The Chinese president’s visit to Britain this week provided a great opportunity to talk about better bilateral trade links and China’s human rights record. But I hope Tony Blair also was able, at some point, to talk about China’s extraordinary demographics – something which could shape the country’s destiny over the coming decades.

One reason for China’s stellar growth is that it is at a demographic sweet-spot. The massive reduction in infant mortality achieved by China’s barefoot doctors in the 1960s and 1970s is now yielding a surge of young workers – an extra 10m working-age adults per year. China’s challenge now is just to absorb them into the labour force. Add to that the massive population flow from the countryside and you can see why wages are low and growth is so fast. There are few pensioners and there are not many children either. The rabbit is indeed in the middle of the python.