By Peter Rykowski
TheNewAmerican.com
Births in China have fallen to the lowest level since 1949, the year communists took over the country.
The Associated Press reports: “A decade after ending China’s longtime one-child policy, the country’s authorities are pushing a range of ideas and policies to try to encourage more births — tactics that range from cash subsidies to taxing condoms to eliminating a tax on matchmakers and day care centers.
The efforts haven’t paid off yet. At least, that’s what population figures released Monday [January 19] show for what is now the world’s second-most populous nation. China’s population of 1.4 billion continued to shrink, marking the fourth straight year of decrease, new government statistics show. The total population in 2025 stood at 1.404 billion, which was 3 million less than the previous year.
Measured another way, the birth rate in 2025 — 5.63 per 1,000 people — is the lowest on record since 1949, the year that Mao Zedong’s Communists overthrew the Nationalists and began running China. Figures before that, under the previous Nationalist government, were not available.
China was long the world’s most populous nation until 2023, when it was surpassed by regional neighbor and sometime rival India. Monday’s statistics illustrate the stark demographic pressures faced by the country as it tries to pivot from a problem it is working hard to overcome: status as a nation with a growing but transitional economy that, as is often said, is “getting old before it gets rich.”
These statistics show the failures — and dangers — of government-imposed population planning. They also cast doubt on China’s ability to sustain its economy and geopolitical position in coming decades.