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China is facing a birthrate crisis. Will Xi Jinping start growing baby soldiers in factories?

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China reports its current population is 1.42 billion. Yi Fuxian, a University of Wisconsin-Madison academic who studies Chinese demography, believes that number is far too high. He’s right. Nonetheless, China is at least four times more populous than the United States. But the great disparity will not last. China is on the brink of a demographic cliff.

By the turn of the century, the US might even have more people than China. Yi believes that country could have as few as 330 million people when the clock strikes 2100. Then, America, according to the US Census Bureau, will have 366 million.

China is now heading to history’s greatest drop in population in the absence of war. “Left unaddressed, China’s demographic trap could precipitate a civilizational collapse,” Yi warns Beijing.

The sheer size of China awes foreigners — and instills great pride in its people. “What is the real fulcrum of China’s strength?” asked a popular Chinese website in 2009. There was a one-word answer: “Population!”

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And as the anonymous “Fang Feng” posted on the Strong Country Forum of the Communist Party’s People’s Daily........

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