CNA Explains: Could China's shrinking population become a global crisis 'beyond imagination'?

Once the world’s most populous nation, China now faces a demographic time bomb with its population shrinking for the second year in a row - and it is likely to continue doing so. 

The total number of people in China plunged by 2.08 million in 2023, according to its National Bureau of Statistics.

Its population was 1.41 billion in 2023 — compared with India’s 1.43 billion. 

The drop was even sharper than the previous year’s decrease of 850,000, which was the first time since 1961 that numbers have fallen.

Then, demographers said this was not surprising, with China’s fertility rate steadily declining since the 1990s and among the world’s lowest. It fell to a record 1.09 in 2022, according to estimates.

Observers attributed China's latest population decline to a wave of pandemic deaths early in 2023, after the world's second largest economy abruptly dismantled its strict zero-COVID regime.

Last year, overall deaths went up 6.6 per cent to 11.1 million, with the death rate reaching its highest level since 1974 during the Cultural Revolution.

Meanwhile, new births fell 5.7 per cent to 9.02 million in 2023. 

Births in China have been dropping for decades due to a combination of rapid urbanisation and a draconian one-child policy imposed from 1980 to 2015.

The birth rate was a record low of 6.39 per 1,000 people in 2023, down from 6.77 the previous year.

This is comparable with advanced East Asian countries like Japan — 6.3 — and South Korea at 4.9.

China is following in the footsteps of these societies, said Dr Zhao Litao, a senior research fellow with the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore.

Its population fall is similarly driven by long-term socio-demographic factors including delayed marriage,