China needs to acknowledge the urgent challenges presented by its aging population and take measures to meet them.

A Chinese Academy of Social Sciences report says the number of people above 60 years of age would cross 200 million sometime between 2011 and 2015, and would rise sharply from 2016 through 2040.

The government needs to devise plans to meet the rising social security and healthcare costs, deal with a tightening labor market and overcome other potential obstacles if it wants to maintain rapid economic growth.