China is raising its retirement age, now among the youngest in the world’s major economies

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People wait to cross a road near a construction site in Beijing on July 9, 2024. As it grapples with a looming demographic crisis and an older population, China said it would gradually raise its statutory retirement age. (AFP)
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People commute on a train in Shanghai, China, on September 20, 2022. China is grappling with a looming demographic crisis and an older population. (AFP)
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Updated 15 September 2024
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China is raising its retirement age, now among the youngest in the world’s major economies

  • The policy change will be carried out over 15 years, with the retirement age for men raised to 63 years, and for women to 55 or 58 years depending on their jobs
  • The current retirement age is 60 for men and 50 for women in blue-collar jobs and 55 for women doing white-collar work

BEIJING: Starting next year, China will raise its retirement age for workers, which is now among the youngest in the world’s major economies, in an effort to address its shrinking population and aging work force.
The Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, the country’s legislature, passed the new policy Friday after a sudden announcement earlier in the week that it was reviewing the measure, state broadcaster CCTV announced.
The policy change will be carried out over 15 years, with the retirement age for men raised to 63 years, and for women to 55 or 58 years depending on their jobs. The current retirement age is 60 for men and 50 for women in blue-collar jobs and 55 for women doing white-collar work.
“We have more people coming into the retirement age, and so the pension fund is (facing) high pressure. That’s why I think it’s now time to act seriously,” said Xiujian Peng, a senior research fellow at Victoria University in Australia who studies China’s population and its ties to the economy.
The previous retirement ages were set in the 1950’s, when life expectancy was only around 40 years, Peng said.




Elderly people rest at a park in Fuyang in eastern China's Anhui province on September 13, 2024. (AFP)

The policy will be implemented starting in January, according to the announcement from China’s legislature. The change will take effect progressively based on people’s birthdates.
For example, a man born in January 1971 could retire at the age of 61 years and 7 months in August 2032, according to a chart released along with the policy. A man born in May 1971 could retire at the age of 61 years and 8 months in January 2033.
Demographic pressures made the move long overdue, experts say. By the end of 2023, China counted nearly 300 million people over the age of 60. By 2035, that figure is projected to be 400 million, larger than the population of the US The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences had previously projected that the public pension fund will run out of money by that year.
Pressure on social benefits such as pensions and social security is hardly a China-specific problem. The US also faces the issue as analysis shows that currently, the Social Security fund won’t be able to pay out full benefits to people by 2033.
“This is happening everywhere,” said Yanzhong Huang, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations. “But in China with its large elderly population, the challenge is much larger.”
That is on top of fewer births, as younger people opt out of having children, citing high costs. In 2022, China’s National Bureau of Statistics reported that for the first time the country had 850,000 fewer people at the end of the year than the previous year , a turning point from population growth to decline. In 2023, the population shrank further, by 2 million people.




Elderly people chat outside a restaurant along a street in Beijing on March 16, 2023. (AFP)

What that means is that the burden of funding elderly people’s pensions will be divided among a smaller group of younger workers, as pension payments are largely funded by deductions from people who are currently working.
Researchers measure that pressure by looking at a number called the dependency ratio, which counts the number of people over the age of 65 compared to the number of workers under 65. That number was 21.8 percent in 2022, according to government statistics, meaning that roughly five workers would support one retiree. The percentage is expected to rise, meaning fewer workers will be shouldering the burden of one retiree.
The necessary course correction will cause short-term pain, experts say, coming at a time of already high youth unemployment and a soft economy.
A 52-year-old Beijing resident, who gave his family name as Lu and will now retire at age 61 instead of 60, was positive about the change. “I view this as a good thing, because our society’s getting older, and in developed countries, the retirement age is higher,” he said.
Li Bin, 35, who works in the event planning industry, said she was a bit sad.
“It’s three years less of play time. I had originally planned to travel around after retirement,” she said. But she said it was better than expected because the retirement age was only raised three years for women in white-collar jobs.
Some of the comments on social media when the policy review was announced earlier in the week reflected anxiety.
But of the 13,000 comments on the Xinhua news post announcing the news, only a few dozen were visible, suggesting that many others had been censored.
 


Ukraine’s parliament cancels session after Russia fired a new missile

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Ukraine’s parliament cancels session after Russia fired a new missile

