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Jun 2023
25m 2s

Drum Tower: Baby bust

The Economist
About this episode

Last year, China’s population began to decline for the first time since 1962 and its reign as the most populous country in the world is over.

The Economist’s Beijing bureau chief, David Rennie, and senior China correspondent, Alice Su, discuss what China’s shrinking population means for its future and what scars the one-child policy has left behind. They travel to Yichan, a city in Heilongjiang province, where children are a rarity to ask what lessons can be learned on how to manage decline.

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