Why need people assume that only rising populations are a good thing? Overpopulation is also a problem, as is the possibility of plateauing at an unsustainably high population level. If the prior statements are true, or even considerable, then decreasing population should be considered as possibly being a good thing.
There is a machismo argument think that more babies = better by virtue of being more manly somehow. Frankly, this logic seems misguided and juvenile.
In the discourse I have observed elsewhere there is too much emphasis on how population impacts an infinitely increasing GDP without consideration for the implications of infinite growth for other aspects of life and the definitions of prosperity. In Chinese there is the concept of looking at a given whole system as a bucket of water, and individual focus-areas are wooden planks that make up the sides of the bucket. Short planks limit how much water can go in the bucket, but excessively long planks are just as useless.
Discussing an issue is not the same as insulting the region it impacts. To the best of my knowledge there is not a single industrialised country in the world that is not seeing declining birth rates, so why would discussing the phenomenon as it pertains to China be taken as insulting? Where is the insult? It's the job of moderators to keep things on track, and it works perfectly well in most threads.
Anyway, as I said before, I am in favor of reopening.
