China facing demographic, inflation risks ‘Japan never faced’, Beijing urged to act to avoid ‘big surprise’
- China’s once-in-a-decade census released earlier this year highlighted the challenges ahead for a rapidly ageing population
- Manoj Pradhan’s book, The Great Demographic Reversal: Ageing Society, Waning Inequality, and an Inflation Revival, has caught the eye of Beijing policymakers
Faced with new global demographic, inflation and deglobalisation challenges that even “Japan has never really faced”, China should take swift actions to counter their possible negative effects, a senior economist and author has urged.
A lack of action by Beijing will see the risks “come back to surprise us in a big way” in terms of economic growth, inflation and interest rate increases, according to Manoj Pradhan, a former managing director of Morgan Stanley and the founder of the London-based research firm Talking Heads Macro.
If China doesn’t get its policies right for looking after a rapidly ageing population, I think there is going to be some difficult time ahead
“I don’t think it’s very late. There is time to do it, particularly because the economy is still growing quickly. The advantage China has is that the structure is growing. It’s not that the transformation has been completed.”
Pradhan’s latest book, The Great Demographic Reversal: Ageing Society, Waning Inequality, and an Inflation Revival, co-authored with former Bank of England adviser Charles Goodhart, has caught the attention of Beijing’s policymakers after it was translated by two senior Chinese officials.