{"id":46168,"date":"2026-06-19T15:25:41","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T13:25:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vnc-china.nl\/uncle-chens-cough-and-the-transformation-of-chinas-healthcare-system\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T16:12:02","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T14:12:02","slug":"uncle-chens-cough-and-the-transformation-of-chinas-healthcare-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vnc-china.nl\/en\/uncle-chens-cough-and-the-transformation-of-chinas-healthcare-system\/","title":{"rendered":"Uncle Chen’s Cough and the Transformation of China’s Healthcare System"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Door Xixi Wang
m.m.v. Lilian Kranenburg<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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In the autumn of 2026, VNC will organize a group trip to China centred on the theme Healthy Living in China, exploring topics such as exercise, nutrition, and preventive healthcare. In preparation for this journey, XiXi Wang has written a three-part series on healthcare in China for this website. In this series, Xixi Wang discusses China\u2019s health landscape, national policy reform, modern wellness trends (spas, hobbies, lifestyles), and digitalization in wellness and healthcare.\u00a0<\/p>

This article is the first of three.<\/p><\/blockquote>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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The Price of Progress: A System Under High Strain<\/h3>

Over the past few decades, life in China has changed dramatically, and with it, China\u2019s healthcare system has become severely strained. Whilst people are living longer, they have also developed more chronic illnesses like heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and Alzheimer\u2019s. Rapid urbanization and rising incomes have indeed reshaped everyday life: diets are richer in meat, oil, sugar, and fast food; office work and screen time have replaced more physically active lifestyles; smoking and drinking remain widespread; and many city residents find themselves exercising less while breathing more polluted air.\u00a0<\/p>

The healthcare system has struggled to keep up. Major hospitals have become overcrowded as patients travel across cities and provinces searching for specialists they trust. For average families, any serious illness can easily lead them to face spiralling financial pressures, emotional strain, and logistical exhaustion.\u00a0<\/p>

It was against this backdrop that, at the National Health Conference 2016, China began rethinking its approach to health and healthcare. With the rollout of the Healthy China 2030 (HC 2030) blueprint, the focus shifted from treating illness to supporting health more broadly. Instead of a system that steps in after people get sick, the aim became to help people stay healthy in the first place. Since then, prevention, wellbeing, and quality of life have moved closer to the centre. Traditional medical care continues to play a role. As the blueprint puts it:\u00a0<\/p>

\u201cHealth is a prerequisite for the full development of human beings and a fundamental condition for economic and social development.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>

But why was such a fundamental shift necessary? The answer lies in how the old system actually worked – or failed to work.\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Uncle Chen and his Cough<\/b><\/h3>

Consider fifty\u2011year\u2011old uncle Chen. He had a cough that wouldn’t go away. His local clinic had no specialist, and after hearing about a few troubling incidents there, he didn’t trust it. So his son drove him four hours to a hospital in the provincial capital. They arrived at 3 a.m., joining a long line for registration. By 7 a.m., most slots were then already taken, but they managed to secure one. They waited hours to see the doctor. The doctor ordered some scans, leading to more queues and another day.\u00a0<\/p>

The results showed a suspicious nodule. Surgery was recommended. Uncle Chen was admitted, underwent surgery several days later, and was discharged after about a week. The family paid the bill upfront and brought home a big bag of medications. When they returned home to file for insurance, the family discovered that because the hospital was in another city, far less would be reimbursed than they had expected. In the end, the out\u2011of\u2011pocket cost consumed nearly 40% of the family\u2019s entire annual income. Uncle Chen recovered. His savings didn’t. Across China, millions of families lived the same story.<\/p>

Prior to the launch of Healthy China 2030, the country\u2019s healthcare system faced a set of pressing structural, systemic, and mechanism challenges. Let\u2019s look at them one by one.<\/p><\/blockquote>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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What Stood in the Way of Better Health?<\/h3>

