An excerpt from the GTA Member Webinar on April 4, 2025.
Transcript edited for print.
A Nation in Decline
Here’s the bigger problem: China’s birth rate is plummeting at an accelerating rate. It keeps dropping, despite government incentives. The population has now declined three years in a row. A severely aging society is expected by 2035. And marriage rates have dropped over 30%, hitting their lowest since 1986.
And we’re seeing a drastic slowdown in China’s economy as a result—a reversal of rapid economic growth. Chinese GDP is not only slowing down, it’s actually shrinking relative to the U.S. We’re also seeing resource depletion—shortages in key resources like water, energy, and arable land. There’s mounting debt, capital inefficiency, demographic challenges, domestic repression, and centralization. We’re seeing increasing political repression and censorship.
The legacy of the one-child policy has resulted in a dramatically aging population. Add to that geopolitical isolation and trade barriers, and an aggressive military buildup. But the biggest thing I’m seeing here is an empty China.
The Vanishing Population
International observers, people making YouTube videos, Chinese citizens, ex-government officials, and whistleblowers—they’re all now observing that China is imploding. Beneath the surface of the state-controlled CCP message, tens (if not hundreds) of millions of Chinese citizens appear to be missing from population records.
This isn’t just a demographic irregularity—it signals a profound crisis. It’s a plutonium phenomenon, symbolizing a descent into the collective shadow, where systemic denial is colliding with an emerging, undeniable truth about China’s national identity.
Data, AI, and a New Reality
There’s now a convergence of data: personal accounts, localized government reports, and advanced AI analytics. All of it indicates that China’s real population may now be closer to 700 million—sharply deviating from the official claim of 1.4 billion in 2019. That’s a massive discrepancy.
And it coincides with a powerful astrological alignment: Pluto transiting China’s natal ascendant and conjoining its natal moon. That reconfiguration happens only once every 147 years. This denotes transformation through crisis, collapse, and eventually, regeneration.
Two Drivers of Collapse
Now, two central factors contributed to this crisis. First, the lingering demographic effects of the one-child policy—totally disrupted the age and gender distribution and hollowed out many rural communities. Second, the underreported death toll from COVID-19. After China abruptly ended its zero-COVID policy in December 2022, there was a surge in fatalities.
Because transparent mortality data is lacking, Chinese technologists turned to AI to estimate the casualties. They used Grok III, a high-level AI from Elon Musk’s xAI. Analysts input consumption data, GDP changes, and national holiday travel behavior. Based on that AI modeling, conservative estimates suggest 150 to 200 million deaths occurred between 2020 and 2023. When you adjust for the CCP’s inflated data, some experts estimate the real number could be 400 to 500 million deaths.
My Own Research Findings
Let me share what I found in my research. I went into the AI systems and ran my own analyses. Looking at birth registries versus current population cohorts, it shows that 5% of Chinese individuals aged 35 to 44 are missing from the population. Even if we use the lower figure—say, 1.2 billion people—that’s still a lot. Then 20% of citizens aged 65 to 74 are unaccounted for. And 6% of those aged 55 to 64 have vanished from public records.
These patterns show this is more than just demographic aging—it reflects a collapse of life expectancy and generational continuity.
China’s Image Crisis
And a big thing driving this is a recent eclipse on China’s sun. Astrologically, Pluto on the Ascendant represents a national image crisis. The Ascendant is how a country presents itself, its persona. Pluto transiting that point means the collapse of the CCP’s polished image—the facade dissolves, and a darker truth emerges.
Here’s a quote from my old mundane astrology course: “A nation’s identity is forged or reforged by profound upheavals. The national psyche can become obsessed with power, survival, or even mastery.” In this case, we’re talking about survival.
So the once polished image of the world’s next superpower—China, with its economic muscle and civil control—is starting to implode. It’s fracturing. That’s hitting both domestic morale and international perception.
Pluto and the Moon: Trauma and Repression
And Pluto conjunct the Moon? That’s collective trauma. It represents societal disorientation. The Moon in a national chart stands for the people, the land, the emotional landscape—the health and soul of the nation. Pluto’s transit over the Moon brings psychological repression, physical disease, mass mortality, and existential crisis.
