Manchuria

[eiladayn]

At the current rate of increase our population doubles worldwide every 35 years (population is growing at 2% per year or was the last figures I saw). Accordingly wouldn't Manchuria's have doubled 8 times by 2300?

Of course you have to take into account how many died in the nuclear exchange in 2300's future history.

Pappy

[Anthony]

Rate of increase is falling fairly rapidly worldwide; stable or even declining population is possible. The economics of high tech society don't favor large families.

[BMonnery]

Originally posted by eiladayn:
At the current rate of increase our population doubles worldwide every 35 years (population is growing at 2% per year or was the last figures I saw). Accordingly wouldn't Manchuria's have doubled 8 times by 2300?

Of course you have to take into account how many died in the nuclear exchange in 2300's future history.

Pappy

It's not even. Japan, for example, is falling in population and is expected to stabilise at about 100 million. Italy will stabilise at ~30 million, having halved the population. China ISTR is also falling and in 20 years India will be themost populous state.

The big increases are ISTR in India, Africa and South America.

Bryn

[rfmcdpei]

True enough about population trends, although the current predictions of impending demographic decline should be taken with salt--it wasn't that long ago that people were predicting a natural stabilization of fertility rates around at replacement levels, and not much longer ago before that when people were predicting a decline of the French population by a third over 1930-2000 (versus robust 50% growth).

As things stand, 2300AD has described a recovery of population in the worst-affected areas of the Twilight War in Europe to levels roughly one-quarter above pre-Twilight levels--100M versus 80M Germans, 50M versus 40M Poles, 70M versus 50M Ukrainians (in greater frontiers). This recovery, taking place over three centuries in societies not particularly demographically resilient, could well have accelerated still more and reached greater heights in an area like Manchuria with a basically Third World demography.

As for imbalances in population relative to the present day, Britain's population, now roughly equivalent to that of France and Italy, was once much smaller than either--in 1700, there were only 5M English versus 50M English now. Having, say, 800-1000M people in Manchuria versus the ~300M living there now wouldn't be much of a stretch, IMO.

[BMonnery]

Originally posted by Randy McDonald:
True enough about population trends, although the current predictions of impending demographic decline should be taken with salt--it wasn't that long ago that people were predicting a natural stabilization of fertility rates around at replacement levels, and not much longer ago before that when people were predicting a decline of the French population by a third over 1930-2000 (versus robust 50% growth).

As things stand, 2300AD has described a recovery of population in the worst-affected areas of the Twilight War in Europe to levels roughly one-quarter above pre-Twilight levels--100M versus 80M Germans, 50M versus 40M Poles, 70M versus 50M Ukrainians (in greater frontiers). This recovery, taking place over three centuries in societies not particularly demographically resilient, could well have accelerated still more and reached greater heights in an area like Manchuria with a basically Third World demography.

As for imbalances in population relative to the present day, Britain's population, now roughly equivalent to that of France and Italy, was once much smaller than either--in 1700, there were only 5M English versus 50M English now. Having, say, 800-1000M people in Manchuria versus the ~300M living there now wouldn't be much of a stretch, IMO.

112m Brits vs 70m
108m Germans vs 80m
37m Ukrainians vs 50m
212m Americans vs 270m
1,271.3m Africans vs 719m

Nowhere else has a 13 fold increase.

Of course the real answer is someone doubled the Chinese population and applied it to Manchuria alone....

Bryn

[Pompe]

The may very well be the reason for the 2.7 billion figure, but it still don't justify 270 million Manchurians in 2300AD.

If what GDW _meant_ was to take _double_ the Manchurian population (but they took the entire Chinese by mistake), the present day 270 million figure suggested for 2300AD is definitely wrong too.

Manhcuria would have _double_ that number, or 550-600 million inhabitants. I don't see how the argumentation adds up to the 270 million people at all following that line of reasoning.

[rfmcdpei]

Azania's population, at 266.3 million, represents a sixfold increase over South Africa's current population of some 40 to 42 million. (Namibia and Botswana are also shown as Azanian, but they have four million people between them at most.) Terran Brazil's population is also twice that of modern-day Brazil, while the Incan Republic has 83.4M people living in its component territories now. Djibouti and Guyana, in the French Empire, have experienced massive population growth.

There is definitely a trend, in 2300AD material, for countries in the Third World to experience more population growth over the three centuries after the Twilight War than First or Second World countries, perhaps because of higher birth rates to start with. It seems quite possible to me that Manchuria could experience the same amount of population growth as Azania relative to pre-Twilight levels, taking the population to something short of 1000M people.

[Pompe]

Other examples of large population growth

Spain in 2300AD: 75 million (doubled compared with today)
Scandinavia: 44 million (doubled)
Argentina: 67 million (more than double)
Burma: 96 million (2.5x)
Bolivia: 20 million (tripled)
Chile: 38 million (tripled)
Georgia: 15 million (tripled)
East Africa: 579 million (4.5x)
Mozambique: 123 million (8x - close to Manchuria's 9x, in fact)

And the Award for greatest canonical population growth, not Manchuria's growth from 300 million to 2.7 billion, but:

Central Asian Republic: Today approx 50-60 million (depending on how much of Siberia is in), in 2300AD: 1.3 billion people. At least an 20x increase, versus Manchurias relatively puny 9x.

[rfmcdpei]

The Central Asian Republic's numbers can be discounted as rather too high--shifting a decimal place really would make sense. For starters, where would all the water come from? I'd feel comfortable following James Boschma in reducing the CAR's population to a tenth of what it's listed in EC/S.

[Murph]

I look at Manchuria as one of the major players in MTU. I think the canon underestimates the technological base of the Manchurians.