State authorities in China are reporting a much-lower-than-expected fertility rate for 2022. According to Reuters:

China’s fertility rate is estimated to have dropped to a record low of 1.09 in 2022, the National Business Daily said on Tuesday, a figure likely to rattle authorities as they try to boost the country’s declining number of new births.

Given the style of how China handled Covid in its cities, this number is at least somewhat explicable. But, China is also in the midst of trying to boost fertility through policy and propaganda, including through messages that are beamed into the phones of most Chinese people. Like all nations, women and men cite the increasing cost of living as the factor driving their decision not to have children.

While China’s fertility rate is not nearly as low as South Korea’s — which stands at 0.78 — China is already on the dark side of the population mountain, losing absolute population years ahead of schedule. There are all sorts of untold implications of this. As China’s population rapidly ages, overall Chinese wage costs will continue to go up. This may drive more manufacturing and investment to Vietnam or perhaps other nations. The aging population will begin to weigh on the mind of China’s geostrategic calculations. The window of opportunity that China saw opening in the future may already feel like it is starting to slam shut. China is becoming old before it became fully rich. Japan ranks 38th in GDP per capita. China is ranked at 72, grouped with countries such as Mexico (which has good prospects) and Belarus and Bosnia and Herzegovina (which do not).