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Specification China

Connections with the DP HL option 3: History of Asia and Oceania — Unit 14: The People’s Republic of China (1949—2005)

Key terms and ideas “Demography is destiny”

Click to read the article below and then answer the questions:

Lousy demographics will not stop China’s rise

This article is an excellent way of framing the growth of China as a regional and global power in the late 20th and early twenty-first centuries. It explores what it describes as “the historic connection between a growing and youthful population and increasing national power”. It argues that historically “great powers needed warm bodies to put on a battlefield and citizens to tax.”

A contrast is made between the development of 18-20th century France and more recent change in China. It argues that Napoleon’s conquests were built on a demographic boom which gave way to justified anxiety about falling population growth in the early 20th century. However, China has begun to experience a declining birth rate just when the historic “demography is destiny” paradigm “is giving way to something more complex.” The author Gideon Rachman (chief foreign affairs columnist for the Financial Times) suggests the future may depend much more on technology, for which China is well placed.

  • What is the meaning of the idea “demography is destiny”?

  • How do the histories of France and China support this idea?

  • To what extent do you agree that the connection between population growth and power has lost importance in the early twenty-first century?

Ned Riley, historyrising.net

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