4 Predictions for China in 2026

Foreign Policy ^ | 12/30/2025 | James Palmer, deputy editor at Foreign Policy.

[SeekAndFind]

Welcome to the final edition of Foreign Policy’s China Brief for 2025.

Compared with what lies further ahead, next year may be relatively quiet for China. The following year, 2027, marks both the end of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s unprecedented third term and a frequently cited benchmark for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s ability to attack Taiwan.

Though Beijing is keeping a lower profile amid global turbulence, there is plenty of trouble bubbling under the surface. What can we expect from China in the year ahead? Below, we offer our four best bets.

A Turn on Women’s Rights

China is kicking off the new year with a tax on condoms and other contraceptives, one of several measures aimed at boosting the birthrate. Official demographic data for 2025, expected in mid-January, is likely to be bleak. China’s total fertility rate has fallen to around one child per woman, about half the level needed to keep the population stable.

Reversing such trends is notoriously difficult, as much of East Asia has already learned. More supportive policies, such as stronger financial and legal support for parents, would help. But local government budgets are already strained, and Xi is ideologically hostile to welfare measures.

Instead, demographic anxiety is more likely to fuel a reactionary turn on women’s rights. The Chinese government has repeatedly attacked feminism and arrested feminists, while officials obsess over perceived decline of traditional masculinity in pop culture.

Most troubling are signs of pressure on reproductive rights. The one-child era showed China’s willingness to violate women’s autonomy, including forced sterilizations. In recent years, there have been signs of renewed state intervention. In 2023, a Chengdu court ruled that abortion without the husband’s consent violated men’s rights, and more recently, one county in Yunnan urged women to report their menstrual cycles to authorities.

[SeekAndFind]

The other predictions are:

A Rocky Relationship With Japan

As the year begins, China and Japan remain locked in one of their sharpest confrontations since the 2012 Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands crisis. Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s repeated suggestion that her country could intervene in a future Taiwan conflict has infuriated China, prompting canceled Japanese performances, naval standoffs, and a trade cooperation freeze.

A Failed Economic Pivot

China is still trying to pivot its economy toward domestic consumption—long an elusive goal. A recent article by Xi has elevated this as a government priority, made more urgent by global uncertainty and the prospect of a renewed trade war with the United States.

The effort is likely to falter for a few reasons, chief among them that Chinese households simply aren’t confident enough in the future to spend. The declining birthrate reflects deep anxiety about the future among young adults, while the COVID-19 pandemic shattered trust in government competence and convinced people that they needed to save for future disasters.

And the biggie prediction:

An AI Disaster?

Here’s the wild swing for the year: China may see a major, high-profile disaster—on the scale of the Wenzhou train crash or Tianjin explosion—with a root cause being the misuse of artificial intelligence.

The launch of DeepSeek-R1 in early 2025 resulted in a new phase in China’s AI push. The country has been more cautious (and less swayed by tech mogul hype) on AI governance than the United States. But at the ground level, the pattern looks familiar: a rush to deploy technologies without clear limits or understanding, producing waves of failed projects.

[Ronaldus Magnus III]

Using the terms “court” and “rights” about a large prison camp (China) is disgusting.

Combining these terms with other words

Women’s Rights

Men’s Rights

is even more ridiculous and disgusting.

To the Chicoms, humans are chattel, commodities. Kill or enslave a few dozen? Or a few million? It’s all the same to the Chicoms.

[pissant]

Astrologist Jean Dixon from the National Enquirer could make better predictions

[DIRTYSECRET]

We created this monster starting with Carter. Nixon used the Chicoms against the Soviets. The followup by both parties made them this way. Loral was Clinton’s idea.

[ifinnegan]

“ , one county in Yunnan urged women to report their menstrual cycles to authorities”

Idiot Foreign Policy “experts”. Monitoring menstrual cycle has been done in work groups for decades under one child policy.

[FLT-bird]

This will be condemned by many as sexist, retrograde, etc. Its certainly patriarchal.

When men earn more than women, it encourages marriage and family formation. When there are more women than men in college....when there are more women than men in middle management and upper management, thanks to hypergamy, the result will be far fewer marriages and fewer kids. Women simply do not want to marry men who earn less money than they do or who have less education than they have. Men have absolutely no problem marrying women who earn less or who are have a lower social status.

As much as people will complain, women themselves according to surveys, report being happier when they are married and have children. So for the sake of everybody's happiness and the continuation of society, I'd roll the clock back on the whole movement to push women into the workplace.

[KarlInOhio]

and Xi is ideologically hostile to welfare measures.

So our communists out-communist the Chinese communists?

[marktwain]

So our communists out-communist the Chinese communists?

---

Good arguments can be made the United States is more socialist than China.

The USA has workplace safety rules, Social Security, a welfare safety net, Medicare and Medicaid. The USA has unions, workman’s comp, overtime rules (and overtime).

China does not have much in the way of anything functional of the above, because of overwhelming corruption in the government.

[blitz128]

Need to stop using the term communist or socialist when refering to China, it is a dictatorship, plain and simple and monicker of communism is used as cover.

[alexander_busek]

[...] I'd roll the clock back on the whole movement to push women into the workplace.

Unless you have a modified Delorean in your garage...

... you have little hope of doing so.

Regards,

[alexander_busek]

In 2023, a Chengdu court ruled that abortion without the husband’s consent violated men’s rights

Do (married) men even have reproductive rights?

Regards,

[FLT-bird]

Time will do it for me. Those career women are getting married and having kids at massively lower rates. They’re not reproducing themselves. When the current generation of them dies off, more and more they will be cited as an example of what not to do/be.

[spacewarp]

Literally, the LAW has been the One Child Policy, and now they’re going to make it easier to break the law? Wow.