- China 2026
- Chapter 1
China’s risk is climatic, seismic and demographic at continental scale
Part I describes systems and their couplings. It assesses no authority and ranks no province.
Contents
- ·Edition home
- ·Executive summary
- 1China’s risk is climatic, seismic and demographic at continental scale
- 2Key findings
- 3Systems and sectors at baseline
- 4Risks and capability
- 5Extreme rain on a dense plain in a hot summer
- 6Readings from the other desks
- 7The 2027 agenda
- 8Systems in depth
- AMethodology
- BData appendix
- CReferences and record
- ·Complete edition, for print
1.1The questions this part answers
Key questions
- Where is China’s risk concentrated, and in which systems?
- Which couplings carry shocks from one system to the next?
- Which capabilities hold under compound stress, and which are only documented?
- What must the 2027 programme measure first?
In this part
- Narrative
- Headline finding
- Lead figure
- Five system chapters
- Twelve-domain reading
- Sector screens
- Dependency matrix
- Risk objects
- Capability ladder
- Scenario
- Three lenses
- Portfolio
1.2The argument
China is a continent-sized system. Its provinces span monsoon plains, arid basins and high plateau, so the same year can bring record heat in the Yangtze basin, record rain in the north and an earthquake on the plateau. This baseline reads national totals as sums over very different places and asks where the couplings between systems concentrate loss.
The climate layer is rising. The national mean temperature was 10.9 °C in 2025, tied with 2024 as the highest since 1951, and all 31 provincial-level units were warmer than normal3. The national average of hot days was 16.5, the most since 19613. In the same year North China had the wettest rainy season on record by rainfall and duration3.
Single events show how fast loss builds. In July 2021 the Zhengzhou station recorded 201.9 mm of rain in one hour and 624.1 mm in one day; 398 people were dead or missing in Henan and direct loss was 120.06 billion yuan14. In 2025 meteorological disasters left 628 people dead or missing and cost 231.78 billion yuan, below the 2015 to 2024 average3. A strong earthquake at Dingri in Tibet had killed 126 people by the evening of 7 January 202515.
The demographic layer changes who is exposed. The population fell by 3.39 million in 2025, 15.9% were aged 65 or over and births were 7.92 million against 11.31 million deaths1. A smaller, older population changes who can leave a flooded street, who staffs a ward and which services are kept running.
Beneath these sits the energy system. Coal supplied 54.8% of electricity in 2025 and wind and solar 21.9%, as wind and solar capacity reached about 1,842 GW14. Emissions excluding land use were still rising in 2024 in the EDGAR series9. Net energy imports were 24.0% of energy use10. Heat raises demand on this system in the same weeks that it loads health services.
This edition therefore reads China’s risk as a property of the couplings between these forces. The matrix, risk objects, capability ladder and scenario that follow ask the same two questions: where does a shock travel next, and who holds the capability to stop it?
Coal still supplies more than half of electricity. Wind and solar together supplied 21.9% in 2025, up from 18.3% in 2024. Bioenergy and other sources make up the remainder4.
| Item | Bar, scaled to the largest value | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Coal | 54.8 | |
| Hydro | 13.3 | |
| Solar | 11.2 | |
| Wind | 10.7 | |
| Nuclear | 4.6 | |
| Gas | 3.2 |
Source: as cited in the note to this figure. Year 2025.
Figure ID FIG-COUNTRY-CHN-2026-BASELINE-01-003
1.3Twenty couplings between five systems
The China matrix types the twenty couplings between the five core systems. Strengths are Nexus estimates from the cited evidence and analogue events; they set the starting graph that the Q1 2027 Foundry cut will test.
Each line is one coupling from one system to another, drawn by the strength the edition assigns. Strengths are Nexus estimates from the cited evidence and analogue events.
