I find that Zeihan has some interesting insights, but I also often find that he seems to be a little too confident in some of his predictions. He often times comes off as being very positive about the US outlook, but very pessimistic about the rest of the world. And sure, the US has a better demographic situation than China and Russia and that's going to be bad for them, but it's not like they don't have any cards to play.
He correctly predicted the Russia-Ukraine war 8 years ago. The idea is that Russia will lose around 20% of its young male demographic (20-35y) between 2020 and 2030, so it’s the only time window they can start a major war.
The outlook of Russian and Chinese demographics isn’t just worst than the US. It’s one of the worst in the world with a sudden decline in working age population in the upcoming 1-2 decades, while at the same time not having first world economies.
What is a first world economy and why would China be better off with one? China used their export economy to gain the manufacturing knowledge. What would happen if they turn inwards and not allocate their workers on export goods? Which critical infrastructure besides the most modern chips can't they produce?
There must be a surplus of workers as long as China has the hukou system. If they can offer free movement to all of their citizens within 1-2 decades, wouldn't that be a good outlook?
Russia on the other hand doesn't look good but as the energy and food supplier of China, do they have to maintain their demographics?
Many analysts predicted RU/UKR war 10+ years ago just on premise of NATO encroachment without factoring in demographics. Fact they executed a special operation on the cheap with a few 100,000 men reflect they weren't preparing for last major war before demographic window closes. Arguably with how much unmanned platforms have proliferated, RU could have waited even longer.
>Chinese demographics isn’t just worst than the US. It’s one of the worst in the world with a sudden decline in working age population in the upcoming 1-2 decades, while at the same time not having first world economies.
Naive analysis of demographic pyramid, especially with respect to great powers competition, for which I'd argue PRC has probably the most potent demographic trend in recorded human history: 1) PRC is generating as much STEM / high skilled talent as OECD countries combined, and magnitude more than US can absorb via births + immigration even with low TFR. Hence all the news in recent years of PRC closing academic, S&T gap and moving up value chain. 2) reduction in absolute population numbers = less import dependencies and more strategic flexbility. Meanwhile Chinese households has some of highest savings rates while industry has high automation adoption to weather population decline vs west whose onerous first world safety nets that are likely not sustainable long term. More skilled people + even less unskilled people for country has excess people wants to reduce net resource imports = recipe for improving strategic competitiveness.
Also note that developed PRC coastal region are functionally first world economies with capacities that are rapidly closing gap with US+co. The useful lens to evaluate PRC demographics is that roughly every decade for the next several decades, the internal talent mix is replacing a Nigeria with a Japan, sure less aggregate people, but more skilled people, still a substantial amount with PRC pop denominator. And people who structure their finances without expectation of first world welfare coverage. That gives PRC better demographic trend vs US for closing relative strength gap for strategic competition in the coming decades.
A more broader comment on Zeihan is outside of US, he is a generalist and rarely know enough about the POLITCS to really credibly comment on global geoPOLITICS. Like imagine trying to sell his audience US is blessed with river networks and deep coasts for ports and then neglect to mention PRC actually has the most navigable river networks and advanced ports. That's the politics in geopolitics. Politics can shape geography and demography which apart from very extreme cases, are far from destiny.
His reasoning seems rock solid to me. It is factually true that the US has built-in geographic security. It is also true that the US has a culture of immigration which makes it easier to keep demographic decline at bay, compared to, say, China.
Bringing in educated, skilled, productive, and socially-compatible individuals can certainly help a nation and its economy.
On the other hand, bringing in unskilled, unproductive, and socially-incompatible individuals can very quickly become a total disaster for a nation and its economy, too.
There's not much room for error. The negative impacts of allowing in just one additional unsuitable individual can easily cancel out the positive contributions of several productive individuals.
I don't see why demographics would be regarded as so important to industrialised societies. The bulk of labour power in those societies comes from machines, not physically fit young people. In such a society, an older population is not a downside, and can in fact be an upside, as older people often have more technical expertise for developing and maintaining those machines.
The only reason it's considered bad is because the system of socially-subsidised retirement leads to older people being artificially unproductive, but that's just one way of supporting the elderly; It would be feasible to institute a new system where aging people are given stronger labour protections, and are provided with support to change their patterns of work in response to changes to their physical and mental capabilities. Many would even see this as a positive thing, since work can provide a sense of meaning and retirement can be a major stressor.
And now you know how to properly use his analysis.
The service he provides is to brief US-centric companies on potential geopolitical trends, risks, and opportunities. You'd be misusing the information if you had little business with the US, or expected a crystal ball.
