Abstract

How do human numbers affect the capability of governments to influence events beyond their borders or affect the disposition of a country's interactions with outside actors? And how can we use population indicators to anticipate, with some reasonable hope of accuracy, the impact yetunfolding demographic forces on the balance of international power? In this paper we attempt to examine these questions in the context of the world's most populous, and most economically dynamic, region: Asia. Our focus is on the impact of prospective changes over the period 2000 to 2025. Our inquiry suggests that demographic trends must be assessed very carefully if their actual strategic significance is to be divined. Not infrequently, the geopolitical import of population trends appears negligible or at best highly debatable. Nevertheless, population forces can be seen altering the realm of the possible. Three broad, but unevenly experienced, demographic changes are identified as having particular potential for influencing the balance of power in Asia: 1) rapid population aging; 2) sustained health setbacks; and 3) rising gender imbalances as reflected in sex ratios at birth.

Nicholas Eberstadt is the Henry Wendt Scholar at AEI.