当前，全球人口结构深度调整，技术变革加速演进，大国战略竞争日益激烈。在此背景下，中国如何应对人口转型带来的长期挑战，并在“十五五”时期构建适应21世纪竞争格局的社会基础设施，成为观察中国发展模式转型的关键议题。

对此，国产成人直播-国产性爱直播 蒙克副教授在《中国日报》发表文章，阐释了社会投资对于人口韧性、人力资本积累、国内需求扩大和国家长期竞争力的重要意义，指出中国应从补偿性福利的“被动应对”进一步走向生产性社会投资的“主动塑造”，将社会政策从“软政策”重塑为国家适应能力的“硬支撑”，为高质量发展和国家治理现代化夯实基础。

蒙克 国产成人直播-国产性爱直播 社会组织与社会治理研究所所长、长聘副教授

以下为文章原文及中文译文：

（China Daily 报道原文请点击文末“阅读原文”查看）

Hardest policy of all

By Meng Ke | China Daily Global

Social investment as outlined in China’s 15th Five-Year Plan is the strategic infrastructure for the 21st century

China’s 2026 two sessions of the National People’s Congress and the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference sent a signal that much of the world missed. Amid the usual attention to GDP targets and industrial policy, the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) has quietly elevated “investing in people”, social security, demographic resilience and human capital to the level of a strategic priority. Most foreign commentary dismissed this as boilerplate. It was anything but.

The most critical challenge for China’s long-term development may not be external factors such as the United States’ tariffs, semiconductor export controls or intensifying strategic pressure. It lies in domestic demographic shifts hiding in plain sight: the decline of fertility, the rapid aging of the population and the growing strain on the social foundations of long-term development. Most commentary treats social policy as a secondary matter, something to be addressed after the hard business of geopolitical competition is settled. But the 15th Five-Year Plan’s social investments are redefining social infrastructure for national resilience in an era of systemic competition, technological disruption and demographic transition.

The focus on human capital differs fundamentally from 20th-century welfare that was designed to compensate citizens for market risk: unemployment insurance, pensions and healthcare as safety nets against the shocks of industrial capitalism. What China’s 15th Five-Year Plan envisions is something different: a productive social infrastructure that generates the human capital, adaptive capacity and domestic demand on which a nation’s true competitiveness depends. Education, healthcare and social security are the strategic investments in the workforce, the consumer base and the innovative capacity that will determine whether a nation thrives or stagnates in the age of artificial intelligence and an aging population.

The cautionary evidence is already available. Japan’s three decades of demographic stagnation indicate the complex challenges a nation must navigate while restructuring its labor markets and care economy. The US’ experience since the 1980s demonstrates how the erosion of social investment, rising inequality and a hollowed-out middle class can undermine domestic cohesion. These are grave lessons to draw from.

China is navigating a significant demographic transition. Births fell by 17 percent in 2025, to just 7.92 million, less than half the number recorded in 2016. The total fertility rate is around 1, by World Bank estimates, among the lowest in the world. The population shrank by 3.4 million last year, and the working-age cohort has been contracting since 2012. On some projections, China’s working-age population could fall by roughly 240 million by 2050. By mid-century, roughly 30 percent of China’s population could be 65 or older, implying an even larger above-60 population. Successfully managing this demographic shift to maintain long-term growth will be a key societal undertaking.

The instinct of many governments confronting this challenge is to throw money at the problem: baby bonuses, tax breaks, subsidized childcare. The results, in China and elsewhere, have been negligible. Cash transfers do not work when the underlying institutional structure forces young people into a binary choice between career and family. As comparative evidence from French, Scandinavian and German post-2007 reforms suggests, comprehensive institutional architecture such as universal early childhood education, flexible labor markets, shared parental leave and public care systems can allow citizens to combine productive work with family life. The goal is not merely to raise birth rates. It is to build a society whose members can simultaneously contribute to economic output, raise the next generation and sustain the consumer demand that drives innovation and industrial upgrading.

