BEIJING—The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) announced on Monday that married couples may have up to three children, a major policy shift from the existing limit of two after recent data showed a dramatic decline in births in the world’s most populous country. The change was approved during a politburo meeting chaired by Chinese leader Xi Jinping, official state media Xinhua reported. In 2016, the CCP scrapped its decades-old one-child policy—initially imposed to halt a population explosion—with a two-child limit, which failed to result in a sustained surge in births. “To further optimise the birth policy, (Beijing) will implement a one-married-couple-can-have-three-children policy,” Xinhua said in a report on the meeting. The regime’s policy change will come with “supportive measures, which will be conducive to improving our country’s population structure, fulfilling the country’s strategy of actively coping with an ageing population and maintaining the advantage, endowment of human resources,” Xinhua said. It …