which forbade many chinese couples from having multiple children. from now on, all couples in china will be allowed to have two children. their greatest obstacle was its demographics. it was going to have too few young workers and too many old retirees. this new policy aims to change the country s fate. i remember when the policy was adaopted in the late 1970s. i was growing up in india. and people there were envious. the mentality that produced china and india s family planning policies was understandable. four countries have little money and many mouths to feed. when couples had six or eight or ten children, they were destined
of their country. they have to decide that that future depends on them actually working together and not and not cross-purposes. it s not an an know investigation of america s historic role, a fatalism that says the united states can t affect these regions or the future? the question is not whether we can affect them. i think we can affect them. the question is whether what we do can truly be dispositive in shaping their futures. and i think it s our belief fundamentally that the answer is it s up to the people of the country in question to do that. we can help, we can push, we can produ prod, we can support. but it s not up to us. it comes back to this basic proposition that most of these problems and tensions are not about us. so by definition, there s not
birthrates plunge. world population growth which has averaged nearly 2% per year for decades is now about 1%. in 83 countries comprising nearly half the global population, women are averaging less than two children, which means that couples are not replacing themselves. even in a poor country like india, the fertility rate has plummeted. couples had more than six children on average in 1960, now the average is less than three. the real problem the rich world faces acutely ais a population implosion. only the countries that adapt early to the population implosion will thrive in the baby bust era. he predicts countries will only be able to thrive economically if they become friendly to immigrants or convince their people to have more babies, which is of course much harder.
space within the political system, according to him. we are building the alternative model in tunisia, he told me proudly. tunisia s success story is quite fragile. not quite the fairy tale version that s recounted. they were reluctant to compromise. they left power only because they thought the country would explode if they didn t. key elements of the old guard have returned in force and the place remains fragile with the economy under severe pressure. but most transitions to democracy are marked by bitter struggles. democracy did not come amicably to taiwan or south korea or chile. the dictators resisted fiercely. it s only in retro spect that one can look back and peace calmly of peaceful democratic transitions. tunisia had some distinct advantages that helped it along. in a conversation with the country s head of government, i asked him to explain the
was our firm belief from the experience of the last decade that the most effective and sustainable way to deal with this problem was to have people who were willing to fight for their own country, do the work on the ground with our air support, intelligence, weapons, advice. but people taking back their own country. so in the past year, as a result of these efforts and as a result of much greater coherence among the iraqis special the coalition, the territory that isil controls is down 35% from where it was when the coalition was first formed. thousands of isil members have been killed, much of their material has been destroyed. and in many parts of iraq, they are on their heels, not on their toes. but they re still capable,