Western analysts have been predicting China's decline for years, and the latest contribution to this increasingly crowded field comes from Carl Minzner in Foreign Affairs, October 5, 2026, under the ominous title, "China's Long Twilight: Demographic Decline, Political Paralysis, and the Fate of Great Powers." Minzner argues that China's ageing population, declining birth rate, economic difficulties and increasingly rigid political system are combining to produce a prolonged period of national stagnation. The country that once appeared destined to dominate the twenty-first century may instead become an ageing, economically troubled authoritarian state, struggling to maintain its former dynamism. There is considerable evidence supporting parts of this analysis. But there is also a fundamental problem with the broader expectation of Chinese decline: China has not abandoned its ambition to become the world's leading power, and there is little reason to suppose that demographic and economic difficulties will automatically prevent it from pursuing that objective with extraordinary determination.
Minzner's demographic argument is certainly formidable. China's population peaked in 2021 and has subsequently declined, while the proportion of elderly citizens is increasing rapidly. The working-age population that powered China's extraordinary industrial expansion is shrinking, creating growing pressure upon pensions, healthcare and the labour force. The consequences of the former one-child policy are becoming increasingly apparent, compounded by the same economic and cultural factors that have depressed fertility throughout much of East Asia. Minzner also identifies serious political problems associated with Xi Jinping's centralisation of power, arguing that the Chinese Communist Party has become increasingly inflexible and less capable of responding creatively to economic and social challenges. These are genuine difficulties, not inventions of Western propagandists. But recognising their existence is not the same as demonstrating that China is destined for geopolitical decline.
The first mistake is to confuse economic growth rates with national power. China no longer enjoys the extraordinary annual growth rates of its earlier industrial expansion, but this was never likely to continue indefinitely. A country cannot expand at close to ten percent annually forever, particularly after it has already become an industrial giant. The relevant question is not whether China can reproduce the conditions of the 1990s, but whether its enormous existing industrial base can continue to support technological development, military modernisation and international economic influence. On this question, the evidence is far less reassuring for those expecting China's decline. China remains the world's largest manufacturing power, producing an extraordinary range of industrial goods upon which much of the international economy depends. Its industrial capacity is not merely a historical achievement; it is a continuing foundation of geopolitical power.
China's manufacturing dominance extends across industries of immense strategic significance, including steel, shipbuilding, batteries, electric vehicles, telecommunications equipment, solar technology and numerous categories of industrial machinery. Western countries have increasingly discovered that outsourcing industrial production was not simply a matter of obtaining cheaper consumer goods. It involved transferring productive capacity, technical expertise and control over essential supply chains to a strategic competitor. The consequences are now becoming apparent as Western governments attempt to rebuild industries that have been allowed to deteriorate over decades. China, meanwhile, possesses an integrated manufacturing ecosystem that cannot easily be replicated through tariffs, subsidies or political declarations. Even a slower-growing Chinese economy can remain extraordinarily powerful when its industrial foundations are so extensive.
Technological development further complicates predictions of inevitable decline. China has invested heavily in artificial intelligence, robotics, advanced manufacturing, telecommunications, quantum technologies and semiconductor production. It continues to face important restrictions in certain advanced technologies, particularly at the frontier of semiconductor manufacturing, but these obstacles have encouraged an intensified programme of technological self-reliance. Beijing's response to Western export controls has not been to abandon its ambitions. It has been to mobilise additional resources towards overcoming dependence upon foreign suppliers. Whether every programme succeeds is beside the point. What matters is the scale, persistence and strategic direction of the effort. China is attempting to construct an industrial and technological system capable of sustaining great-power competition under conditions of prolonged confrontation.
Indeed, population decline may accelerate rather than undermine certain aspects of China's technological strategy. An ageing society facing labour shortages has powerful incentives to automate production, introduce industrial robotics and increase productivity through artificial intelligence. China already possesses a formidable industrial robotics sector, and its government regards automation as central to future economic development. None of this means that machines can simply replace the economic contribution of millions of younger workers. Ageing populations impose substantial fiscal and social costs that technology cannot magically eliminate. Nevertheless, the assumption that a shrinking workforce must produce a corresponding decline in industrial or military capacity overlooks the possibilities created by technological change. The relationship between population size and national power is considerably more complicated than demographic pessimists sometimes suggest.
