Key Points
- Beijing implemented 67 childbirth support measures in 2025, distributing ¥947 million RMB ($132.6 million USD) in childcare subsidies to 295,000 families and adding 5,139 new community childcare spots.
- The city is actively addressing pediatrics and mental health shortages by ensuring all comprehensive hospitals above secondary level and community health centers offer pediatric services and establishing 154 psychiatric and 108 sleep clinics.
- Beijing is decentralizing medical resources from the city center and supporting medical facility development in Xiong’an New Area.
- Beijing is a national AI application pilot base, with real clinical applications like Peking University Hospital’s AI kidney disease model and Tongren Hospital’s portable fundus camera serving over 4 million people.
- In 2025, Beijing-led clinical research contributed to the approval of 38 innovative drugs, accounting for half of China’s national total, and aims to attract at least 8 more pharmaceutical companies in 2026.
Beijing just dropped a major healthcare agenda.
During the 2026 Beijing “Two Sessions” (Lianghui 两会), Liu Juncai (Liu Juncai 刘俊彩)—the Director of the Beijing Municipal Health Commission and a member of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC)—outlined an ambitious health strategy that’s reshaping how China’s capital thinks about family support, AI in medicine, and public health infrastructure.
Here’s what you need to know about Beijing’s healthcare transformation.
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The Big Picture: Health-First Strategy for China’s “15th Five-Year Plan”
Beijing isn’t playing around with healthcare priorities.
The city is launching a comprehensive “health-first” development strategy that touches every angle—from how the government thinks about health to how it budgets, builds, and measures success.
This isn’t just policy talk.
The strategy integrates health promotion into urban planning, construction, and city management across both rural and urban areas.
Key focus areas include:
- Advancing the public health system
- Improving the healthcare service network
- Deepening medical and health system reforms
- Strengthening the population development support system
The city is tracking two critical metrics: population health indicators and control of infectious and chronic diseases.
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Childbirth Support That Actually Numbers: ¥947 Million & 295,000 Families Helped
Let’s talk numbers that matter for families planning kids in Beijing.
In 2025 alone, Beijing implemented 67 childbirth support measures and distributed ¥947 million RMB ($132.6 million USD) in childcare subsidies, benefiting 295,000 families.
This is real money moving.
The city also expanded community-embedded childcare services (Tuoyu Fuwu 托育服务) by adding 5,139 new community childcare spots.
Here’s the breakdown of childcare infrastructure:
- 41,000 inclusive childcare spots now exist across the city
- These account for over 60% of total childcare capacity
- Full coverage of district-level integrated childcare service centers has been achieved
But 2026 is where things escalate.
Beijing is coordinating an even larger package that includes:
- Childcare subsidies
- Maternity Insurance (Shengyu Baoxian 生育保险) coordination
- Parental leave policy improvements
- Relaxed fee standards for inclusive childcare (in partnership with the Municipal Education Commission)
- Optimized subsidy policies
Additionally, 15 new “birth-friendly” hospitals are being added to the healthcare network.
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Fixing the Pediatrics & Mental Health Shortage: Real Solutions for Real Gaps
Hospitals keep adding pediatrics and psychiatry departments, yet they’re still understaffed.
Beijing knows this is a problem and is moving fast.
In 2025, the city ensured that all comprehensive hospitals above the secondary level and community health centers provide pediatric services.
The mental health push is equally serious.
Beijing launched the provincial-level “12356” mental health assistance hotline and established:
- 154 psychiatric clinics across the city
- 108 sleep clinics across the city
- 154 psychiatric clinics established across the city
- 108 sleep clinics established across the city
- Launch of “12356” provincial-level mental health assistance hotline
In 2026, the plan is to push these services further by bringing the “12356” assistance hotline centers into physical operation.
The city is also launching five major health promotion actions for children and adolescents:
- Weight management programs
- Vision health initiatives
- Mental health support
- Bone health programs
- Oral health care
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Healthcare Infrastructure Decentralization: Moving Medical Resources Out of the City Center
Beijing’s healthcare system is getting a geographic makeover.
The city is decentralizing medical resources away from the congested downtown, with several major projects either completed or launching soon.
In 2025, completed projects included the second phase of Tsinghua Changgeng Hospital (Qinghua Changgang Yiyuan 清华长庚医院).
For 2026, major completions and launches include:
- New site for the Beijing Center for Disease Control and Prevention
- New campus of the Beijing Health Vocational College
- Construction beginning on the third phase of the Yizhuang campus of Tongren Hospital (Tongren Yiyuan 同仁医院)
Beyond Beijing proper, the city is supporting medical facility development in the Xiong’an New Area (Xiong’an Xinqu 雄安新区), including Xuanwu Hospital (Xuanwu Yiyuan 宣武医院) projects.
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AI & Healthcare: Beijing Leads with Real Clinical Applications
Beijing wasn’t just approved as part of a national AI application pilot base in 2025—it’s already showing what AI healthcare actually looks like.
The digitalization infrastructure is already in place:
- Nearly 300 medical institutions connected via a city-wide private network
- 200 secondary-and-above hospitals have implemented electronic medical record sharing
- 97% of outpatient volume covered by the system
But what matters more is the actual use cases already working.
Beijing’s Peking University Hospital (Beida Yiyuan 北大医院) developed an AI kidney disease model.
Tongren Hospital created a portable fundus camera powered by AI that has already served over 4 million people.
This year, the city plans to develop a series of typical AI application scenarios and will lead the nation in piloting internet-based initial medical consultations.
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Pharmaceutical Innovation: Beijing Owns Half of China’s New Drug Approvals
Here’s where Beijing’s biotech dominance gets real.
In 2025, clinical research led by Beijing helped 38 innovative drugs (Chuangxin Yao 创新药) get approved for market—accounting for half of the national total.
That’s not a coincidence.
Beijing is specifically targeting the pharmaceutical and medical device (Yiliao Qixie 医疗器械) industries.
For 2026, the goal is concrete: attract at least 8 more well-known pharmaceutical companies to settle in Beijing.
This is part of a broader push to establish new National Clinical Research Centers and roll out the nation’s first batch of new technology clinical research filing projects.
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The Bottom Line: Beijing’s Healthcare Gets Serious About Families, Tech, & Innovation
Beijing’s 2026 healthcare agenda isn’t incremental.
The city is moving ¥947 million RMB directly to families, expanding childcare infrastructure, fixing mental health and pediatrics shortages, decentralizing medical resources, and leading the nation in AI healthcare applications.
For investors and founders watching Chinese healthcare innovation, this is the blueprint—and it’s working.
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