China's working age population peaked in 2014 and has declined since.  Their overall population peaked perhaps last year and is set for a rapid decline.  Chinese university demographers quoted in the South China Monring Post earlier this year state that China will lose "half a billion, yes billion with a b, from their population by the "middle of this century".  The fertility rate for China is 1.69 or so overall, but in northern China the fertility rate is only 0.5.  One child is born for every four adults, the lowest in the world.  The replacement fertility rate is around 2.1 or perhaps greater in societies with higher death rates.  These demographic trends will cut the knees out from under China's economic growth.  The proportion of elderly in the total population will grow leaving fewer workers to support more non-working elderly.  China won't  have the resources to support its elderly.  Unlike some western countries China is not a nation that attracts many immigrants who could conceivably fill the jobs left open by a declinging working age population and add some youth to the population.  In a couple of decades an elderly gray dragon won't look so fearsome.