There is also the question of political determination. Whatever one's judgment of the level of evil of the Chinese Communist Party, it would be a serious mistake to underestimate the intensity of its commitment to national power. Xi Jinping has repeatedly presented China's development as part of a larger project of national rejuvenation, overcoming the historical humiliations inflicted upon China by foreign powers and restoring the country to a position of international pre-eminence. This is not simply an economic programme. It is a political, military and ideological project extending across decades. The Chinese leadership regards technological independence, military modernisation, territorial consolidation and international influence as essential elements of national security. Such objectives are unlikely to disappear because economic growth slows or the population ages.
Western political systems, by contrast, frequently struggle to maintain consistent strategic objectives beyond the next election. Governments change, priorities shift, infrastructure projects are delayed and industrial policies are repeatedly revised. China possesses a different institutional structure, allowing its leadership to pursue long-term objectives without the same electoral interruptions. This arrangement has obvious disadvantages, including the suppression of criticism, the concealment of policy failures and the danger of catastrophic mistakes by an increasingly insulated leadership. Minzner is correct to emphasise these weaknesses. But centralised government also gives Beijing the capacity to mobilise enormous resources behind objectives considered essential to national power. It would be foolish to assume that such mobilisation will necessarily fail.
China's military development provides perhaps the clearest illustration of this determination. The People's Liberation Army has undergone an extraordinary modernisation programme, involving naval expansion, missile forces, advanced aircraft, space capabilities, cyberwarfare and increasingly sophisticated systems designed to challenge American military operations in the western Pacific. China's naval shipbuilding capacity is particularly significant because it rests upon the country's immense commercial and industrial infrastructure. The United States retains major advantages in global military reach, alliances, operational experience and advanced technology, but maintaining these advantages becomes increasingly difficult when a competitor possesses such formidable manufacturing resources. A country experiencing slower economic growth can still become a more dangerous military rival if it directs a substantial share of its resources towards strategic competition.
Taiwan remains the most obvious potential flashpoint. Beijing's determination to bring Taiwan under its control is deeply connected to the Communist Party's conception of national rejuvenation and territorial sovereignty. Demographic decline does not necessarily moderate this ambition. Indeed, some analysts have argued that leaders confronting a narrowing window of strategic opportunity may become more willing to accept risks. This is not a prediction that China will invade Taiwan, nor does it establish that such an operation would succeed. An invasion would involve enormous military, economic and political dangers, potentially threatening the very stability that the Chinese leadership seeks to preserve. Nevertheless, it would be dangerously complacent to assume that China's domestic problems automatically make military confrontation less likely.
The historical analogy employed by Minzner is also open to question. He suggests that China's future may resemble the declining Ming dynasty, whose political rigidity and internal weaknesses eventually contributed to its collapse. Historical comparisons can be illuminating, but they can also encourage a misleading sense of inevitability. Modern China is not a sixteenth-century agrarian empire. It possesses nuclear weapons, an enormous industrial economy, sophisticated scientific institutions, advanced communications systems and extensive participation in global trade. Its leadership can draw upon technologies and administrative capacities unavailable to earlier Chinese dynasties. The problems of political centralisation and bureaucratic rigidity may recur across centuries, but their consequences cannot simply be transferred from one historical period to another.
A further weakness in confident predictions of Chinese decline is the tendency to assess China in isolation. Great-power competition is inherently comparative. China does not have to achieve perfection, eliminate corruption or solve every demographic problem to become the world's leading power. It must outperform its principal competitors across enough strategically important dimensions. The United States faces serious problems of its own, including mounting public debt, political polarisation, industrial dependence upon foreign suppliers, infrastructure deficiencies and difficulties sustaining coherent long-term policies. Europe faces demographic ageing, economic stagnation and growing strategic uncertainty. Japan and South Korea confront some of the world's most severe fertility problems. If China's difficulties are evidence of impending decline, similar questions must be asked about the long-term prospects of other major industrial powers.
