucheng declared that China had no interest in becoming the world’s biggest economy or superpower and would instead work on improving its people’s lives at home.
