Beijing

For much of its recorded history, China has equated population size with national power. From emperors to revolutionaries, leaders have viewed vast numbers as both a source of strength and a challenge to govern. That tension has never fully disappeared — and China’s latest birth-rate figures show it remains unresolved.

Data released this week reveals China’s lowest birth rate since the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949. The country’s population now stands at about 1.404 billion, roughly three million fewer than a year earlier. While still immense, the decline has reignited long-standing anxieties over whether China will have enough young people to sustain its economic ambitions and global influence.

Managing “the masses” has always been central to Chinese statecraft. Mao Zedong famously warned in 1957 that China’s population of hundreds of millions must never be forgotten — words spoken just before policies that helped trigger a devastating famine. Today, the concern has flipped: not how to restrain population growth, but how to reverse its slowdown.

Legacy of population control

Few policies have shaped modern China as deeply as the one-child policy. Introduced nationwide in 1980, four years after Mao’s death, it was designed to curb population growth at a time when leaders feared economic reforms would be overwhelmed by too many people competing for limited resources.

For decades, urban families were restricted to a single child, often under threat of fines or penalties. While the policy succeeded in slowing population growth, it also produced consequences that continue to reverberate.

A strong cultural preference for sons led to widespread discrimination against girls, particularly in rural areas. In cities, millions of families poured their expectations into one child, creating a generation often labelled “little emperors.” Over time, migration patterns and a loosening of China’s household registration system meant many only children grew up far from extended families, intensifying social isolation and weakening traditional support networks.

Most critically, the policy accelerated population ageing. China now faces the prospect of growing old before growing rich — a demographic imbalance acknowledged even by state-run media. When the one-child policy was formally ended in 2016, analysts warned the damage was already done. One U.S. think tank described it as among the most costly policy experiments of the modern era, arguing that population growth had been unfairly blamed for broader social and economic challenges.

From limits to encouragement

China’s demographic shift has forced an ideological reversal. For centuries, Confucian values framed having children as a moral duty, with lineage and continuity at the core of family life. Restricting births ran counter to those beliefs, even if the state once deemed it necessary.

Under President Xi Jinping, official rhetoric has returned to older ideas. Xi has repeatedly linked population size to national strength, portraying China’s people as a collective force underpinning its power. That messaging has taken on added urgency since India overtook China as the world’s most populous country in 2023 — a symbolic blow in a region where influence and leadership in the Global South matter deeply to Beijing.

Policy has followed rhetoric. Taxes on items associated with family planning, such as condoms, have been removed. Childcare centres and even traditional matchmakers now receive tax relief. Local governments offer subsidies, housing incentives and extended parental leave. Draft proposals for China’s next five-year plan include explicit calls to promote positive attitudes toward marriage and childbearing, while reducing the financial burden of raising children.

State media has framed the effort as a comprehensive push to make childbirth affordable, if not close to free.

A demographic crossroads

Yet officials face a reality shaped by decades of policy and modern life. Young Chinese increasingly delay marriage, prioritise careers or reject parenthood altogether due to high living costs, work pressures and changing social values. Incentives alone may not reverse those trends.

China’s dilemma is not simply numerical. It reflects a deeper question about whether traditional expectations around family and reproduction can coexist with urbanisation, economic competition and individual choice — especially among a population of 1.4 billion.

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More than half a century ago, Mao described China’s greatest challenge as correctly managing contradictions within its own people. Today, that contradiction persists: a nation built on the strength of its numbers, now grappling with the consequences of having too few births to sustain its future ambitions.