Here’s another quote I use when Pluto transits the Moon: “Nationwide healing or catharsis can happen after traumatic events… Collective fears or obsessions can grip the population.”
So this whole configuration directly matches what we’re seeing now—a national psyche grappling with repressed grief, vanishing communities, and a government that won’t acknowledge the full scale of suffering.
A Hidden Catastrophe of Historic Scale
And it’s not just the Chinese government. Many outside observers also don’t want to believe how many people died in China. But if we’re right—if Grok’s numbers are even close—more people died in China than during the Black Death in 1346 to 1348.
Back then, around 50 to 100 million people were alive in Europe. The plague killed 50% of them. In Mongolia and China, 60% died. The Middle East, Turkey, Constantinople—Istanbul—same thing. So we’re talking 50 to 60 million deaths. If the Grok numbers are right, China’s losses far exceed that. That’s what’s important. That’s what we need to keep in mind.
Confronting the Empty Spaces
As more people start to face the unexplained absence of loved ones—friends, neighbors—we’re seeing psychological fallout, like a kind of national nuclear fallout. A national awakening. A national crisis.
This awakening is happening in real time. While some still cling to the state narrative—you’ll always have the blue-pill people, right? Not just in the U.S. or Western Europe. Think Macron voters, Kamala voters—you have that in China, too. But many others are starting to question the long-standing assumption that China still has 1.2 to 1.4 billion people.
A foreign resident in Guangdong said, “I’ve lived here since the 2000s. I’ve never seen it this empty. It feels haunted.”
And that emptiness isn’t just demographic. It’s psychological. It’s cultural. It’s very real.
Pluto’s Reckoning
Astrologically, Pluto forces you to face the truth. When Pluto comes into your life, you’re going to have a come-to-Jesus moment. You’ll be forced to confront suppressed realities—the stark truths in front of you.
The Chinese populace is on the brink of that reckoning. That’s why I’m not so confident the Chinese government will survive this. Pluto’s mandate is destruction… followed by rebirth.
So when we look at this through that lens—Pluto impacting China’s Ascendant and Moon—we can see anticipated outcomes. A complete unraveling of the demographic structure built by the one-child policy. A potential legitimacy crisis in the CCP. And a deep psychological rupture, especially among younger generations and survivors.
Marriage and Motherhood on the Decline
By the way, over 55% of young Chinese women are refusing to marry. Among women up to age 28, nearly 60% have not married. And of those who did marry, over 80% hadn’t had children in the first three years of marriage. Since 2021, very few women have had kids.
A Turning Point for China
So the big question is: does this period lead to authoritarian consolidation… or sweeping reform? That’s still uncertain. What is clear is that China is entering a new epoch—politically and economically.
To watch the full presentation and more like this, join the Global Transformation Astrology Membership
Go to gta.williamstickevers.com and become a GTA member today.
A trends forecaster, William’s annual global forecasts are backed by a deep study of economies, geopolitics, archetypal cosmology, and modern astrological forecasting techniques. William’s predictions for the outcome of the U.S. Midterm and Presidential Elections are well documented on his blog.
William Stickevers is a strategic astrological advisor, advising clients from 28 countries for nearly four decades with strategy and cosmic insight and foresight to gain an asymmetrical advantage in their investing, business planning and decisions, and to live a more fulfilled life according to their soul’s code and calling.
William has been a regular guest on Coast to Coast AM with George Noory and The Jerry Wills Show, and featured on The Unexplained with Howard Hughes, Beyond Reality Radio with Jason Hawes and JV Johnson, We Don’t Die Radio with Sandra Champlain, Supernatural Girlz, Paranormal Podcast, and Alan Steinfeld’s New Realities. An international speaker, William has lectured at the New York Open Center, Edgar Cayce’s Association for Research and Enlightenment (A.R.E.), two Funai Media events in Tokyo, Japan, the United Astrology Conference (2018), for the National Council for Geocosmic Research (NYC, Long Island, New Jersey, San Francisco chapters), American Federation of Astrologers (Los Angeles), the Astrological Society of Connecticut, the San Francisco Astrological Society, and in Europe (Munich and Bucharest) and Japan (Tokyo, Osaka, Yokohama).
More information on Programs, Consultations and Forecast Webinars are at his website www.williamstickevers.com.
