China's Population Falls, Signals Economic Retreat

China’s population fell for the first time in nearly six decades, heralding a demographic crisis with major implications for its economy and the world, The New York Times reported.

Photo Insert: The birth rate was the lowest on record, and the death rate the highest since 1976.

The government said on Tuesday that 9.56 million people were born in China in 2022, while 10.41 million people died. It was the first time deaths had outnumbered births in China since the early 1960s, when the Great Leap Forward, Mao Zedong’s economic experiment, allegedly led to widespread famine and death.

Reporting for Nikkei Asia, CK Tan wrote that the record retreat in the birth rate jeopardizes President Xi Jinping's ambition to overtake the US as the world's biggest economy.

Data released on Tuesday by the National Bureau of Statistics showed China's population stood at 1.41175 billion in 2022.

The birth rate was the lowest on record, and the death rate the highest since 1976. The natural population growth rate was a negative 0.6 per thousand, a slide from 2021's 0.34.

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