Nor should China's international ambitions be underestimated. Through trade, infrastructure investment, diplomatic relationships and participation in organisations such as BRICS, Beijing has worked to expand its influence beyond the Western-dominated international order. These initiatives have produced mixed results, and many countries remain suspicious of Chinese intentions. Nevertheless, China's economic importance gives it considerable influence across Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East. Countries may distrust Beijing politically while depending upon Chinese manufactured goods, investment or access to its enormous market. This combination of economic dependence and geopolitical competition creates opportunities for China even when its domestic economy is under pressure.
There is an additional possibility that Western commentators should consider. China's economic difficulties may encourage its leadership to intensify rather than abandon its international ambitions. Governments confronting domestic dissatisfaction sometimes place greater emphasis upon national prestige, strategic achievement and external threats. This does not mean that Chinese foreign policy is merely a distraction from economic problems, but domestic pressures can reinforce an existing commitment to national rejuvenation. A leadership that believes it is engaged in a historic struggle to restore China's greatness may respond to adversity by demanding greater sacrifice and accelerating strategic programmes. Economic weakness can constrain national power, but it does not necessarily produce moderation.
Of course, determination alone does not guarantee success. The Soviet Union possessed enormous military power, an elaborate industrial system and an ideological commitment to global competition, yet ultimately collapsed under the weight of economic stagnation and political dysfunction. China could also suffer serious institutional failures, financial crises or strategic miscalculations. Its property sector difficulties, local government debts, weak household consumption and demographic pressures are substantial. Xi Jinping's concentration of authority may make these problems harder to resolve by discouraging honest criticism and reducing institutional flexibility. The possibility of long-term Chinese stagnation must therefore be taken seriously.
But the Soviet comparison has limits. China is far more deeply integrated into global manufacturing and international trade than the Soviet Union ever was. Its industrial enterprises compete across a vast range of civilian markets, and its technological development is supported by extensive commercial activity. China's economy is not simply a military-industrial system maintained by central planning. It combines state direction with large-scale commercial competition, private enterprise and extensive international economic relationships. These features create vulnerabilities, particularly dependence upon foreign markets, but they also provide sources of resilience that were largely absent from the Soviet model.
The central point is that China's future cannot be reduced to a demographic calculation. National power depends upon industrial capacity, technological competence, military organisation, political institutions, strategic geography, international relationships and the ability of a society to adapt to changing circumstances. Population trends matter enormously, but they are only one element of this larger equation. A smaller, older China equipped with highly automated industries and advanced military technology could remain a formidable rival to the United States. It might even achieve superiority in selected strategic fields while experiencing serious domestic economic difficulties. Such an outcome would hardly resemble the comfortable twilight imagined by those who expect China's demographic problems to resolve the geopolitical challenge.
For Australia, the implications are particularly serious. Our economic prosperity has become deeply connected to China, while our strategic security arrangements remain closely tied to the United States. This creates an uncomfortable position as competition between the two powers intensifies. Australian policymakers cannot safely assume that China's economic difficulties will eliminate the strategic challenge posed by Beijing. Nor should they assume that American military and industrial predominance can be maintained indefinitely without substantial investment and national determination. Australia needs a realistic assessment of Chinese power, rather than comforting predictions that demographic decline will eventually solve the problem for us.
Ultimately, Minzner has identified genuine weaknesses in China's political and economic system, but weaknesses are not the same as terminal decline. The Chinese leadership remains committed to becoming the dominant power in Asia and a leading force in the international system. It possesses extraordinary industrial resources, rapidly developing technological capabilities and the political determination to pursue these objectives over decades. Whether China will actually displace the United States as the world's leading power remains uncertain, particularly given the enormous risks associated with authoritarian rigidity and demographic decline. But it would be an extraordinary strategic error to assume that these difficulties have already settled the question.
China's future may involve slower growth, greater internal tensions and increasingly difficult choices. It may also involve continued technological advances, military expansion and growing international influence. These possibilities are not mutually exclusive. A country can experience serious domestic decline in some respects while becoming more powerful and assertive in others. The West should therefore abandon the comforting assumption that China's problems will automatically prevent its rise. Beijing has not surrendered its ambition to become number one, and the evidence suggests that it intends to pursue that ambition regardless of the obstacles. Whether it succeeds is another matter, but writing China's geopolitical obituary now would be dangerously premature. The threat posed by China to the West is not going to simply disappear.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/chinas-long-twilight-carl-minzner