This reframing, from compensatory welfare to productive social investment, also transforms how we understand the 15th Five-Year Plan’s emphasis on expanding domestic demand. The goal is not simply “sustaining consumption”. It is to shape a high-quality domestic market that can drive innovation, upgrade supply chains and reduce external dependency. When households have income security, affordable healthcare and confidence in their children’s future, they spend, invest and take entrepreneurial risks. Social infrastructure and market dynamism become complementary.

This is where the full significance of the two sessions’ signals becomes clear. The 15th Five-Year Plan integrates physical and human capital investment. Its emphasis on income growth for low-income groups, its strategic national response to population aging and its commitment to high-quality development and new quality productive forces are the components of what might be called systemic adaptive capacity, that is, a society’s ability to withstand long-term strategic competition, technological shocks and industrial transitions without fracturing. Building this capacity is the 21st-century equivalent of what postwar welfare states achieved in the 20th century, but the instrument is forward-looking investment in human potential, not backward-looking compensation for market failure.

But recognition is not the same as execution. The most critical challenge China faces is not the design of individual policies but their integration. Automation and artificial intelligence can partially compensate for a shrinking workforce, but only if they are accompanied by massive investment in worker retraining and lifelong education. Pension reform is urgently necessary to address the fiscal pressures of rapid aging, but it must not undermine the consumer confidence that Beijing is simultaneously trying to build. Industrial policy aimed at technological self-reliance requires not just engineering talent but a broader ecosystem of social trust, institutional credibility and citizen well-being that sustains public support for long-term investments.

Nations cannot sustain strategic ambitions on brittle social foundations. Military power, technological prowess and economic scale are all necessary but insufficient conditions for durable influence. What distinguishes the states that thrive in periods of systemic competition is their capacity to build adaptive social infrastructure, not as charity, not as a political concession, but as the productive foundation on which everything else depends.

China’s 15th Five-Year Plan represents an ambitious attempt to build precisely this kind of infrastructure. Whether it will succeed depends on execution: on whether the vision of “investing in people” translates into the deep institutional reforms required in labor markets, in the care economy, in the relationship between work and family life, and in the distribution of opportunity across regions and generations. The stakes are not merely domestic. In a world where the foundations are shifting, the quality of a nation’s social infrastructure may prove to be its most durable competitive advantage. Social policy is not soft policy. It is, and has always been, the hardest policy of all.

中国“十五五”规划所擘画的社会投资，是面向21世纪的战略性基础设施

中国2026年全国两会传递出一个被世界许多人忽视的信号。在外界照例将注意力集中于GDP目标和产业政策之时，“十五五”规划（2026—2030年）已经悄然将“投资于人”、社会保障、人口韧性和人力资本提升到战略优先事项的高度。多数外国评论将其视为套话。然而，事实绝非如此。

中国长期发展面临的最关键挑战，可能并不是美国关税、半导体出口管制或日益加剧的战略压力等外部因素，而是在眼前却容易被忽视的国内人口结构变化：生育率下降、人口快速老龄化，以及支撑长期发展的社会基础所承受的压力不断增加。多数评论将社会政策视为次要问题，似乎只有在地缘政治竞争这一核心议题得到解决之后，才需要处理社会政策。然而，“十五五”规划中的社会投资，正在系统性竞争、技术冲击和人口转型的时代，重新定义国家韧性所依托的社会基础设施。

对人力资本的关注，从根本上不同于20世纪为补偿公民市场风险而设计的福利制度：失业保险、养老金和医疗保障，都是工业资本主义冲击之下的安全网。中国“十五五”规划所设想的，是截然不同的东西：一种生产性的社会基础设施，用以积累国家真正竞争力所依赖的人力资本、适应能力和国内需求。教育、医疗和社会保障，是对劳动力、消费群体和创新能力的战略性投资，它们将决定一个国家在人工智能和人口老龄化时代究竟是繁荣还是停滞。

警示性的证据已经摆在面前。日本三十年的人口停滞表明，一个国家在重塑劳动力市场和照护经济时必须面对极其复杂的挑战。美国自20世纪80年代以来的经验则表明，社会投资的削弱、不平等的加剧以及中产阶级的空心化，都会侵蚀国内凝聚力。这些都是应当认真汲取的沉重教训。

