BEIJING: China’s population fell for a fourth consecutive year in 2025 as the birthrate plunged to a record low, official data showed on Monday, with experts warning of further decline.

The country’s population dropped by 3.39 million to 1.405 billion, a faster decline than 2024, while the total number of births dropped to 7.92 million in 2025, down 17% from 9.54 million in 2024. The number of deaths rose to 11.31 million from 10.93 million in 2024, figures from China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed.

China’s birth rate dropped to 5.63 per 1,000 people.

Births in 2025 were “roughly the same level as in 1738, when China’s population was only about 150 million,” said Yi Fuxian, a demographer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

China’s death rate of 8.04 per 1,000 people in 2025 was the highest since 1968.

China’s population has been shrinking since 2022 and is ageing rapidly, complicating Beijing’s plan to boost domestic consumption and rein in debt.

The number of people aged over 60 years old reached around 23% of total population, the NBS data showed. By 2035 the number of over-60s is set to hit 400 million – roughly equal to the populations of the United States and Italy combined – meaning hundreds of millions of people are set to leave the workforce at a time when pension budgets are already stretched. China has already increased retirement ages, with men now expected to work until they are 63 rather than 60, and women until they are 58 rather than 55.

Long shadow of one-child policy

Marriages in China plunged by a fifth in 2024, the biggest drop on record, with more than 6.1 million couples registering for marriage, down from 7.68 million in 2023.

Marriages are typically a leading indicator for birth rates in China.

Demographers say a decision in May 2025 to allow couples to marry anywhere in the country rather than only their place of residence is likely to lead to a temporary boost to births.

Marriages rose 22.5% from a year earlier to 1.61 million in the third quarter of 2025, putting China on course to halt an almost decade-long annual decline in marriages.Full data for 2025 will be released later this year.

Authorities are also trying to promote “positive views on marriage and childbearing” as they try to undo the influence of the one-child policy that was in force from 1980 to 2015 helping to tackle poverty, but reshaping Chinese families and society.

Population key issue in economic strategy

Population movement has exacerbated the demographic challenge with large numbers of people moving from rural farms to the city, where having children is more expensive.

China’s urbanisation rate stood at 68% in 2025, the data showed, from about 43% in 2005.

Policymakers have made population planning a key part of the country’s economic strategy and this year Beijing faces a total potential cost of around 180 billion yuan ($25.8 billion) to boost births, according to Reuters estimates.

Key costs are the national child subsidy, which was introduced for the first time last year, as well as a pledge that women throughout pregnancy have “no out-of-pocket expenses” in 2026, with all medical costs, including in vitro fertilisation (IVF), fully reimbursable under its national medical insurance fund.

China has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world at around 1 birth per woman, well below the 2.1 replacement rate. Other East Asian economies including Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore have similarly low levels of fertility at around 1.1 births per woman.

China’s pool of women of reproductive age, defined by the UN as women aged from 15 to 49 years old, is set to drop by more than two-thirds to less than 100 million by the end of the century.

• Emergency EU summit scheduled in Brussels for Thursday.
• Envoys push diplomacy while preparing retaliatory measures.
• Growing calls to trigger unused EU ‘Anti-Coercion Instrument’.

European Union ambassadors reached broad agreement on Sunday to intensify efforts to dissuade US President Donald Trump from imposing tariffs on European allies, while also preparing retaliatory measures should the duties go ahead, EU diplomats said.

Trump vowed on Saturday to implement a wave of increasing tariffs from February 1 on EU members Denmark, Sweden, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Finland, along with Britain and Norway, until the US is allowed to buy Greenland, a step major EU states decried as blackmail.

EU leaders are set to discuss options at an emergency summit in Brussels on Thursday. One option is a package of tariffs on 93 billion euros ($107.7 billion) of US imports that could automatically kick in on February 6 after a six-month suspension.

The other is the so far never used “Anti-Coercion Instrument” (ACI), which could limit access to public tenders, investments or banking activity or restrict trade in services, in which the US has a surplus with the bloc, including in digital services.

The tariff package appeared to command broader support as a first response than anti-coercion measures, where the picture was currently “very mixed”, according to an EU source.

Dialogue in Davos

European Council President Antonio Costa, who chairs EU summits, said in a social media post that his consultations with EU members had shown their strong commitment to support Denmark and Greenland and readiness to defend against any form of coercion.

Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, visiting his Norwegian counterpart in Oslo, said Denmark would continue to focus on diplomacy, referring to an agreement Denmark, Greenland and the US made on Wednesday to set up a working group.

“The US is also more than the US president. I’ve just been there. There are also checks and balances in American society,” he added.

The EU’s efforts at dialogue are likely to be a key theme of the World Economic Forum in Davos, where Trump is set to deliver a keynote address on Wednesday in his first appearance at the event in six years.

“All options on the table, talks in Davos with the US and leaders gather after that,” said one EU diplomat in summarising the EU’s plan.

The eight targeted countries, already subject to US tariffs of 10% and 15%, have sent small numbers of military personnel to Greenland, as a row with the United States over the future of Denmark’s vast Arctic island escalates.

“Tariff threats undermine transatlantic relations and risk a dangerous downward spiral,” they said in a joint statement published on Sunday, adding they were ready to engage in dialogue, based on principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said in a written statement she was heartened by the consistent messages from the rest of the continent, adding: “Europe will not be blackmailed”.

