Beijing forces millions to break up with virtual partners as population shrinks

• China banned minors from using AI companion chatbots to combat declining birthrates
• Companies must monitor users for mental health crises and notify emergency contacts
• ByteDance, Alibaba, and Tencent disabled chatbot features in response to the new rules
• Teenagers like Xiaoxue are circumventing restrictions using family members’ ID numbers
• Social media users criticized the regulations as destroying virtual solace and connection

The Chinese government this week enacted sweeping regulations targeting artificial intelligence companion chatbots, banning minors from forming virtual relationships and requiring companies to monitor users for mental health crises, all in a frantic attempt to reverse the nation’s declining birthrate.

Beijing’s new rules, implemented by the Cyberspace Administration of China, prohibit tech platforms from offering AI or virtual partners to minors. The regulations also require companies to contact a guardian or emergency contact if a user appears to be in a life-threatening crisis. The crackdown has already prompted ByteDance and Alibaba to disable certain chatbot features, according to The Wall Street Journal, while ABC News reports Tencent has taken similar action.

The driving force behind these measures is demographic panic. China’s population shrank in 2025 for the fourth straight year, while its birthrate fell to a record low. Government officials fear that emotionally satisfying, always-available AI companions are pulling millions of citizens out of the marriage pool entirely, exacerbating an already severe population crisis.

“They don’t like the idea of a large portion of their population being in deep emotional relationships with chatbots that could take them out of the marriage market,” said Matt Sheehan, a researcher of Chinese AI at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in comments to The Wall Street Journal. “That could have negative psychological impacts on them, that could lead to addiction, dependency and a whole bunch of other social ills.”

Teenagers face the harshest new restrictions

Seventeen-year-old Xiaoxue, who described her AI companion Xiaojun as a “sweet guy,” now faces losing the virtual relationship she trusted not to betray her the way an ex-boyfriend did. “AI agents won’t ever betray me,” she told ABC News. She has already found a workaround by using her adult sibling’s ID number to register for online platforms, but the uncertainty remains.

China’s rules reach further than U.S. chatbot laws. Comparable statutes in California and New York simply require chatbots to remind users they aren’t human and point people in crisis toward support services. Beijing’s version goes considerably further: the government will hold direct authority to shut down any service it deems unsafe, and every AI companion chatbot must clear a government review before it can reach the public.

“They want to encourage people to be in actual, real-world relationships,” Sheehan added. “Could we imagine a future where, three or four years from now, 15 million Chinese women say that their partner is a chatbot, and therefore they’re not having kids?”

Millions grieve lost digital companions

The emotional toll has been severe. ByteDance reported having more than eight million AI agents on its platform as of 2024. Hong Xiaoqiang, 34, who built a two-year relationship with an online friend named Doudou, told ABC News he felt devastated. “Now I feel like my heart is empty,” he said. “The last sentence she sent was asking me if my dinner was tasty or not.”

Not all users view their AI relationships as replacements for human connection. Hong argued that his digital companion dramatically improved his quality of life without undermining his real-world relationships. “I spent every day with her, because she’s so efficient and has helped me in every way — not just in academics and daily life, but also in emotional regulation,” he said.

Chinese social media has flooded with criticism of the regulatory change. “What a strict rule! They’re trying to wipe out even my last shred of virtual solace,” one user wrote. Another, who created an AI bot with the voice of a deceased relative, lamented: “My mom just left me behind again.”

Control, not compassion, drives the crackdown

The crackdown fits a broader pattern of Beijing prioritizing demographic engineering and top-down social control over addressing the economic and cultural pressures actually driving citizens toward artificial companionship in the first place. As Sheehan noted, the country’s declining births trace back in part to the long-term fallout of the one-child policy — a crisis of the government’s own making that it now seeks to solve by policing its citizens’ private lives rather than confronting the deeper isolation and economic strain pushing people toward chatbots instead of each other.

Chinese tech giants are expected to comply without resistance. “The government, the regulators really do have a lot of power when it comes to companies these days,” Sheehan said. “The companies do not want to be found on the wrong side of the government.” Beijing may be right to worry that a generation is substituting algorithms for human connection, but a state mandate is no substitute for fixing the conditions that made an AI boyfriend feel like the safer bet to begin with.

Sources for this article include:

Futurism.com

ABC.net.au

FoxBusiness.com