The challenges the healthcare system faced were by no means small problems. Much of the trouble was caused by the mere infrastructure of how treatments were delivered, how hospitals were funded, how insurance worked (or didn’t work), and how the rising tide of chronic diseases began overwhelming families. Each issue exacerbated the other. While it is not possible to detail everything in one article, a few major challenges give a clear picture of the situation.\u00a0<\/p>

Challenge No. 1: A National Memory of Waiting<\/h6>

Remember why Uncle Chen didn\u2019t go to his local clinic? No specialist. Low trust. So, he joined the crowds heading to a distant provincial hospital. That experience – bypassing local care and travelling for hours, sometimes even days to reach Beijing – is a collective memory shared by millions.\u00a0<\/p>

It was the symptom of a deeper problem: a structural resource imbalance often described as an \u2018inverted pyramid\u2019. A handful of urban tier-3 hospitals held the vast majority of top-tier resources, while local clinics and primary facilities remained understaffed and under-resourced.\u00a0<\/p>

The result was predictable: patients crowded into major hospitals in major cities. For example, in October 2016 alone, according to the National Health and Family Planning Commission, China\u2019s medical institutions recorded 640 million patient visits (Fang & Chen, 2017). Of those, primary\u2011level facilities, including community and township health centers, handled barely one\u2011sixth of the nation\u2019s total outpatient traffic. Over time, this imbalance fueled the widespread frustration that accessing care was both difficult and expensive.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Challenge No. 2: When Pills Paid the Bills<\/h6>

Another major challenge concerned the financial model of hospitals. Born in the 1950s from necessity, the old mechanism allowed hospitals to add a 15% markup on every medicine sold, simply to keep their lights on. But as decades passed, that surcharge morphed into a systemic issue: a 15% markup on a cheap pill was pocket change, but on an expensive drug, it generated substantial revenue.\u00a0<\/p>

This led to a cascade of undesirable consequences. Some hospitals assigned medicine sales quotas to their departments. Pharmaceutical companies joined the game, inflating factory prices while handing out kickbacks. Doctors overprescribed to meet hospital quotas and illegally supplement their income. As a 2015 Xinhua News article put it, a single doctor was pocketing over RMB 32,040 (approximately \u20ac4,000) in monthly drug kickbacks (Li et al., 2015).\u00a0<\/p>

These layers of markups were burdened onto patients\u2019 shoulders, resulting in large medical bills. For Uncle Chen, his scans and medications might have been necessary. But the system inherently incentivized over-testing and the prescription of expensive, unnecessary drugs that served the hospital\u2019s financial bottom line rather than the patient’s health.\u00a0<\/p>

Challenge No. 3: Insurance That Didn’t Cover Enough<\/h6>

The third major challenge was a fractured insurance system. By 2016, China covered over 1.3 billion people with basic medical insurance,\u00a0 accounting for 95% of its population. In itself, this was a remarkable achievement. Unfortunately, actual reimbursement levels remained significantly lower compared to those in many developed countries*.\u00a0<\/p>

For example, in 2014, in the Netherlands, public spending on healthcare and long-term condition (LTC) accounted for 87% of total spending in this sector, while out-of-pocket (OOP) payments and voluntary health insurance (VHI) accounted for 5.2% and 5.9%, respectively (Maarse H, 2016). In other developed countries like France and Germany, approximately 70\u201385% of medical expenses are reimbursed immediately, with remaining costs typically covered by supplementary private insurance or paid out of pocket.\u00a0<\/p>

In China, however, actual public coverage was around 38% for rural residents, 44.9% for urban residents, and 53.8% for urban workers, while the role of VHI was negligible (Shu, 2017). The experience of going broke from a hospital visit was not unique to Uncle Chen. For millions of families, receiving care often meant recovering their health, but facing the real risk of losing their lifetime savings or their home.\u00a0<\/p>

Furthermore, health insurance was not portable. Seeking care outside one\u2019s registered home region often meant reduced or entirely denied reimbursement. Even though filing a claim upon returning home was possible, all sorts of added conditions – which drugs qualified, what type of hospital care was covered, and at what percentage – proved cumbersome.\u00a0<\/p>

