Every official event has its speeches, but this time the banners are pink instead of red, and the slogans give way to romanticism. "Let passion blossom," said Huang Jilai, an executive from Changxing county, to some 50 young people gathered in a lakeside picnic area. "Pick love to make life more intense, more beautiful, sweeter."

Spring had sprung in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang, and local politicians were hoping that the wonderful blossoming of the peach trees would be conducive to dating. On the last weekend in March, it was the official worker's union, in association with the Women's Federation and the Communist Youth League, that organized three hours of activities to bring single girls and boys together – games in a circle, wrists tied with pink string and flower picking. Everything was done to bring them closer together.

Marriage incentives

It's a form of speed dating organized by the party-state, in response to the demographic decline now facing China. For the second year running, China's population fell in 2023, overtaken by India's. The fertility rate, at around 1.1 children per woman in 2021, is well below the 2.1 needed to maintain the population. As in the developed economies of Northeast Asia – Japan, South Korea, Taiwan – urbanization, the cost of living and the desire to provide the best education are deterring couples from having more children.

And there's something special about China: From 1980 to 2016, the same state that is now encouraging people to start a family imposed a one-child policy with prohibitive fines and forced abortions to speed up the demographic transition. In Wuhan, the artist who had been commissioned to create a statue of a happy couple with a child, installed in a park along the Yangtze River, had to rework his work to add two toddlers. The consequences of an aging population – risk of falling productivity, major problem of financing pensions – have already been widely documented and are worrying leaders.

Faced with the demographic situation, the authorities are encouraging the Chinese population to get married. In 2023, 7.68 million Chinese couples said yes, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs. This was an increase of 12.4%, the first in nine years. Huang, responsible for ensuring that central government policies are properly implemented in Changxing county, spared no effort: floral arrangements, musical entertainment and the creation after the event of a group on the social media network WeChat for participants to reconnect. "Young people are focused on their work, at the office or factory, and starting a family is no longer a priority for them," said Huang.

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