Another of the certainties that has accompanied us since we were born will vanish in 2023. China will cease to be the world's demographic giant to be replaced, forever, by India. The UN has released a new population projection, which estimates that by the end of June there will be 2.9 million more Indians than Chinese.
Specifically, the population of India will rise to 1,428 million and China to 1,425 million, according to the report of the United Nations Fund for Population. The publication slightly delays the previous estimate, which six months ago calculated that the sorpasso would occur on April 13, 2023. That is, last Friday.
These are figures that, seen from Europe, produce chills, given the growing problems of global warming, deforestation, pollution and global competition for water, energy and food resources. However, it should be noted that the Indian population explosion will soon reach its peak, since the number of children per woman has been reduced to 2.1 per woman, the figure strictly necessary for generational change, according to demographers. In neighboring Bangladesh, in fact, it is already at 2 children per woman. Unlike the still soaring numbers in Pakistan and especially in sub-Saharan Africa.
The Chinese population, meanwhile, fell last year for the first time in more than six decades. Although Beijing abolished the limit of one child per couple for the majority Han a few years ago (two children for Tibetans and other minorities), the turnaround is now seen as probably late.
It should be said that the UN figure refers to the People's Republic of China and does not include the inhabitants of Hong Kong, Macao or the Republic of China, better known as Taiwan. Adding these populations, China would still remain on the podium for a few more months, until next year.
The UN report also estimates that the human population of the planet will reach 8.045 million by the middle of this year. More than half will continue to live in Asia.
It should be said that the data referring to India are actually projections, since New Delhi has not yet managed to prepare the 2021 census, due to delays attributed to the pandemic. This is the first time in a century and a half that the Indian administration has failed to carry out this fabulous logistical exercise, with the exception of 1941, in the middle of World War II.
Other census data, such as unemployment or, above all, the proportion of adherents of each religion, are used as political fuel, so it is possible that they will not be made public until after the elections in a year, so as not to call into question the alleged achievements of a decade of Hindu chauvinism in power, with Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
What there is no doubt about today is that the demographic podium has little to do with the economic podium. Although in the political order, New Delhi -which also chairs the G-20 this 2023- had never been so full of reasons to demand a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, the cornerstone of its diplomatic action.