  • Three Ukrainian lawmakers confirmed that the parliamentary session previously scheduled was canceled
  • President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office continued to work in compliance with standard security measures
KYIV: Ukraine’s parliament canceled a session on Friday as security was tightened after Russia deployed a new ballistic missile that threatens to escalate the nearly three-year war.
Russian troops also struck Sumy with Shahed drones overnight killing two people and injuring 12 more, the regional administration said Friday morning. The attack targeted a residential district of the city.
Ukraine’s Suspilne media, quoting Sumy regional head Volodymyr Artiukh, said the Russians used Shaheds stuffed with shrapnel elements for the first time in the region. “These weapons are used to destroy people, not to destroy objects,” said Artiukh, according to Suspilne.
Separately, Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky arrived on a visit to Kyiv. He posted a photo from Kyiv’s railway station on his X account Friday morning.
“I am interested in how the Ukrainians are coping with the bombings, how Czech projects are working on the ground and how to better target international aid in the coming months. I will discuss all of this here,” Lipavsky wrote.
Three Ukrainian lawmakers confirmed that the parliamentary session previously scheduled was canceled due to the ongoing threat of Russian missile attacks targeting government buildings in the city center.
Not only is the parliament closed, “there was also recommendation to limit the work of all commercial offices and NGOs that remain in that perimeter, and local residents were warned of the increased threat,” said lawmaker Mykyta Poturaiev, who added this is not the first time such a threat has been received.
President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office continued to work in compliance with standard security measures, a spokesperson said.
Russia on Thursday fired a new intermediate-range ballistic missile in response to Kyiv’s use of US and British longer-range missiles capable of striking deeper into Russian territory, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an address on Thursday.
It struck a missile factory in Dnipro in central Ukraine. Putin warned that US air defense systems would be powerless to stop the new missile, which he said flies at 10 times the speed of sound and which he called Oreshnik – Russian for hazelnut tree.
The Pentagon confirmed that Russia’s missile was a new, experimental type of intermediate-range missile based on its RS-26 Rubezh intercontinental ballistic missile.

Pope Francis to visit French island of Corsica on Dec. 15, local church says

Updated 25 min 57 sec ago
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Pope Francis to visit French island of Corsica on Dec. 15, local church says

  • Short visit to the island’s capital city Ajaccio will mark his 47th foreign trip since becoming pope in 2013
  • Corsica’s population of some 356,000 is estimated by the Vatican as 81.% Catholic

VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis will visit Corsica on Dec. 15, the local diocese said on its website on Thursday, in the first recorded trip of a pope to the French island in the Mediterranean.
The short visit to the island’s capital city Ajaccio, where Francis is expected to speak at a conference on popular religiosity across the Mediterranean region, will mark his 47th foreign trip since becoming pope in 2013.
Corsica, noted for its steep, mountainous terrain and as the birthplace of Napoleon, is the fourth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of France’s poorest regions, with government statistics estimating that about 20 percent of the population lives below the poverty line.
The Vatican did not immediately confirm the local church’s announcement, but the trip is known to have been in preparation for weeks. Francis has made two prior visits to France, traveling to Strasbourg in 2014 to address the European Parliament and the Council of Europe, and to Marseilles in 2023 to attend a meeting of bishops.
But the pope, who turns 88 on Dec. 17, has never made a full state visit to France, a historic stronghold for Catholicism that is now widely secular and home to Europe’s largest Muslim and Jewish communities.
French President Emmanuel Macron invited Francis to come to Paris for the Dec. 8 reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral, but the pope will be leading a ceremony at the Vatican that day to install new Catholic cardinals.
Cardinal Francois-Xavier Bustillo, originally from Spain, has led the Catholic Church in Corsica since 2021. Francis made him a cardinal, the highest rank in the Church below pope, in 2023.
Corsica’s population of some 356,000 is estimated by the Vatican as 81.5 percent Catholic.
Francis has traveled widely around the Mediterranean over his 11-year papacy, visiting Malta, the Greek island of Lesbos and the Italian island of Lampedusa.


Record 281 aid workers killed in 2024, says UN, with 1 month left

Updated 7 min 47 sec ago
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Record 281 aid workers killed in 2024, says UN, with 1 month left

  • 280 humanitarians were killed across 33 countries during all of 2023

Geneva: A staggering 281 aid workers have been killed around the world so far this year, making 2024 the deadliest year for humanitarians, the UN aid chief said Friday.
“Humanitarian workers are being killed at an unprecedented rate, their courage and humanity being met with bullets and bombs,” said Tom Fletcher, the United Nations’ new under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator.
With more than a month left to go of 2024, the “grim milestone was reached,” he said, after 280 humanitarians were killed across 33 countries during all of 2023.
“This violence is unconscionable and devastating to aid operations,” Fletcher said.
Israel’s devastating war in Gaza was driving up the numbers, his office said, with 333 aid workers killed there — most from the UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees, UNRWA — since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 attacks, which sparked the war.
“States and parties to conflict must protect humanitarians, uphold international law, prosecute those responsible, and call time on this era of impunity,” Fletcher said.
Aid workers were subject to kidnappings, injuries, harassment and arbitrary detention in a range of countries, his office said, including Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, and Ukraine.
The majority of deaths involve local staff working with non-governmental organizations, UN agencies and the Red Cross Red Crescent movement, Fletcher’s office said.
“Violence against humanitarian personnel is part of a broader trend of harm to civilians in conflict zones,” it warned.
“Last year, more than 33,000 civilian deaths were recorded in 14 armed conflicts — a staggering 72 percent increase from 2022.”
The UN Security Council adopted a resolution last May in response to the surging violence and threats against aid workers.
The text called for recommendations from the UN chief — set to be presented at a council meeting next week — on measures to prevent and respond to such incidents and to increase protection for humanitarian staff and accountability for abuses.


