diff --git a/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Library/2020-09-08-13-51-16.bpo-1635741.wkPeoT.rst b/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Library/2020-09-08-13-51-16.bpo-1635741.wkPeoT.rst
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..972d69b94b6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Library/2020-09-08-13-51-16.bpo-1635741.wkPeoT.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Port the ``_string`` extension module to the multi-phase initialization API
+(:pep:`489`).
diff --git a/Objects/unicodeobject.c b/Objects/unicodeobject.c
index 82e09ad05fc..fd0e8e008ad 100644
--- a/Objects/unicodeobject.c
+++ b/Objects/unicodeobject.c
@@ -16243,20 +16243,16 @@ static PyMethodDef _string_methods[] = {
 
 static struct PyModuleDef _string_module = {
     PyModuleDef_HEAD_INIT,
-    "_string",
-    PyDoc_STR("string helper module"),
-    0,
-    _string_methods,
-    NULL,
-    NULL,
-    NULL,
-    NULL
+    .m_name = "_string",
+    .m_doc = PyDoc_STR("string helper module"),
+    .m_size = 0,
+    .m_methods = _string_methods,
 };
 
 PyMODINIT_FUNC
 PyInit__string(void)
 {
-    return PyModule_Create(&_string_module);
+    return PyModuleDef_Init(&_string_module);
 }