Last updated Nov 29, 2025
Prediction
Chamath
Chamath @ 01:09:31Inconclusive
economy
Chamath predicts that China’s demographic problems will significantly diminish its economic strength, with the negative economic impact becoming strongly exacerbated over the next 10–15 years (roughly 2023–2038).
China. Unfortunately for them, have has a huge demographic problem that will diminish them economically and you're already starting to see it, but it's going to get really exacerbated in the next 10 or 15 years. That's just a mathematical reality for a country that has literally zero immigration and no solution.View on YouTube
Explanation

The prediction is explicitly about long‑term demographic effects on China’s economic strength over “the next 10 or 15 years” from 2023, i.e. roughly 2033–2038, not 2024–2025. As of today (Nov 30, 2025), we are only ~2.5 years into that 10–15 year window.

What we can already see:

  • China’s population has begun to shrink, with official data showing its first population decline in decades in 2022 and further decline in 2023, and a rapidly aging population.
  • Numerous demographic and economic analyses (UN, World Bank, IMF, various demographers) project continued aging, low fertility, and a shrinking workforce, all of which could weigh on growth over the next few decades.

However, Chamath’s claim is not just that demographics are a headwind (which is already well established), but that they will “diminish them economically” in a strongly exacerbated way over the next 10–15 years. Whether that level of economic diminishment occurs, relative to other countries and relative to plausible counterfactuals, cannot yet be judged in 2025.

Because the forecast period runs out to at least 2033 and up to 2038, and no part of the prediction has been clearly falsified (nor fully confirmed) this early, the correct status is inconclusive (too early).