Russia says ‘derailed’ Kyiv’s war plans after uproar over test strike

Updated 22 November 2024
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Russia says ‘derailed’ Kyiv’s war plans after uproar over test strike

  • Vladimir Putin says the conflict in Ukraine had taken on a ‘global’ nature
  • NATO and Ukraine will hold talks next week in Brussels over the strike

KYIV: Russia said on Friday it had scuppered Kyiv’s military objectives for 2025 just after President Vladimir Putin issued a warning to the West by test-firing a new intermediate-range missile at Ukraine.
That assessment for next year came after a Russian drone attack at night on the eastern Ukrainian city of Sumy killed two civilians and wounded a dozen more in an attack with new cluster munitions, local authorities said.
Putin announced the missile launch in a defiant address late on Thursday, saying the conflict in Ukraine had taken on a “global” nature, while hinting at strikes on Western countries.
In a meeting with military commanders, Russian defense minister Andrei Belousov said Moscow’s advance had “accelerated” in Ukraine and “ground down” Kyiv’s best units.
“We have, in fact, derailed the entire 2025 campaign,” Belousov said of the Ukrainian army in a video published by the Russian defense ministry.
The attack, which apparently targeted an aerospace manufacturing plant in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, sparked immediate condemnation from Kyiv’s allies.
China, which has thrown its political clout behind the Kremlin, reiterated calls for “calm” and “restraint” by all parties after Russia confirmed the new missile strike.
“All parties should remain calm and exercise restraint, work to de-escalate the situation through dialogue and consultation, and create conditions for an early ceasefire,” foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian told a regular briefing.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz meanwhile, on Friday described Russia’s deployment of the medium-range missile as a “terrible escalation.”
NATO and Ukraine will hold talks next week in Brussels over the strike, according to diplomats.
Ambassadors from countries in the NATO-Ukraine Council will hold talks on Tuesday. The meeting was called by Kyiv following the Dnipro strike, officials said.
The Russian attack came after Ukraine recently fired US- and UK-supplied missiles at Russian territory for the first time, escalating already sky-high tensions over the conflict, which is nearly in its third year.
Washington said it had granted Kyiv permission to fire long-range weapons at Russian territory as a response to the Kremlin’s deployment of thousands of North Korean troops on Ukraine’s border.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for a strong response from world leaders to Russia’s use of the new missile, which he said proved Moscow “does not want peace.”
In Kyiv, Oleksandra, a 30-year-old resident working in the media, said the Russian strike was a sign of desperation within the Kremlin.
“You could have launched a missile that is less expensive and have the same result. As long as this missile does not carry a nuclear payload, there is nothing to fear about,” she said.
Russian troops have been making steady advances in eastern Ukraine for months, capturing a string of small towns and villages from overstretched Ukrainian soldiers lacking manpower and artillery.
In the city of Sumy, authorities said a Russian drone had struck a residential neighborhood. Emergency services distributed images showing rescue workers retrieving the bodies of the dead from the rubble.
Sumy lies across the border from Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukrainian troops captured swathes of territory after launching a major ground offensive in August.
The head of the Sumy region, Volodymyr Artyukh, said Russia had deployed a drone with modified munitions that were equipped with shrapnel, describing the weapons as being “used to kill people, not to destroy buildings.”


Indian commandos kill 10 Maoist rebels

Updated 22 November 2024
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Indian commandos kill 10 Maoist rebels

  • More than 10,000 people have died in the decades-long insurgency waged by the Naxalite movement
  • Gunbattle took place in a remote forested area of Chhattisgarh state, the heartland of the insurgency

RAIPUR, India: Indian security forces gunned down at least 10 Maoist rebels on Friday during a firefight, police said, as New Delhi steps up efforts to crush the long-running armed conflict.
More than 10,000 people have died in the decades-long insurgency waged by the Naxalite movement, who say they are fighting for the rights of marginalized Indigenous people of India’s remote and resource-rich central regions.
The gunbattle took place in a remote forested area of Chhattisgarh state, the heartland of the insurgency.
“Dead bodies of 10 Maoists have been recovered so far,” Vivekanand Sinha, chief of the state police’s anti-Maoist operations, said.
Sinha said the police recovered several automatic weapons from the rebels.
India’s home minister Amit Shah this year issued an ultimatum to the insurgents to surrender or face an “all-out assault.”
A crackdown by security forces has killed over 200 rebels this year, an overwhelming majority in Chhattisgarh, according to government data.
India has deployed tens of thousands of security personnel to battle the Maoists across the insurgent-dominated “Red Corridor,” which stretches across central, southern and eastern states but has shrunk dramatically in size.
India has pumped millions of dollars into infrastructure development in remote areas and claims to have confined the insurgency to 45 districts in 2023, down from 96 in 2010.
The conflict has seen a number of deadly attacks on government forces over the years. Twenty-two police and paramilitaries were killed in a gunbattle with the far-left guerrillas in 2021.
Sixteen commandos were also killed in the western state of Maharashtra in a bomb attack that was blamed on the Maoists in the lead-up to national elections in 2019.