Xi Jinping Government's Plan To Play Cupid For Singles Met With Skepticism: 'Breed Like Pigs'

A Chinese province launched a government-backed matchmaking app that has received mixed views from residents. 

What Happened: Amid China's declining birth rate, Guixi city in Jiangxi province came up with a solution to boost marriage rates and get singles in the city hitched up. 

The city in eastern China, which has about 640,000 people, launched an app that uses data on single residents to build a matchmaking platform known as "Palm Guixi." According to China Youth Daily, a state-run newspaper, the platform will arrange blind dates for singles in the city. 

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Palm Guixi is part of Xi Jingping's local administration's initiative to boost the marriage rate as the country faced a severe population crisis in the past decade. In 2021 there were 5.4 marriages per 1,000 people, compared with six in the U.S., reported The Guardian.

The state state-sponsored matchmaking service was met with skeptical online reactions from Chinese people on the Twitter-like Weibo app. One of the users linking the government's push to boost China's rapidly falling birthrate said Chinese people are expected to "breed like pigs." 

Some microblogging users also pointed out their concerns about privacy, especially if such information ended up online without their consent. "A matchmaking platform established by the government is more trusted than commercial ones that you need to pay for yourself at least," said one Weibo user adding that "we still need to take care of our private information."

"Why is there no database for rapists or domestic violence abusers?" another user said.

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