The politically explosive issue of the official retirement age has drawn academics from two of China's most august educational institutions into a public standoff, signaling how closely fought the policy contest over how to cope with the country's shrinking work force has become.

standoff：和局，僵持，冷淡，平衡　　　　

The war of wonks revolves around a yearslong effort by some quarters in the central government to raise the retirement age in the world's most populous nation to 65. Currently, male Chinese employees retire at 60 and female at 50 or 55.

To call the idea unpopular is putting it mildly. Local media report widespread public opposition to the measure in survey after survey, arguably most pungently in a poll by the Beijing Morning Post in July last year, which found that 96% of respondents said they would not support ( in Chinese) the proposal.

pungently：尖锐地，苦痛地　　　　

But, faced with vexing questions of how to pay for China's aging population, the trial balloons keep floating up from Beijing. Last week, China's official Xinhua News Agency sent another apparent telegraph, quoting experts from Tsinghua University who proposed ( in Chinese) in a study to gradually raise China's pensionable age, starting in 2015 for women and to be followed thereafter for men, with retirement at 65 becoming mandatory by 2030.

mandatory：强制的，义务的　　　　

The denizens of China's Twitter-like Sina Weibo microblogging service -- a proxy for opinionating in China's public squares -- took note, not least because Beijing's Tsinghua University is considered a cradle of the country's technocratic elite and often a fount of social policy.

proxy：代理人，委托书　　　　cradle：摇篮，发源地　　　　technocratic：技术层面

'What the government really wants is for you to retire at 50, give younger people the jobs, and only give you your pension at age 65,' said a Weibo user who went by the name Wenrou Xiangli. 'The 15 years in between -- you take care of that yourself.'

The naysayers weren't alone. On Tuesday, Tang Jun, secretary-general of the social policy research center of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, also took to Xinhua to ( in Chinese) excoriate the Tsinghua proposal. The academy is a heavyweight entity that reports directly to China's cabinet, though its input isn't necessarily decisive in policy-making.

naysayer：否定者，反对者　　　　excoriate：批判，呵斥　　　　

Describing retirement policy as 'a political choice in the final analysis,' Mr. Tang rhetorically asked in his essay whether China could guarantee every worker would be able to work until 65 and that younger workers would still be able to find employment.

'If not, let's not discuss it,' he wrote. 'It will create resentment among the older workers and anger from the youths when they can't find jobs.' Mr. Tang then poured doubt over the assumptions in the Tsinghua proposal, including Chinese life expectancy data and actuarial theories.

actuarial：保险精算

Neither Mr. Tang nor Yang Yansui, director of the Tsinghua Center for Employment and Social Security, was immediately available for additional comment.

The public sniping surrounds a policy with major repercussions for public finances in the world's second-largest economy. Mr. Tang flecked at the notion of an intensifying tussle in his essay, recalling how media reports in June suggested China's Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security had stepped back from the idea, only to resuscitate it in August as multiple academic proposals again rehearsed the arguments to raise the age ceiling. An official at the ministry declined to comment.

sniping：狙击，诽谤　　　　repercussion：反响，弹回　　　　tussle：扭打，争斗　　　　

The central government's biggest quandary is that China's pool of working-age people began to shrink last year and is likely to keep doing so, making it harder to replace retiring workers and posing a growing burden on the country's pension system. This is also complicated by China's 30-year-old one-child policy, which slows the country's replenishment of its labor force. The number of new entrants to the workforce is likely to decline by 30% in 2020 from 2010, according to Beijing-based research firm GK Dragonomics. Chinese media have reported that the country is studying possible changes to the controversial one-child policy.

quandary：困境，窘境，为难　　　　replenishment：补充，补给　　　　

Even so, upping the retirement age is fraught with political blowback. Both the Tsinghua proposal and Mr. Tang's essay lit up the Web, but few were found in favor of raising the retirement age.

fraught with：充满　　　　

'If it's really implemented, we won't reach 65 before we're worked to death on the job!' a blogger with a name translated as Minty Cat Space wrote. 
'Without completely abolishing family planning, the government won't dare push the retirement age,' another called Devils said, referring to the one-child policy. 'The public would never allow it.'