Population can be a burden. As the US has learned, economic systems can't grow forever; maintaining the US standard of living is a significant strain both geopolitically and environmentally. It will be much harder to provide a similar standard of living for 1.4 billion people.
I suspect that China will hit similar limits soon, if they haven't already. We do see signs of environmental and geopolitical strain there.
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Population can be a burden. As the US has learned, economic systems can't grow forever; maintaining the US standard of living is a significant strain both geopolitically and environmentally. It will be much harder to provide a similar standard of living for 1.4 billion people.
I suspect that China will hit similar limits soon, if they haven't already. We do see signs of environmental and geopolitical strain there.
It depends on the direction of growth.
Antibiotics by itself improves the quality of life a great deal and does not take much resources to produce.
If a country moves toward an innovation-driven economy, its growth can be less constrained by physical resources.