Word Count: 370
The northeast region can implement a “comprehensive birth policy pilot plan,” the country’s National Health Commission suggested in a statement from last August that was released Thursday. China has a history of testing new policies in a few areas and then rolling them out nationwide if successful.
China’s population is aging more quickly than most of the world’s developed economies due to decades of family planning aimed at halting population growth. Even with the loosening of those policies in recent years the birthrate has continued to decline, dropping in 2019 to the lowest level since at least 1949.