The tariff threat unsettled global markets, with the euro and sterling falling against the dollar and a return to volatility expected.

Question marks over US trade deals

A source close to French President Emmanuel Macron said he was pushing for activation of the ACI. Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin said that while there should be no doubt that the EU would retaliate, it was “a bit premature” to activate the as yet unused instrument.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who is closer to the US president than some other EU leaders, described the tariff threat on Sunday as “a mistake”, adding she had spoken to Trump a few hours earlier and told him what she thought.

Asked how Britain would respond to new tariffs, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said allies needed to work with the United States to resolve the dispute.

“Our position on Greenland is non-negotiable … It is in our collective interest to work together and not to start a war of words,” she told Sky News on Sunday.

The tariff threats do though call into question trade deals the US struck with Britain in May and the EU in July.

The limited agreements have already faced criticism about their lopsided nature, with the US maintaining broad tariffs, while their partners are required to remove import duties.

The European Parliament looks set to suspend its work on the EU-US trade deal. It had been due to vote on removing many EU import duties on January 26-27, but Manfred Weber, head of the European People’s Party, the largest group in parliament, said late on Saturday that approval was not possible for now.

German Christian Democrat lawmaker Juergen Hardt also mooted what he told Bild newspaper could be a last resort “to bring President Trump to his senses on the Greenland issue”, a boycott of the soccer World Cup that the US is hosting this year.

A high-speed train derailed and smashed into another oncoming train in southern Spain on Sunday, pushing the second train off the tracks in a collision that police sources confirmed to Reuters had killed at least 21 people.

The accident happened near Adamuz, in Cordoba province. So far, 21 people have been confirmed dead by police, with state broadcaster Television Espanola adding that 100 people had been injured, 25 seriously.

The driver of one of the trains, which was travelling from Madrid to Huelva, was among those who died, the TV station added.

“The Iryo 6189 Malaga – (to Madrid) train has derailed from the track at Adamuz, crashing onto the adjacent track. The (Madrid) to Huelva train which was travelling on the adjacent track has also derailed,” said Adif, which runs the rail network, in a social media post.

Adif said the accident happened at 6:40pm (1740 GMT), about 10 minutes after the Iryo train left Cordoba heading towards Madrid.

Iryo is a private rail operator, majority-owned by Italian state-controlled railway group Ferrovie dello Stato. The train involved was a Freccia 1000 train which was travelling between Malaga and Madrid, a spokesperson for Ferrovie dello Stato said.

The company said in a statement that it deeply regretted what had happened and had activated all emergency protocols to work closely with the relevant authorities to manage the situation.

The second train was operated by Renfe, which also did not respond to a request for comment.

Adif has suspended all rail services between Madrid and Andalusia.

Horrific scene

The Iryo train had more than 300 passengers on board, while the Renfe train had around 100.

Paco Carmona, Cordoba fire chief, told TVE the first train heading to Madrid from Malaga had been evacuated.

The other train’s carriages were badly damaged, he said, with twisted metal and seats. “There are still people trapped. We don’t know how many people have died and the operation is concentrating on getting people out of areas which are very narrow,” he said. “We have to remove the bodies to reach anyone who is still alive. It is proving to be a complicated task.”

Transport Minister Oscar Puente said he was following events from rail operator Adif’s headquarters in Madrid.

“The latest information is very serious,” he posted on X. “The impact was terrible, causing the first two carriages of the Renfe train to be thrown off the track. The number of victims cannot be confirmed at this time. The most important thing now is to help the victims.”

The mayor of Adamuz, Rafael Moreno, told El Pais newspaper that he had been among the first to arrive at the scene of the accident alongside the local police and saw what he believed to be a badly lacerated body several metres from the accident site.

“The scene is horrific,” he said. “I don’t think they were on the same track, but it’s not clear. Now the mayors and residents of the area are focused on helping the passengers.”

Calls for medics

Images on local television showed a reception centre set up for passengers in the town of Adamuz, population 5,000, with locals coming and going with food and blankets amid nighttime temperatures of around 42 degrees Fahrenheit (6 degrees Celsius).

A woman named Carmen posted on X that she had been on board the Iryo train to Madrid. “Ten minutes after departing (from Cordoba) the train started to shake a lot, and it derailed from coach 6 behind us. The lights went out.”

Footage posted by another Iryo train passenger, also on X, showed an Iryo staffer in a fluorescent jacket instructing passengers to remain in their seats in the darkened carriages, and those with first aid training to keep watch over fellow passengers. He also urged people to maintain mobile phone batteries to be able to use their torches when they disembarked.

Salvador Jimenez, a journalist for RTVE who was on board the Iryo train, shared images showing the nose of the rear carriage of the train lying on its side, with evacuated passengers sitting on the side of the carriage facing upwards.

Jimenez told TVE by phone from beside the stricken trains that passengers had used emergency hammers to smash the windows and climb out, and they had seen two people taken out of the overturned carriages on stretchers.

“There’s a certain uncertainty about when we’ll get to Madrid, where we’ll spend the night, we’ve had no message from the train company yet,” he said. “It’s very cold but here we are.”