A/HRC/45/14/Add.1 I. Introduction 1. Pursuant to Human Rights Council resolution 42/12, the Independent Expert on the enjoyment of all human rights by older persons conducted an official country visit to China from 25 November to 3 December 2019, at the invitation of the Government. The purpose of the visit was to identify good practices and gaps in the implementation of existing laws relating to the promotion and protection of the rights of older persons in the country. 2. During her visit, the Independent Expert met with numerous central, regional and local government authorities, including representatives of the National Ageing Office and the National Committee on Ageing, non-governmental social welfare organizations, representatives of academia and universities, private companies and businesses, social workers and volunteers working with older persons. She also met with older persons themselves and the organizations representing them in Beijing, Shanghai and Changzhou. Moreover, she is extremely grateful for the opportunity to meet and engage in Shenzhen with technology companies and researchers working on automation and machine learning, as well as on emerging assistive technologies and other relevant themes pertaining to the digitalization of health and care services for older persons, using integrated big data computing, artificial intelligence and facial recognition technologies. 3. The Independent Expert expresses her sincere gratitude to the Government for its cooperation in ensuring the success of the visit. She is grateful to the United Nations and other interlocutors for their availability and support. She looks forward to continued engagement with the Government and other stakeholders on the issue of older persons and on the implementation of her recommendations.1 She further expresses her gratitude to the United Nations Resident Coordinator, United Nations agencies and the United Nations Development Programme Resident Representative for their considerable efforts in coordinating this visit, as well as to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and its Special Procedures Branch for their support in the preparation and execution of the visit. II. Background and context 4. China is unique because it is now facing an age-structural change of unprecedented magnitude. The challenge of this demographic change naturally poses the question of how to address and adapt to its impact. The country has the world’s largest older population and 40 per cent of the older persons in Asia. 2 5. By the end of 2018, China had 249 million persons over the age of 60, accounting for 17.9 per cent of the total population. Of those, 166 million were over the age of 65. It is estimated that the number of persons over the age of 60 is currently about 255 million. In approximately 2050, the number of older persons in China is set to peak at 487 million, accounting for 34.9 per cent of the total population. 3 China is also experiencing a rapid increase in the size of the “oldest old” segment of its population. 6. The demographic transition is among the most rapid ever witnessed. China became an ageing society in 1999 when 10 per cent of the population was over the age of 60, 4 and it will become an aged society by 2027.5 An important driver of population ageing has been the family planning policy – i.e., the one-child policy of 1979–2016 – which accelerated the 1 2 3 4 5 See, e.g., A/HRC/33/44; A/HRC/36/48. United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. World Population Ageing 2017 (ST/ESA/SER.A/408), 2017, p. 28. Government submission on the protection of rights and interests of older persons in China, provided on 29 November 2019 to the Independent Expert on the enjoyment of all human rights by older persons, p. 1. The document is on file with the Independent Expert. Ibid. Elena Glinskaya and Zhanlian Feng, eds., Options for Aged Care in China, Directions in Development (Washington, D.C., World Bank, 2018), p. 6. 3