Next trick will be to encourage the educated, skilled, talented, etc, to have at least two, maybe three or four kids.
I expect the initial reaction to this problem will be along the lines of "We have a billion people, we will always have enough talent and brains".
The problem is that future progress will depend on large numbers of talented people, and the ratio of the highly talented to the rest of society.
Having 1 medical doctor for every 500 people can produce a much better result than 1 per every 1000 people.
There's a counter argument that says you only need one group of engineers to design a cell phone, then you can make one million or five million.
But China will need about 100,000 bridges, cell tower installations, apartment buildings, etc. - and those will need engineers, geologists, etc. |
