Demographics and Destiny

China has a population of 1.3 billion and is growing at 0.5% per year.  But the ratio of male to female children is an astounding 1.17.
India has a population of 1.1 billion and is growing 1.2% a year with the ratio at 1.13 to 1.
Pakistan has 190 million and is growing 1.5% a year and has a sex ration of 1.09 to 1.

All three of these countries' demographic trends are unsustainable.  If continued for the next 25 years, China will have 75 million adult men with no hope of finding a female partner.  India will have 60 million.  Pakistan close to 15 million.  That is 150 million frustrated men.  Add in competition for jobs and increasingly scarce resources like water and energy and you have a recipe for conflict.  All three of these nations are nuclear powers.  A war in this part of the world could easily lead to 100 million deaths.

The China bulls think that despite all this and an export-driven, mercantilist economic policy driven by double-digit credit growth, this is the country that will be the world leader in this century.  Maybe they are right, but I have my doubts.  At the very least, there will be some very big bumps in the road.