China’s Doomsday Scene: Big Cities Decline, Populations Shrink & Bosses Shed Tears

China's metropolises are witnessing a decline. The three-year pandemic has resulted in the closure of countless small and medium-sized enterprises. Compounded by foreign capital withdrawal and waves of job cuts, the economic vitality of once-prosperous cities like Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou is dwindling, as they experience population decline for the first time this year.
By the end of 2022, Beijing and Shanghai saw their population reduce by 43,000 and 135,400, respectively. This marked the first time in almost five years that Shanghai experienced negative growth, also losing the highest number of permanent residents among first-tier cities.
On May 12, the Guangzhou Municipal Bureau of Statistics released data showing that as of the end of 2022, the resident population of Guangzhou was 18.7341 million, a decrease of 76,500 compared to the end of the previous year."
The Shenzhen Statistics Bureau's data show that by the end of 2022, Shenzhen's resident population stood at 17.6618 million. In contrast, by the end of 2021, Shenzhen had a population of 17.6816 million, meaning a decrease of 19,800 people within a year. Notably, this marks the first instance of population decline since the city’s establishment in 1979.
Consequently, by the end of 2022, these four major cities collectively experienced a nearly 280,000 person decrease in population.