Communist China has a big problem.
President Xi Jinping dreams of securing global economic and political hegemony. But to do that, Xi needs a population that is both loyal to his Communist Party agenda and sufficiently large to implement that agenda. The statistics do not lend credibility to Xi’s aspirations.
Births in China in 2021 saw an 11.5% decline from 2020, with the birth rate now standing at 7.52 births for every 1,000 people. In contrast, U.S. government statistics suggest the U.S. birth rate is around 11.4 per 1,000 people. There’s little doubt that the scale of China’s problem is severe. Some analysts suggest that China’s population may be 120 million lower than the official 1.4 billion number.
Xi’s regime is now desperately seeking to boost births. It has loosened restrictions on family size, doing away with the notorious “one child” policy and encouraging larger families. At the same time, the central and local governments are offering increased subsidies for child care. The government is also pushing older Chinese to keep working later in life. And, in a sharp turn on previous policy, Beijing is hinting that a more restrictive approach to abortions might be introduced.
The overriding problem, however, is that many younger Chinese don’t seem terribly interested in having children.
As living costs have grown, especially in China’s more desirable urban economic centers, popular interest in starting a family has fallen. The government cannot easily address this challenge without either pushing wages higher and fueling inflation or somehow reducing the cost of living on a systemic basis. Of course, either option would risk the economic growth that sustains Xi’s grand ambitions. It’s a Catch-22. And as long as urban living intersects with higher living costs, wage pressures, and high child care costs, it’s likely that many Chinese will avoid starting families.
Put simply, the Chinese Communist Party has a problem — one very much of its own making.
