Hong Kong property tycoon draws backlash for proposing defective condoms to boost birth rate

Shih Wing-ching, founder of Hong Kong real estate conglomerate Centaline Group, has drawn fierce criticism after proposing that manufacturers be required to deliberately release a set proportion of defective condoms onto the market as a solution to the city's low birth rate.

According to local outlets including HK01 and Wen Wei Po, Shih argued in a recently published column that "the advent of condoms is a major cause of the declining birth rate," adding that "the simplest and most effective method would be to mandate that condom companies make a certain proportion of the products they release defective."

He further argued that governments seeking to raise birth rates should not focus solely on economic factors, and that women should be made pregnant through condoms with holes in them. More specifically, he said the government should regulate the defect rate at condom factories and use that rate to control regional birth rates.

Shih acknowledged that such a proposal runs directly counter to the values of modern society and would provoke strong public backlash, but said "the day may come when we will not shy away from even such extreme, unconventional measures — if it means preventing the catastrophe of family lines dying out across generations."

The following day, he went further, saying that a proposal circulating in China — to levy a "singles tax" on unmarried and childless people and channel the proceeds into a birth fund — "has merit," and that people should be "forcibly charged" until they have two children.

Hong Kong's birth figures have fallen to record lows.

According to local government statistics, 29,700 babies were born in Hong Kong in the 12 months from mid-2025 to mid-2026 — the first time the figure has dropped below 30,000 and the lowest on record since data collection began in the 1960s.