– Instead of children, China now has four-legged friends
More and more Chinese people are keeping pets. They want them to have everything they need. But the trend is also fueling a worrying development.
Published: 24.09.2024, 14:18
Obstacle course in one of Beijing’s dog playgrounds: More and more Chinese people have a pet.
Diego Azubel (Keystone/EPA)
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Baobao probably already knows what is coming next. This is not the first time the little Pekingese has been to Dr. Hu Yusheng’s veterinary practice for Chinese medicine in the north of China’s capital Beijing.
Very carefully, Dr. Hu places a few acupuncture needles on the 13-year-old four-legged friend’s back. The little one has to endure about half an hour with his lampshade-like neck brace and the needles that his owner wants to use to treat Baobao’s long-lasting cough.
An important part of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is to look at the body as a whole. “I don’t specifically treat the illness, but rather Baobao’s Qi and blood flow,” explains Dr. Hu. On animals, he mainly uses acupuncture and moxa therapy, i.e. the warming of certain parts of the body.
Formerly farm animals, now child substitutes
His main customers are cats, followed by dogs, he says – and they are coming more and more often. According to Dr. Hu, the Chinese have been using TCM on animals for a long time – but in the past it was mainly used on farm animals that had to be treated because otherwise there would have been a lack of labor.
But instead of being a source of labor, pets in China now seem to be a kind of substitute for children. According to estimates, there are around 116 million cats and dogs living in China’s cities. And they are said to be doing well.
Pet owners with their disguised pets in a pet shop in Changchun.
Photo: AP/Keystone
In China, two opposing trends have been evident for years: in the more expensive cities, fewer and fewer couples can afford more than one child, despite rising living standards. The birth rate has been falling noticeably, even though the Communist Party abolished the decades-long one-child policy in 2015. It currently stands at around one child per woman.
This year, China’s Yuwa Institute for Population Research found that the cost of raising a child in China is among the highest in the world. The experts looked at the year 2022 and based their results on the expenditure on a child compared to the annual gross domestic product (GDP) per capita.
Children are only more expensive in South Korea
On average, it costs 538,000 yuan (currently around 65,000 Swiss francs) to raise a child until they reach 18. This is 6.3 times China’s GDP per capita. It was only more expensive in South Korea, which ranks at the bottom of the world in terms of births per woman.
In contrast, more and more people in China have pets. Dr. Hu suspects that this is also due to the high work pressure. “People need emotional comfort, so many decide to keep a pet, regardless of whether they have children or not,” he says. In a country with around 1.4 billion inhabitants, such a trend has enormous business potential.
Criticism of breeding conditions
However, the pet trend has also been criticized. The animal rights organization Peta Asia praises the concern for dogs in China. However, they criticize the conditions in which some dog breeders produce inbred litters and keep the animals in cages that are too small, while street dogs fight for their survival. Peta promotes taking animals from shelters instead of buying them from breeders or pet shops.
In the future, the pet business is likely to remain promising: In July, an analysis by the US investment bank Goldman Sachs concluded that the market for pet food in China could be worth the equivalent of 63 billion yuan (currently around 8 billion euros) by the end of the decade.
Cats as far as the eye can see: visitors to the «100,000 Cats Project» art exhibition in Beijing in 2015.
Photo: Wu Hong (EPA)
Much more explosive: From the data, the analysts calculated that by 2030 there could be more pets than children under the age of four living in China’s cities – and that this is almost a two-to-one ratio. It was said that the younger generation in particular would keep pets.
Birthday cakes for dogs and cats
In Beijing’s chic center, where young people like to stroll between the expensive fashion stores, Li Te sells customized cakes for four-legged friends. Occasions such as animal birthdays or dog weddings are reportedly becoming increasingly popular in China.
Customers can send a photo of their pet to Li’s shop via cell phone, and the animal is then modeled onto the cake. With fresh ingredients such as fish and meat, the likelihood of the four-legged friends having to give up a piece to their owners is slim.
“Above all, customers are keeping more and more cats,” notes Li. She says many orders also come in for International Children’s Day on June 1.
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