China clocked its lowest birth rate on record in 2025 as its population shrank for the fourth year in a row, deepening a demographic challenge that could drag on the world’s second-largest economy for decades to come.

China launched two new-generation satellites, Shijian-29A and Shijian-29B, on December 31, 2025, using a modified Long March-7 rocket from the Wenchang Space Launch Site, as reported by CGTN. This mission continues China’s rapid expansion in orbital capability and technological experimentation,

On the heels of that announcement, the South China Morning Post reported that Chinese companies have submitted filings to the U.N.’s International Telecommunications Unit to field more than 200,000 satellites over multiple orbits, signaling a desire to secure long-term options for orbital and spectrum resources.

Birth rate numbers released Monday, the lowest since Mao's Communists established the People's Republic in 1949, are the latest development in a millennia-long struggle in China, where producing children and refreshing the population of the young have been central to the national conversation since the country's earliest days.