The United Nations Population Fund's State of World Population Report 2023, released on Wednesday, has projected India to surpass China as the world's most populous country by mid-2023.
Responding to a query on this development, the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Wednesday said that while the demographic dividend of a country depends on the quantity of population, the quality of the population is more important; the scale of high-caliber workforce is more important than the size of the population.
China has a population of more than 1.4 billion, of which nearly 900 million are of working age, and the average number of years of education for the working-age population is 10.9 years, with the new entrants into the workforce having 14 years of education, the ministry noted.
Meanwhile, China has implemented a national strategy to actively respond to the aging population, promoting a three-child policy with supporting measures to actively respond to demographic changes, it added.
"China's demographic dividend has not disappeared, and our talent dividend is in the making. The driving force for China's development remains strong," said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin, quoting Chinese Premier Li Qiang's remarks during a press conference on March 13.
Universal higher education lays foundation for the country's high-quality labor force
China has established the world's largest higher education system with 240 million people having received higher education, the country's Ministry of Education announced last May.
The gross enrollment rate of China's higher education hit 57.8 percent in 2021, compared with 30 percent in 2012. Over 44.3 million students are studying at higher education institutions across the country, it said.
The government has also been investing heavily in education. In 2022, China's fiscal spending on education remained above 4 percent of its GDP for 10 consecutive years, which has laid the foundation for the country's high-quality labor force.
Besides, China has continually deepened the reform of innovation and entrepreneurship education to improve the adaptability of college personnel training and economic and social development. Colleges and universities across the country have tailored more than 30,000 courses and hired 174,000 teachers with professional backgrounds, statistics showed.
Innovation-driven development strategy fosters high-quality talent, boosts future economic growth
Over 10 years into China's innovation-driven development strategy, China saw its ranking in the Global Innovation Index jump from 34th in 2012 to 11th last year, with the economy expanding at an average annual rate of 6.6 percent between 2013 and 2021, contributing over 30 percent to world economic growth.
The country has expanded its research and development (R&D) expenditure from 1 trillion yuan ($145 billion) to 3.09 trillion yuan in the past decade, the second highest in the world, with its R&D intensity rising from 1.91 percent to 2.55 percent, according to the Ministry of Science and Technology.
Furthermore, China has coordinated its innovation blueprint with its strategy for invigorating China through science and education, which underscores development based on progress in science and technology and the workforce development strategy focusing on fostering high-quality talent. Now the country has become home to the largest cohort of R&D personnel around the globe, according to reports from Xinhua News Agency.
Gu Qingyang, a scholar at the National University of Singapore, said the extensive application of China's sci-tech accomplishments not only leads to its domestic industrial upgrading, but also lends impetus to the neighboring areas.
Similarly, at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2023, Saadia Zahidi, the forum's managing director, said that given the size of its economy, China will help boost worldwide growth and inject optimism in the medium and long term.
Urbanization is expected to further drive its economic development
China's urbanization is also expected to have a certain driving force for the country's economic development. The country's urbanization rate of permanent residence hit 64.72 percent in 2021, according to the country's top economic planner.
China has vowed to boost the development of county seats to promote urbanization. The move will help drive the development and modernization of rural areas, and expand domestic consumption and investment, while creating more jobs, said an official with the National Development and Reform Commission.
Negative population growth will not change the expectation that China will become the world's largest economy, said Cai Fang, chief expert of National Think Tank under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
"But we need to grasp the changing population data and the trend it revealed timely and accurately," Cai added.
"Being the world's most populous country doesn't matter that much anymore, nor is India the reference for looking at China's development prospects," said Cai, adding that the key is to maintain economic growth and join the ranks of high-income countries as scheduled.