this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2023
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For starters, the article is very anti-China, albeit in a more subtle way than many articles from western sources. The headline itself also grabs in people ostensibly worried about population growth. The facts presented may well be true, but they are missing context which cannot be provided in a bullet points format. The author simply ignores parts of their own sources in order to present their own contradictory point. For example, the line "Wedding registrations in 2022: 6.83 million, the lowest since the 1970s." links to an article from Tsinghua University, which only mentions the declining marriage rate in the last paragraph of the article. It's primarily about how China is well positioned to manage their demographic changes.
Another example: the author quotes from the Global Times article that quotes Qiao Jie. What the Stop Population Decline author fails to note is that their source explains some of what China is doing to raise its fertility rate.
The author also projects problems onto China which are only inherent to declining populations in neoliberal countries. In a people's state such as China these same topics are essentially irrelevant, as quoted above for example. An ageing population certainly is a challenge in terms of healthcare demands, but none that cannot be solved by a nation that prioritizes the well being of its people over arbitrary economic indicators or the further enrichment of its capitalist class.
Anti China?
You mean critical of the government. They also been critical of the UK, US, and Korean governments. Not to mention why they are most critical of isn’t the traditional reasons, but by the fact they need to ramp up social spending but hasn’t
Also it seems they are cynical of the numbers coming out, which is a fair point considering the Chinese researchers has a history of overcounting, inflating numbers, and sugarcoating CCP policies
At worse you can say they are anti CCP like other western sources like you said, but at best they just critical of any government who doesn’t increase social spending
"Anti-CCP" is anti-China. The whole "hate the government not the people" charade is just a lame cover for racism and imperialism. Even the simple use of the incorrect "CCP" rather than the correct CPC is enough to indicate a person's stance.
The sources linked even discuss how China is increasing social spending in a multitude of ways, but all that information is left out and instead the spectre of "overcounted or inflated numbers and sugar-coated CCP policies" and western concern trolling tells the story.
I'm Chinese. Fuck that CCP = China bullshit.