It’s no longer top of the populations but China still wants to be world No 1 Rana Mitter
Jul 22, 2022
3 minutes
Illustration Dominic McKenzie
![f0045-01](https://article-imgs.scribdassets.com/71nl0vohds9ymdns/images/file6EZKCNXF.jpg)
Last week, the UN’s global population project announced a major shift in the way the world looks. Next year, India, not China, will be the world’s most populous country. Right now, China has 1.43 billion people to India’s 1.41 billion, but by mid-century there will be more than 1.6 billion Indians to around 1.3 billion Chinese.
At one level, this development ought to delight Beijing, which compelled its population into a “one child” policy for 40 years. Yet the idea of China being the most populous society in the world has long been
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