HONG KONG — China’s move to raise retirement ages is a starting point to plug gaping pension deficits and bolster a shrinking workforce but more pain lies ahead as the economy slows, making further reforms urgent, say economists and demographers.

Aging populations are a global phenomenon, but the issue is particularly stark in China due to the legacy of its one-child policy, which was in place for three decades and has exacerbated its demographic challenges.

China’s number of births dropped to nine million last year and the United Nations forecasts China’s working-age population will decline by nearly 40% by 2050 from 2010 if fertility rates remain at current levels.

Both older and younger workers have expressed worries about the changes as policy makers grapple with widespread discrepancies between rural and urban pensions, maintaining public stability and high youth unemployment.

“They need to solve the pension problem now because this is when they still have some growth to finance the deficit,” said Alicia Garcia Herrero, Natixis’ chief economist for Asia Pacific.

China’s economic growth rate has slowed from around 8% in the early 2000s to around 5% now and could be as low as 1% after 2035, she said.

Wary of public concerns, Chinese lawmakers fast-tracked the policy without public consultation in September, changing retirement ages that had been set in the 1950s.

Life expectancy in China has risen to 78 years as of 2021 from about 44 in 1960 and projected to exceed 80 by 2050.

Chinese Premier Li Qiang said the reform is a “significant move” to improve China’s social security system and “better safeguard and improve people’s livelihoods,” according to the Xinhua official news agency.

Still, China’s state-led basic pension system is under significant financial pressure.

About one-third of China’s provincial-level jurisdictions are running pension deficits. China’s Academy of Social Sciences has estimated the pension system will run out of money by 2035 without reforms.

Monthly urban pensions range from roughly 3,000 yuan ($425) in less-developed provinces to about 6,000 yuan in Beijing and Shanghai. Rural pensions, introduced nationwide in 2009, are meagre.

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China’s cohort of those aged 60 and older is expected to rise at least 40% to more than 400 million by 2035, equal to the populations of Britain and the United States combined.

Migrant workers, who typically receive poor pensions, continue to work into their older years versus state-sector employees with relatively generous government pensions who have less incentives to opt into the higher retirement ages.

The contribution period needed to receive a pension in China will rise to 20 years from 15, starting in 2030.

Expanding the contribution time frame further “especially in the context of the current state of the gig and informal economy could make it harder for many blue-collar workers to be eligible to receive their pension,” said Stuart Gietel-Basten, professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

The initial fiscal impact from the raising retirement ages will likely be muted because the increases are largely voluntary, said Ernan Cui, China consumer analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics.

“Raising the retirement age may entail only a limited fiscal gain for now… The coming increase will effectively be optional for many workers, though the increase in the minimum contribution period to obtain a pension will not,” she said.

John Wang, an analyst at Moody’s Ratings, said the new legislation could pose a social risk due to China’s demographic challenges and income inequalities.

“Successful implementation of China’s retirement age reforms will depend on managing risks…such as the skill set of the elderly population, the available jobs and their adaptability to developments in technology and innovation.” — Reuters

NEW YORK — The escalation between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah is almost a full-fledged war, the European Union’s (EU) foreign policy chief said on Monday.

“This situation is extremely dangerous and worrying. I can say that we are almost in a full-fledged war,” Josep Borrell told reporters.

“If this is not a war situation, I don’t know what you would call it,” he said, citing the increasing number of civilian casualties and the intensity of military strikes.

Mr. Borrell said efforts to reduce tensions were ongoing, but Europe’s worst fears about a spillover were becoming a reality.

He said civilians were paying a high price and all diplomatic efforts were needed to prevent a full-blown war.

“Here in New York is the moment to do that. Everybody has to put all their capacity to stop this path to war,” he said. — Reuters

WASHINGTON — Incidents of violent crime in the United States fell by 3% last year, including the largest drop in murder in 20 years, while the number of hate crimes rose, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said in an annual report released on Monday.

The report collects crime data from more than 16,000 state and local law enforcement agencies who collectively represent about 85% of the FBI’s crime data reporting program.

The FBI said that murder and non-negligent manslaughter was down about 11.6% while reports of rape decreased by about 9.4%.

The drop in violent crime trends runs counter to claims by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who has repeatedly attacked his Democratic rival Kamala Harris for the Biden administration’s record on crime and safety and claimed without evidence that migrants who cross the border illegally are responsible for a rising tide of violent crime.

President Joseph R. Biden, in a statement, praised the decline in crime, noting his administration’s investments in public safety and executive actions on guns.

“While we have made great progress, we are not stopping now,” Vice-President Harris, a former prosecutor and district attorney in California, said separately. “I am committed to continuing our work to support local law enforcement, invest in proven crime prevention and community violence intervention, and address gun violence with commonsense gun safety laws.”

Mr. Trump has said that if he’s reelected, he would institute the death penalty for human traffickers and drug dealers.

He has also said he does not believe federal statistics like the FBI’s report showing that violent crime trends are declining. FBI officials declined to comment when asked about Trump’s claims in a call with reporters but said the agency’s methodology has been consistent.

“This represents crimes that have been reported to police and to the FBI,” the official said.

Earlier this year, the Pew Research Center looked at crime in the United States using two different sets of data from the Department of Justice.

It found that violent crime in the United States fell 49% between 1993 and 2022. However, violent crime rose sharply during the pandemic, with the murder rate spiking to its largest single year increase on record.

The number of hate crimes reported rose by 2% to 11,862 from 11,634, the report said.

Hate crimes have been on the rise in the United States for several years. The FBI last year reported a surge of 11.6% in 2021 from 2020, with the largest number of incidents spurred by bias against Black people.

Still, an FBI official cautioned that more law enforcement agencies reported hate crimes data to the FBI in 2023 compared with 2022, noting: “This may not reflect the true direction of hate crime.”

Adjusting for those year-to-year fluctuations and using data from agencies with more consistent reporting, it found reported hate crimes fell less than 1% from 10,687 in 2022 to 10,627 in 2023, the official told reporters. — Reuters