This was a massive issue. On one hand, people naturally gravitated towards major cities for better care, needing to cover most costs upfront. On the other hand, the National Health and Family Planning Commission (2013) reported that China’s total \u2018floating\u2019 (migrant) population had reached 236 million. This meant tens of millions of people had to deal with non-portable insurance regularly. As a 2015 People’s Daily commentary remarked, fragmented regional funds, unbalanced aging profiles, and inconsistent local policies turned ordinary workers into \u2018drifting dandelions\u2019 with no portable safety net (Jiang, 2015).\u00a0<\/p>

Now weigh those numbers against household income. In 2015, the National Bureau of Statistics of China (2016) reported that the median annual disposable income of urban residents was about RMB 30,000, and just RMB 10,000 for rural residents. A single hospitalization in a provincial capital could easily exceed these amounts, compounded by travel, accommodation for family members, and lost wages.\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Challenge No. 4: The Multiplying Burden<\/h6>

A fourth challenge is sheer scale. At one point, China\u2019s vast population faces an expanding burden of chronic diseases. Even minor percentage increases translate into tens of millions of new patients.\u00a0<\/p>

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) stands at the centre of this burden. According to the 2016 Annual Report on Cardiovascular Health and Diseases in China, an estimated 290 million people – roughly one in five adults – were living with CVD (Chen et al., 2017). It became the leading cause of death, accounting for over 40% of all fatalities, surpassing cancer and all other conditions combined.\u00a0<\/p>

Cancer follows as a close second. In 2016 alone, China recorded around 4.06 million new cases and 2.41 million deaths. Lung, colorectal, stomach, liver, and breast cancers account for more than half of all diagnoses (Zheng et al., 2022).\u00a0<\/p>

At the same time, other chronic conditions have risen rapidly. Nearly 10% of adults, about 110 million people, were living with diabetes by 2016, a figure projected by the World Health Organization to reach 150 million by 2040 without significant lifestyle interventions.\u00a0 Furthermore, China recorded the world\u2019s fastest growth rate and highest number of Alzheimer’s patients, with an estimated 9 million people affected in 2015, as revealed in the World Alzheimer Report 2015.\u00a0<\/p>

Choosing whom to treat and which treatments to delay or skip altogether became a quiet, wrenching reality for millions of households.\u00a0<\/p>

Uncle Chen might not have been the only sick family member: a brother with diabetes, a parent with Alzheimer’s, or a grandchild with a lingering fever meant the family’s savings could only stretch so far, forcing impossible choices.\u00a0<\/p>

Taken together, these major challenges revealed a healthcare system under severe strain at multiple levels, amplifying the pressure on families, society, and the economy. In this context, the push toward HC 2030 was a necessary response to deep-rooted problems that constrained health equity, trust, and sustainability.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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What Has Changed Since 2016?\u00a0\u00a0<\/h3>

To flip the \u2019inverted pyramid\u2019 and restore trust in primary care, China launched a tiered diagnosis system designed to keep routine cases local. The centrepiece is a national family doctor program initiated in 2016. By 2025, the country had trained 1.39 million family doctors (Hu, 2026). In several regions, they now cover over 80% of vulnerable groups and hold the authority to refer patients upward to specialists.\u00a0<\/p>

Infrastructure has also expanded significantly. According to the State Council Gazette (2026), over 110,000 medical institutions now serve the country, ensuring that more than 90% of residents live within 15 minutes of a medical facility. Some 2,199 counties operate close\u2011knit healthcare alliances where larger hospitals regularly share staff and expertise with village clinics. Financial incentives reinforce this shift: local clinics offer higher insurance reimbursement rates, and chronic patients can now receive 12\u2011week prescriptions, eliminating exhausting monthly pharmacy trips.<\/p>

