Your link reads just like every western European country with failing demographics … and it isn’t working. I did hear on NPR News the other day that China is implementing a new tax on contraceptives. That’s a new idea. Something that would be so unpopular, it could only happen in a non-democratic country. Maybe that’ll help, but my prediction is that it’ll just increase (or slow the decrease of) the population of ethnic and religious minorities within China, something the one-party government may not like. I do not see any good solutions within reach for China. Demographic issues are cultural issues and you cannot change a culture quickly. Demographic issues are rarely economic issues (though economics gets the blame). Are there any subcultures within China known for large families? Here in the US, we have Amish, Mennonites, Muslims, Orthodox Jews, Traditional Catholics, and Quiverfull Evangelicals who all tend to have large families. Myself, I have 11, and have just learned my wife is pregnant with twelve.

I have a customer (I own my own business) who is a Chinese immigrant to the US and I was visiting his house here in the US. We were talking and he learned that I had 11 children. He immediately called his daughter, who is a doctor still living in China, and gave her a stern talking to about how this “poor” man here in the US can give his parents 11 grandchildren and she could not even give them just one. It was a little awkward to listen to, as they went back and forth between English and Manderin. What they feel is not unusual among the Chinese. China’s one child policy defined Chinese culture. And now young men and women just do not have the example or the confidence to start a family. They also have witnessed a generation of people praised for work and professional success that comes at the expense of producing and raising many children. The one-party state does not have the tools to dramatically change this trend. If a reverse happens, it’ll happen over the period of a century, not years or decades.