CHINA - Birthrate Lowest on Record
The number of births in China tumbled 10% last year to hit their lowest level on record, a drop that comes despite a slew of government efforts to support parents and amid increasing alarm that the country has become demographically imbalanced.
Last year, the country’s population also fell for the first time in six decades, dropping to 1.41 billion people.
Much of the demographic downturn is the result of China’s one-child policy imposed between 1980 and 2015, though the abandonment of that policy is having some effect.
Nearly 40% of Chinese newborns last year were the second child of a married couple, while 15% were from families with three or more children, health authorities said.
To spur the country’s flagging birth rate, Beijing has been rolling out a raft of measures, such as efforts to increase child care as well as financial incentives, and President Xi Jinping in May presided over a meeting to study the topic.
-www.nbcnews.com, 13 October 2023
Arno's Commentary
China’s population explosion fear never materialized; now fear is expressed in the opposite direction—losing population.
Welcome to the Western world! Materialism is king. For example, the population of Japan declined about 800,000 last year. Interestingly, Statista.com reveals the top five nations with the lowest fertility rate for 2023: Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Macau.
Euronews.com reports that yearly live births per 1,000 people in the EU from 1961 to 2021, have drastically decreased from 6.8 to 4.1 in 2021.
Thus, we see China’s experience follows the pattern: more money, more merchandise, and less children. In the USA, the birthrate of 3.6 for 1960 has fallen to 1.6 in 2020.
This is prophetically significant, because Revelation 18 describes the great end-time deception. Verse 3 says: “For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.” Many of us do not fully realize that the world’s commercial and economic system is literally supported by the promotion of numerous lies. What kind? That if you buy a certain product, you will feel better, have less pain, grow older more slowly and gracefully, and have an abundance of luxury at your fingertips. Does this advertising work? Indeed, it does; otherwise, firms that are in the medical field, consumer products, or legal services would not spend hundreds of millions to billions of dollars to promote their merchandise.
When the end comes, we carefully note that the people do not lament their sins, which have led to the horrible death and destruction that are unleashed upon the world directly from God, but rather the loss of merchandise: “And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more” (Revelation 18:11).
Arno Froese is the executive director of Midnight Call Ministries and editor-in-chief of the acclaimed prophetic magazines Midnight Call and News From Israel. He has authored a number of well-received books, and has sponsored many prophecy conferences in the U.S., Canada, and Israel. His extensive travels have contributed to his keen insight into Bible prophecy, as he sees it from an international perspective.
