They were repealed several years ago

If you're talking about the one-child policy, that has been repealed in 2016.

That's kind of late ... Wasn't anyone there keeping an eye on the birthrate?

Bad policy tends to stick around for longer when you don't allow criticism of the ruling elite.

Not if your paycheck is enhanced by keeping quiet.

I see you haven't encountered authoritarian regimes very much.

They did repel them, twice (once to put the limit to 2, now it's 3).

They also forcibly 'immigrate' SEA women since 2010[0], forming a combo with the Gulf countries : the Gulf enslave the men under false promises, then cartels raid villages, capture and sell the women (Vietnam is the only country where the state is strong enough to limit that). Sadly is hard to investigate the issue correctly, given China's lack of transparency, but it is possible that despite relatively closed borders, China now lead the world in sex trafficking, overtaking the Magreb (morroco to lybia).

[0] https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/10/31/chinas-bride-trafficking...

Fixing the consequences requires that they have to be repealed not now, not a few years ago, but rather 25 years ago.

Chinese, especially in the upper tier cities, don't want babies now. Same as the West and for roughly the same reasons. Historically kids stayed with their parents until marriage who would then look after the grandchildren while they work. Now the parents are getting left behind in the villages or low tier cities while the kids fly out to the higher tier cities to work leaving no childcare structure and everyone grinding away at work with no time to find partners.