This week at Japan Focus

Japan Focus once again offers its usual buffet of left-oriented articles on East Asia. Nothing on Taiwan, but Vaclav Smil's article on China and Japan will offer aid and comfort to those who are bearish on the prospects for those two nations.

The medium variant of the best Japanese projections of the early 2000s expected the peak population in 2006, at 127.74 million (NIPSSR 2002), but the preliminary count of the 2005 census (held on October 1) showed that the total population of 127.76 million was about 19,000 below the estimate for October 2004: apparently, Japan has already entered a long period of depopulation. If there were no dramatic changes in Japan’s fertility (a most likely trend during the coming generation, but a much more uncertain proposition when looking 50 years ahead), the country’s population would decline first slowly, to about 121 million by 2025, then more obviously to about 100 million people by the year 2050 (NIPSSR 2002). For comparison, the latest United Nations (2005) forecast sees only a marginal decline by 2025 (nearly 125 million) and about a total decline to 112 million by 2050. But these differences matter much less than what the absolutes hide: it is virtually certain that by the middle of this century Japan will become the most aged of all aging high-income societies.

Using the medium variant of the latest Japanese projections (NIPSSR 2002), the country’s median age will reach 50 years by 2025 and while in 2005 one out of five people was 65 years or older (the highest share worldwide), by 2025 the share will be nearly 30% and it will reach 35% by 2050. Japan’s age-sex population structure would assume a cudgel-like profile, in contrast to today’s barrel-like shape and the classical pyramid of the early 1950s. The share of adults of economically active age will drop from 66% in 2005 to 53% by 2050 when, astonishingly, about one out of seven people will be 80 years or older. This would mean that there would be more highly aged people (80+) than children (0-14, their 2050 share is projected to be less than 11%), creating the world’s first truly geriatric society (United Nations 2005).

Another terrifying glimpse of the future is given in Asia's Coming Water Wars:

Approximately 20 percent of Asians do not have easy access to water while almost 60 river basins in Asia have been identified as potential flashpoints for inter-state conflict according to a joint study by the United Nations and the University of Oregon. The rapid development, growing populations and long-standing inter-state and internal instabilities in South Asia, Central Asia, and the Mekong Sub-region in Southeast Asia increases the likelihood of water-related conflict in these regions and makes any water-related tensions in these areas of wider regional and potentially global significance.

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H-ASIA

September 6, 2006

This Week in Japan and the Asia Pacific: Japan Focus
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From: mark selden

Dear Colleague,

The following articles have been posted at Japan Focus on August 28,
2006

R. Taggart Murphy, East Asia's Dollars

Tsuneishi Kei-ichi, New Facts about US Payoff to Japan's Biological Warfare Unit 731

Mark Williams, The Democratization of Missile Technology and the Future of War

Chietigj Bajpaee, Asia's Coming Water Wars

You can find these articles at http://japanfocus.org

[snipped]

Focus contact info@japanfocus.org

Mark Selden
ms44@cornell.edu