Strings of Clicks.

The phonetic alphabet of whales.

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1. Nick Eberstadt:

In the decades immediately ahead, East Asia will experience perhaps the modern world’s most dramatic demographic shift. All of the region’s main states—China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan—are about to enter into an era of depopulation, in which they will age dramatically and lose millions of people. According to projections from the Population Division of the UN Department of Economic Social Affairs, China’s and Japan’s populations are set to fall by eight percent and 18 percent, respectively, between 2020 and 2050. South Korea’s population is poised to shrink by 12 percent. And Taiwan’s will go down by an estimated eight percent. The U.S. population, by contrast, is on track to increase by 12 percent.

People—human numbers and the potential they embody—are essential to state power. All else being equal, countries with more people have more workers, bigger economies, and a larger pool of potential soldiers. As a result, growing countries find it much easier to augment power and extend influence abroad. Shrinking ones, by contrast, struggle to maintain their sway.

East Asian countries will be no exception: the realm of the possible for its states will be radically constricted by the coming population drop. They will find it harder to generate economic growth, accumulate investments, and build wealth; to fund their social safety nets; and to mobilize their armed forces. They will face mounting pressure to cope with domestic or internal challenges. Accordingly, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan will be prone to look inward. China, meanwhile, will face a growing—and likely unbridgeable—gap between its ambitions and capabilities. (Sources: aei.org, foreignaffairs.com)

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2. Around 20 percent of people aged 65 years and over in Japan will suffer from dementia by 2060, the government said Wednesday, highlighting the need to expand nursing care and strengthen preventative measures amid the graying of the country's population. The ratio of 1 in every 5.6 individuals in the age group means 6.45 million people will be suffering from dementia by 2060, a reduction from 8.5 million estimated in the previous study in 2015, which is reflective of improved diets, giving up smoking and other lifestyle changes, according to the health ministry. (Source: asia.nikkei.com)