- Strong
- Moderate
- Weak
Source: this edition’s coupling matrix (Table 1.1); status Estimated.
| From, to | WAT | ENE | FOO | HLT | BIO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WAT Water | · | STRONG nuclear cooling · hydro | STRONG irrigation · rain-fed yield | MODERATE drinking water | STRONG flows · wetlands |
| ENE Energy | MODERATE pumping · treatment | · | STRONG fuel · fertiliser · cold chain | STRONG facility power · cooling | MODERATE reservoirs · land use |
| FOO Food | MODERATE withdrawals · nutrients | WEAK biofuel feedstock | · | STRONG nutrition · food safety | STRONG land conversion |
| HLT Health | WEAK workforce | WEAK workforce | MODERATE labour · disease | · | WEAK residues |
| BIO Biodiversity | STRONG regulation · filtration | MODERATE fire on lines · biomass | STRONG pollination · soils | MODERATE zoonoses · smoke | · |
| Strength: strong, moderate or weak; a Nexus estimate (status Estimated) from cited evidence and analogue events. The scale is defined in Annex A. | |||||
Transmission paths
- 01
CLI → WAT → INF
Extreme rain floods streets, metro trains and road tunnels.
Reported Henan 202114
- 02
CLI → HLT
Record hot days load health services and cooling demand.
Estimated summer 20253
- 03
SEI → HLT
A strong plateau earthquake causes mass casualties.
Reported Dingri 202515
- 04
CLI → FOO
Unseasonal autumn rain damages grain quality and delays sowing.
Reported October 202511
- 05
CLI → ENE → HLT
Heat raises cooling demand on a coal-led power system.
1.4Reinforcing loops
A shock entering either system of a loop can return amplified through the other.
| Loop | First direction | Second direction |
|---|---|---|
| WAT and BIO | Water to biodiversity: flows · wetlands | Biodiversity to water: regulation · filtration |
| FOO and BIO | Food to biodiversity: land conversion | Biodiversity to food: pollination · soils |
| A causal-loop reading of the matrix (Sterman, Business Dynamics, 2000): structural, from estimated strengths, not a measured feedback. | ||
Notes
Numbers are the edition’s reference numbers, so a note reads the same in every chapter. The full list, with every source and its licence, is in Annex C. Annex C, references
- 3National Climate Center, China Meteorological Administration (ed.), China Climate Bulletin (2025). CMA, Beijing, 12 February 2026. Observation year 2025.back
- 14Disaster Investigation Team of the State Council (ed.), Investigation Report on the “7·20” Extraordinarily Heavy Rainstorm Disaster in Zhengzhou, Henan. Ministry of Emergency Management, Beijing, January 2022. Observation year 2021.back
- 15Science and Technology Daily (ed.), “Dingri County earthquake has killed 126 people and injured 188 (西藏定日县地震已致126人遇难、188人受伤).” Beijing, 7 January 2025. Observation year 2025.back
- 1National Bureau of Statistics of China (ed.), Statistical Communiqué of the People’s Republic of China on the 2025 National Economic and Social Development. NBS, Beijing, 28 February 2026. Observation year 2025.back
- 4Ember (ed.), Yearly Electricity Data: China, generation, capacity and emissions intensity. Ember, London, retrieved 3 November 2026. Observation year 2025.back
- 9World Bank (ed.), World Development Indicators: Total greenhouse gas emissions excluding LULUCF (EN.GHG.ALL.MT.CE.AR5), from the EDGAR Community GHG Database, Joint Research Centre, European Commission. World Bank, Washington DC, retrieved 3 November 2026. Observation year 2024.back
- 10World Bank (ed.), World Development Indicators: Energy imports, net (EG.IMP.CONS.ZS), Food imports (TM.VAL.FOOD.ZS.UN) and PM2.5 air pollution, mean annual exposure (EN.ATM.PM25.MC.M3). World Bank, Washington DC, retrieved 3 November 2026. Observation years 2024, 2025 and 2023.back
- 11Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (ed.), GIEWS Country Brief: China. FAO, Rome, reference date 29 January 2026. Observation year 2025.back