“Make a certain proportion of condoms defective to boost birth rates” ... Hong Kong property tycoon’s low-birthrate proposal sparks controversy

[Financial News] In Hong Kong, where the number of births has fallen to an all-time low, the chairman of a real estate conglomerate is facing fierce criticism after proposing that defective condoms be deliberately distributed as a measure to address the low birthrate.
According to Hong Kong’s Wen Wei Po on the 15th (local time), Shih Wing-ching, founder and chairman of Centaline Group, argued in a recent opinion column that the advent of condoms was a major cause of declining birth rates.
He said the government should not consider only economic factors if it wants to raise birth rates, adding, “The simplest and most effective method is to require that a certain proportion of the products condom companies put on the market be defective.”
The proposal is essentially that the government should control regional birth rates by adjusting the proportion of defective products made at condom factories.
Shih Wing-ching is also reported to have argued that contraception goes against “the way of Heaven” and that, since condoms were invented, people have been able to avoid responsibility for sex at little cost.
While acknowledging that such a proposal runs counter to modern social values and would provoke strong opposition, he added that a day might come when people would not shy away from extreme measures if necessary to avert the calamity of a family line dying out.
According to local government figures, around 29,700 babies were born in Hong Kong in the year starting in mid-2025, taking the figure below 30,000 for the first time. This is the lowest number since records began in the 1960s.
Shih Wing-ching was also criticized in 2021 for arguing that young people should only be allowed to legally buy contraceptive products after having two children.
He did not change his position after the controversy. The day after his remarks, he fueled further controversy by saying that the “single tax” proposed in China for unmarried and childless people had merit, and that money should be forcibly collected from them until they had two children.
As a result, criticism is pouring in, particularly on the Hong Kong online community LIHKG, that the causes of the low birthrate are being sought in the wrong place. The main reason young people are reluctant to have children, critics say, is not “the advent of condoms” but “the burden of housing prices and living costs.”
Local internet users responded with comments such as: “High housing prices are the strongest condoms of all”; “What taught young people about contraception wasn’t condoms, but property listings in real estate agencies’ windows priced at HK$20,000 per pyeong”; “Try offering a three-bedroom home to anyone who has a third child. Young people would be rushing to have children, without any need to control condoms”; and “Young people aren’t having children not because of condoms, but because property tycoons like you have driven up housing prices.”
[email protected] Seong Min-seo Reporter