Big picture: China's births might hit a record low this year, deepening its demographic crisis. Academics admit births could fall to 7 million, with profound implications for the world's second-largest economy.
By the numbers:
* Estimated births in 2023: 6 million to 8 million.
* Drop in births over the past five
Replacement rate for people.
Unsustainable resource extraction rates is another problem that nations like China are working hard to mitigate. In general, unsustainable consumption is a problem inherent to capitalism and the ways it distributes resources and rewards waste.
It must also be said that Malthusianism was never meant to be an accurate theory of the relationship between population and resource use, and has never made an accurate prediction of reality.