China is becoming an ageing society. But, unlike other ageing societies such as Japan and Germany, it is getting old when its income is still relatively low. In terms of the share of old people in the population, China today looks like Japan at the end of 1980s, but in terms of per-capita gross domestic product, it has just reached the level of Japan in the early 1970s. Japan started more than 20 years of stagnation in the early 1990s, and many people fear that China will follow its footsteps in the next 10 to 20 years.
中國正步入老齡化社會。但和日本和德國等其他老齡化社會不同,中國在收入還相對較低的時候就開始老齡化了。就老年人佔總人口比例而言,當下的中國就像是上世紀80年代末的日本,但就人均國內生產毛額(GDP)而言,中國纔剛剛達到日本在上世紀70年代初的水準。日本在上世紀90年代初開始了持續20多年的停滯,許多人擔憂中國將在接下來的10到20年裏重蹈日本的覆轍。