For Uncle Chen’s son, these changes came in time. When he developed a persistent cough last year, he didn\u2019t pack for a four\u2011hour journey. Instead, he walked ten minutes to the local health center, saw a family doctor, and was scheduled to see a visiting specialist from the provincial hospital the following week.\u00a0<\/p>

In 2025, primary-level medical institutions nationwide recorded 5.56 billion patient visits, accounting for 52.6% of total outpatient traffic – a clear sign that the tiered system is delivering tangible results (Liu, 2026). At the same time, two\u2011way referrals grew by more than 50 percent from 2020 to 2025, indicating that it has become much easier for patients to navigate between different levels of care.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Reform No. 2: Ending the Markups\u00a0<\/h6>

To break the old dependency on medication sales, two major reforms were introduced.\u00a0<\/p>

First, the 15% drug markup in public hospitals was abolished, reaching full implementation with no exemptions by September 2017. A three-part adjustment followed: the removal of all medicine markups was balanced by a measured increase in fees for medical services – such as consultations and surgeries – paired with aligned insurance reimbursement to prevent rising out-of-pocket expenses.\u00a0<\/p>

Second, to address high manufacturer prices, China launched National Volume-Based Procurement (VBP). Since 2018, the then newly formed National Healthcare Security Administration (NHSA) has consolidated demand nationwide and negotiated steep bulk discounts. The first pilot covering 25 drugs cut prices by an average of 52% (Jiang, 2018). By 2026, eleven procurement rounds had expanded to cover 490 medicines. Between 2018 and 2025, VBP has cumulatively saved the medical insurance fund approximately RMB 440 billion (\u20ac55 billion). The system effectively reduced informal kickbacks and lowered prescription costs for patients.\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Reform No. 3: Insurance That Travels, Shares, and Delivers<\/h6>

To fix the fragmented insurance system, the NHSA has implemented numerous new strategies and measures. By 2025, China’s medical insurance had become both broader and deeper, covering more people, more conditions, and more medicines than ever before.<\/p>

Portability: A unified national online platform now works seamlessly across provinces. In the first quarter of 2025 alone, cross\u2011provincial settlements benefited over 70 million patient visits and reduced out\u2011of\u2011pocket costs by nearly RMB 470 billion (\u20ac58.7 billion). Nationwide, some 655,800 hospitals, clinics, and pharmacies are now digitally connected to this network (NHSA 2025, 2026).<\/p>

Shareability: Personal insurance accounts were expanded to cover close relatives. By 2024, this sharing system extended beyond siblings, grandparents, and grandchildren. All provinces now support this mechanism, allowing employees to use their surplus funds to support a much wider family safety net. In 2025 alone, individual accounts were used for family members 464 million times, covering RMB 687 billion (about \u20ac74.4 billion) in medical expenses.<\/p>

Expanded Coverage: Reimbursement rates have risen to roughly 80% for employee insurance and 70% for resident inpatient care. Rural residents in need can see over 90% of covered expenses reimbursed. Since 2018, the NHSA has added 949 vital drugs to the official insurance catalogue, making insurance more valuable and reducing out-of-pocket expenses (CCTV News, 2026).<\/p>

Reform No. 4: Shift from Treatment to Prevention<\/h6>

Back in 2016, the government promised to move from simply treating illness to actively maintaining health. By 2025, that promise faced its toughest demographic test. China had transitioned into a middle-aged society, with 323 million people (23% of the population) aged 60 or older, and those 65 and above reaching 224 million (15.9%) (National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2026).\u00a0<\/p>

Heart disease, cancer and diabetes were sweeping through this ageing population. To tackle the rising burden of chronic disease, China has shifted from a reactive, crisis\u2011driven model to a proactive one where prevention is embedded in everyday life. The strategy is broad yet coordinated: changing habits, catching illnesses earlier, strengthening primary care, and targeting specific threats like cancer and Alzheimer’s.\u00a0<\/p>

