What’s this guy been smokin’?
If their population gets too restive, they might release an EMP (extra male population) on their enemies.
In 1970, Soviet dissident Andrei Amalrik wrote an essay entitled "Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984?" Like a handful of Western experts, Amalrik, although writing in isolation, also saw adverse demographics and ethnic antagonisms as soon to be fatal to the USSR.
And so it was, with the USSR lasting but 72 years. In addition to ethnic fractures and demographic imbalances, endemic corruption and economic mismanagement are also cited prominently in autopsies of the world's first Communist nation. China suffers from similar problems, albeit with her economic success obscuring fundamental weaknesses. Yet the Communist Chinese regime may last little if any longer than its Russian counterpart.
Most notably, China's economy is highly leveraged and based on a model of export led industrialization that make her vulnerable to rising hostility in foreign markets. China's Belt and Road Initiative is meant to remedy that defect by permanently tying key parts of the world to China economically. Yet that grand scheme of predatory lending and infrastructure building is not working well because the terms and Chinese administration of it are so plainly exploitative.
Like the USSR, China's focus on military power makes her a menace. It is hard though to see though what a geographically constrained China can accomplish even with a military advantage. With US backing, powerful neighbors Japan and South Korea cannot be subdued, nor will Viet Nam, India, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Myanmar knuckle under to China.
Plausibly, by force or the threat of force, China may subdue and incorporate Taiwan. Yet even Taiwan's superficially peaceful acquiescence to mainland China will require brutal internal suppression in a long consolidation phase that will prompt mass emigration and civil unrest and embroil China in endless difficulties and bad publicity for many years. On balance, for China, Taiwan may beckon as a prize to be taken but she is indigestible.
And, as demographic and economic experts point out, China's one child policy has led to an aging population and a stagnant working age population that faces the so-called middle income trap in which major economic gains are hard to come by for a rising economy. With corruption rampant and political repression on the rise, wealthy Chinese are eager to get their money, their families, and themselves out of China. When the most successful and prosperous people flee a country, one has good cause to question its long term prospects.