China's population drops for a second straight year as deaths jump

BEIJING -- China’s population dropped by 2 million people in 2023 in the second straight annual drop as births fell and deaths jumped.

The government’s statistics bureau said Wednesday that the total population was 1.4 billion last year.

The number of deaths more than doubled to 690,000. Demographers were expecting a rise in deaths in the early part of last year because of the sudden lifting of China’s COVID-19 restrictions in late 2022.