On the ground, this means nudging everyday behaviour through the nationwide \u201cHealthy Lifestyle\u201d campaign, which promotes the \u201cThree Reductions and Three Healths\u201d (reducing salt, oil, and sugar, improving healthier weight, bone, and oral health. Early screening is also scaling up; the National Cancer Center is rolling out both population\u2011wide and hospital\u2011based checks, using digital tools to standardize access.\u00a0<\/p>

Primary care has become the front line for chronic disease management, equipping local clinics with tools to offer long\u2011term prescriptions, continuous monitoring, and personalized diet and exercise advice. Targeted public health interventions have also been launched: In 2025, China began offering free HPV vaccinations to 13\u2011year\u2011old girls, adding cancer prevention to the national immunization schedule. For Alzheimer’s, a new national plan pushes for cognitive screening at the primary care level to intervene before cognitive decline becomes irreversible. Additionally, every public tertiary general hospital is now required to operate a dedicated weight management clinic.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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What\u2019s next?\u00a0<\/h3>

Ten years on, the HC 2030 blueprint is not just a document but a set of wheels in motion, bringing real, substantial change. The national average life expectancy has surpassed 79 years. Insurance travels across provinces, and millions of families pay less out of pocket and receive care of higher quality.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>

Of course, many of these reforms are still taking shape, and structural gaps remain visible on the ground. Primary care illustrates this tension: while responsibility is steadily moving to the grassroots level, local clinics frequently struggle to attract and retain highly qualified medical personnel, handle equipment constraints, or overcome uneven service quality.\u00a0<\/p>

Prevention, by its nature, unfolds slowly. Public awareness campaigns take time to translate into sustained behavioural and cultural change. Early chronic disease detection remains challenging. Furthermore, mental health remains a notably underdeveloped area. Rates of depression and anxiety have risen over the past decade, yet specialized services, infrastructure, and public awareness still remarkably lag behind those for physical conditions.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>

With the 15th Five\u2011Year Plan (2026\u20132030) now underway, the country is accelerating its push toward a healthier future.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Healthy China 2030 Core Targets:<\/h1>

Health Level<\/p><\/td>

Average life expectancy: 79.0 years<\/p><\/td><\/tr>

Infant mortality rate: \u2264 5.0\u2030<\/p><\/td><\/tr>

Under\u20115 mortality rate: \u2264 6.0\u2030<\/p><\/td><\/tr>

Maternal mortality rate: \u2264 12.0 per 100,000<\/p><\/td><\/tr>

Population meeting National Physical Fitness Standard: 92.2%<\/p><\/td><\/tr>

Healthy Lifestyle<\/p><\/td>

Health literacy rate: 30%<\/p><\/td><\/tr>

Number of people exercising regularly: 530 million<\/p><\/td><\/tr>

Health Services & Protection<\/p><\/td>

Premature death from major chronic diseases: 30% reduction from the 2015 levels<\/p><\/td><\/tr>

Licensed (assistant) physicians per 1,000 population: 3.0<\/p><\/td><\/tr>

Out\u2011of\u2011pocket health spending as a share of total: ~25%<\/p><\/td><\/tr>

Healthy Environment<\/p><\/td>

Good air quality days in prefecture\u2011level cities: Continuous improvement<\/p><\/td><\/tr>

Surface water at or above Grade III quality: Continuous improvement<\/p><\/td><\/tr>

Health Industry<\/p><\/td>

Total scale of health service industry: RMB 16 trillion<\/p><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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The 2030 targets are ambitious in statistical terms, but the vision behind Healthy China 2030 goes deeper than numbers. It is about changing how healthcare is actually experienced in everyday life. The ultimate aim is a system where care is closer to home, treatment is more coordinated and personalized, and a sudden illness doesn\u2019t automatically plunge a family into financial distress.\u00a0<\/p>

But equally relevant, a developing society rapidly transforming into a modern nation relies on a healthy and happy workforce to sustain its domestic and international momentum. Given how severely strained China\u2019s medical infrastructure was just a decade ago, the speed with which its health landscape has evolved is nothing but remarkable. In the end, true success will not just be measured by improved national indicators, but by whether stories like Uncle Chen\u2019s feel increasingly out of date – and perhaps even entirely fictional – to his grandson\u2019s generation.<\/p>

