As of: January 31, 2024, 5:04 a.m
By: Sven Hauberg
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China is facing the largest mass migration ever.
In the beginning of the Year of the Dragon, many are hoping for a recovery in the economy – and more births.
On February 10th, China welcomes the Year of the Dragon: In the People's Republic and many other Asian countries, the New Year begins according to the lunar calendar.
Hundreds of millions of people use the days off around the so-called Spring Festival to visit their relatives.
For many, that means getting out of the big cities on the east coast, getting on the train - and then heading home, to parents or grandparents, to small villages or not-so-small provincial towns in the Chinese hinterland.
Last year, some train stations processed up to 2,500 passengers per minute.
And this time it could be even more crowded.
From Friday (January 26th), when the official 40-day travel period around the Spring Festival begins, China's Ministry of Transport expects around nine billion individual trips - more than ever before.
The high number comes about because many of the 1.4 billion Chinese people need several stages to get to their destination or are visiting family members in different places.
It will probably be the largest migration of peoples in human history.
Travelers wait for the train at a train station in Shanghai during China's Spring Festival last year.
© Hector Retamal/AFP
For the Chinese, the Spring Festival has the same significance as Christmas does for people here.
“Everyone comes together once a year,” says Liu Haiyang.
The 26-year-old works at a bank in the tech metropolis of Shenzhen in southern China.
“You meet your family, your friends.” She booked her plane ticket a month ago, and shortly before February 10th she is heading to her hometown of Beijing, around 2,000 kilometers north of Shenzhen.
Travel wave could stimulate economy
Last year, people in the People's Republic were able to visit relatives without restrictions for the first time since the outbreak of the corona pandemic.
At that time, around 50 percent more trips were counted than in the pandemic year of 2022, but still significantly fewer than before Corona.
So there seems to be a lot of catching up to do this year.
As every year, this is accompanied by the expectation that the country's economy will also benefit from the Chinese people's desire to travel.
And it is currently struggling with a number of problems.
In addition to a simmering real estate crisis and heavily indebted provincial governments, economists are also worried about low private consumption.
The Spring Festival, which is also traditionally a time for shopping, dining out and staying in hotels, could provide a short-term economic stimulus.
China hopes for the “baby dragons”
Unlike last year, worries about becoming infected with the coronavirus are only a concern for very few Chinese people who are now making their way to their loved ones.
A year ago, however, the Spring Festival may have been a superspreader event.
State media claimed that there had been “no major infections”.
However, figures on the development of the Chinese population that were recently presented raise doubts about this claim.
Almost 700,000 more people died in China last year than in 2022. The number roughly corresponds to estimates by foreign experts who predicted around a million corona deaths following the sudden end to China's strict zero-Covid policy shortly before the start of the Spring Festival had.
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Overall, according to statisticians, China's population fell by around two million people last year.
The main reason for this is the ongoing decline in births: only a good nine million babies saw the light of day in 2023, half as many as in 2016. However, a few more children are likely to be born in the Year of the Dragon, which is now beginning.
According to popular belief, so-called “dragon babies” can look forward to a particularly happy life.