That the Communist Party of China (CPC) meddles in the intimate lives of the country’s population has been known since at least the late 1970s, when the one-child policy was launched.
Faced with the drop in the number of births, the aging of the population and the consequent reduction in Chinese productivity, the government abolished this policy in 2015, when it began to allow couples to have two children.
In 2021, up to three children were admitted and shortly afterwards the government withdrew punishments for those who disrespected this limit.
However, this reversal was not enough to solve the problem, and a measure worthy of dystopian science fiction books has just been announced: a state-owned dating app. The prefecture of Guixi, a city of about 640,000 inhabitants located in Jiangxi province, launched this application with the aim of increasing the local number of weddings.
The app, called Palm Guixi, uses data from single city residents to encourage them to get to know each other, according to the state-run China Youth Daily. If a “match” is approved, the platform arranges a meeting.
It is speculated that the tool could be adopted in other Chinese cities, and the choice of Jiangxi seems not to have been random: also with the objective of facilitating the realization of weddings, the province is the focus of a campaign to end the traditional practice of a would-be groom offering money to the bridegroom’s family.
Despite being prohibited by the Chinese Civil Code, this practice remains common, and last year Jiangxi had the highest average value of payments made to family members of brides, around 380,000 yuan (approximately R$ 290,000).
In 2021, to prevent couples from separating, the Chinese dictatorship also implemented a change to reduce the number of divorces.
Couples who intend to divorce are now required to wait 30 days before formally separating. If you do not attend two meetings within a period between 30 and 60 days after registration, this is automatically cancelled.
On social networks, many couples report difficulties in arranging these meetings within the required deadlines, which ends up leading to the cancellation of the process. Thus, many Chinese, also concerned about the high cost of living, are simply choosing not to marry.
According to a report by Fortune magazine, China, which had registered around 9.7 million marriages in 2011, counted in 2021 approximately 7.6 million marriages.
Last year, the national birth rate had a negative record, of 6.77 births per thousand inhabitants (in 2021, the United States index was 11.06 births), and for the first time since 1961 there was a drop in the number of inhabitants. in China (about 850,000 fewer people compared to 2021).
“This trend will continue and perhaps even worsen after Covid-19,” economist Yue Su told the BBC. “High youth unemployment and poor income expectations could further delay plans to marry and have children, lowering the number of births.”
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