\u00a0\u2014————————-<\/p>

* China’s medical insurance is funded by employers, employees, individual citizens and the government. Urban employees pay 2% of their salary into a personal account. Employers pay an additional 6\u201310% into a national social pooling fund. Rural and non\u2011working residents pay about RMB 400 per year, subsidized by an additional RMB 700 from the government. Low\u2011income households are fully subsidized.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Xixi Wang is a Dutch university alumna (BA Social Justice & Philosophy, CA\/NO; Research MA Gender Studies, NL) from China. As the Founder of CUE<\/a> (since 2020), she sees supporting people through key life transitions as her life\u2019s mission. She is passionate about bridging knowledge across borders and advancing health equity, with previous research-informed articles reaching over 20 million readers in China and the U.S. Check out CUE’s website: https:\/\/cuelifetransition.com\/<\/a><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Referenties<\/span><\/h3>

“Healthy China 2030” Plan Outline <\/span>https:\/\/www.gov.cn\/zhengce\/2016-10\/25\/content_5124174.htm<\/span><\/a><\/p>

Fang, P., & Chen, J. (2017, February 16). \u56fd\u5bb6\u6218\u7565\uff1a\u5065\u5eb7\u4e2d\u56fd\u7684\u6311\u6218\u4e0e\u5e94\u5bf9 [National strategy: Challenges and responses for a healthy China]. Guangming Daily. <\/span>https:\/\/www.ddgx.cn\/show\/12863<\/span><\/a><\/p>

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\u56fd\u5bb6\u533b\u7597\u4fdd\u969c\u5c40 [National Healthcare Security Administration]. (2026, March 16). 2025\u5e74\u533b\u7597\u4fdd\u969c\u4e8b\u4e1a\u53d1\u5c55\u7edf\u8ba1\u5feb\u62a5 [2025 Quick Statistics Report on the Development of the Medical Security Cause]. Retrieved from <\/span>https:\/\/www.nhsa.gov.cn\/art\/2026\/3\/16\/art_7_19918.html<\/span><\/a><\/p>

\u592e\u89c6\u7f51 [CCTV.com]. (2026, January 1). 95%\u300180%\u300170%\u2026\u2026\u5168\u56fd\u533b\u4fdd\u7cfb\u7edf\u6301\u7eed\u5b8c\u5584\u5236\u5ea6\u529f\u80fd \u7fa4\u4f17\u5065\u5eb7\u6709\u201c\u533b\u201d\u9760 [95%, 80%, 70%… The national medical insurance system continues to improve its institutional functions, providing healthcare support for the people]. <\/span>https:\/\/news.cctv.com\/2026\/01\/01\/ARTIjpxL4j4q1u9sY1rob7b5260101.shtml<\/span><\/a><\/p>

National Bureau of Statistics of China. (2026, February 28). STATISTICAL COMMUNIQU\u00c9 OF THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA ON THE 2025 NATIONAL ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT. <\/span>https:\/\/www.stats.gov.cn\/english\/PressRelease\/202602\/t20260228_1962661.html<\/span><\/a><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Door Xixi Wangm.m.v. Lilian Kranenburg In the autumn of 2026, VNC will organize a group trip to China centred on the theme Healthy Living in China, exploring topics such as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1358,"featured_media":46133,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[274,292,408],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chinanuplus","category-cultuur-en-maatschappij","category-in-de-carrousel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vnc-china.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vnc-china.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vnc-china.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vnc-china.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1358"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vnc-china.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46168"}],"version-history":[{"count":66,"href":"https:\/\/www.vnc-china.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46862,"href":"https:\/\/www.vnc-china.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46168\/revisions\/46862"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vnc-china.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vnc-china.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vnc-china.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vnc-china.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}