Population trends in China aren’t cooperating with Xi Jinping’s ambitions. The “China Dream”—the Communist Party’s vision of national prosperity and international power—faces stiff and strengthening demographic headwinds. China’s working-age manpower is in steep decline. The country is rapidly graying, and the largely dependent 65-plus population is soaring. In January Beijing announced that the country’s total population shrank in 2022—a decade earlier than Western demographers had been forecasting as recently as 2019.

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