中国正在经历一场重大的人口转型。2025年，中国出生人口下降17%，仅为792万人，不到2016年出生人口的一半。根据世界银行估算，中国总和生育率约为1，处于全球最低水平之列。去年，中国人口减少了340万人，劳动年龄人口自2012年以来持续收缩。根据一些预测，到2050年，中国劳动年龄人口可能减少约2.4亿。到本世纪中叶，中国约30%的人口可能达到65岁及以上，这也意味着60岁以上人口规模将更加庞大。成功应对这一人口转型并维持长期增长，将是一项关键的社会任务。

面对这一挑战，许多政府的本能反应是向问题“砸钱”：发放育儿补贴、提供税收减免、补贴托育服务。然而，无论是在中国还是其他国家，这些措施的效果都十分有限。当底层制度结构迫使年轻人在事业与家庭之间进行二选一时，现金转移并不能真正发挥作用。法国、北欧国家以及德国2007年后改革的比较证据表明，普惠性的早期儿童教育、灵活的劳动力市场、父母共同参与的育儿假和公共照护体系等综合性制度架构，可以使公民同时兼顾生产性劳动与家庭生活。目标并不只是提高出生率，而是建设一个让社会成员能够同时贡献经济产出、养育下一代，并维持推动创新和产业升级所需消费需求的社会。

从补偿性福利到生产性社会投资的这一重新定性，也改变了我们理解“十五五”规划中扩大内需目标的方式。目标并不只是“维持消费”，而是塑造一个能够驱动创新、升级供应链并降低外部依赖的高质量国内市场。当家庭拥有收入保障、负担得起的医疗服务，并且对孩子的未来抱有信心时，他们才会消费、投资并承担创业风险。社会基础设施与市场活力由此成为相互补充的关系。

正是在这里，两会信号的完整意义变得清晰起来。“十五五”规划将物质资本投资与人力资本投资有机结合。它强调提高低收入群体收入，强调从国家层面战略性应对人口老龄化，强调高质量发展和新质生产力，这些共同构成了可称为“系统性适应能力”的整体——即一个社会在长期战略竞争、技术冲击和产业转型中承受压力而不发生断裂的能力。建设这种能力，是21世纪对20世纪战后福利国家使命的传承与超越；但其工具并不是对市场失灵进行事后补偿，而是面向人的潜能进行前瞻性投资。

然而，认识到问题并不等于能够执行政策。中国面临的最关键挑战，并不是单项政策的设计，而是不同政策之间的整合。自动化和人工智能可以在一定程度上弥补劳动力收缩，但前提是它们必须与大规模劳动者再培训和终身教育投资相配合。养老金改革对于应对快速老龄化带来的财政压力而言十分紧迫，但它不能削弱政府同时试图建立的消费信心。以技术自立为目标的产业政策，不仅需要工程技术人才，也需要一个由社会信任、制度公信力和公民福祉构成的更广泛生态系统，以维持公众对长期投资的支持。

社会基础脆弱的国家，无法维系其战略雄心。军事力量、技术能力和经济规模都是必要条件，但并不足以支撑持久影响力。在系统性竞争时期，真正能够脱颖而出的国家，其关键区别在于是否有能力建设适应性的社会基础设施。这种基础设施不是慈善，不是政治让步，而是其他一切赖以存在的生产性基础。

中国“十五五“规划正代表着一次雄心勃勃的尝试：建设这样一种基础设施。它能否成功，取决于执行；取决于“投资于人”的愿景，能否转化为劳动力市场、照护经济、工作与家庭生活关系以及跨地区、跨代际机会分配方面所需要的深层制度改革。其利害远不止于国内，在底层格局深刻重塑的世界中，一个国家社会基础设施的质量，可能会成为其最持久的竞争优势。社会政策并非“软政策”，它是所有政策中最硬、也最难啃的骨头。

来源丨China Daily

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