Demographic Crisis Threatens China As Population Diminished for First Time in 6 Decades

China's population declined last year for the first time in nearly six decades. Official data showed on Tuesday, as a demographic crisis looms over the world's most populous country.

The country recorded 9.56 million new births and 10.41 million deaths in 2022, according to the Chinese Statistics Office.

The last time China's population declined was in 1960, when the country faced the worst famine in its modern history due to Mao Zedong's disastrous agricultural policy known as the Great Leap Forward.

In 2016, China ended the "one-child policy" that it imposed in the eighties due to fears of a massive population increase, and in 2021 it began allowing couples to have three children.

But this measure did not succeed in reversing the demographic decline.