The Chinese Communist Party leadership has long been trying to reduce their population growth. Those far-sighted leaders got what they wanted.
Ah, the sweet smell of population control success!
When the 2000 and 2010 censuses showed a much smaller [China] population than expected, the authorities inflated the numbers. For example, in 2010, Fujian Province was found to have a population of 33.29 million, yet the figure was revised to upward of 36.89 million.
However, these headline changes could not obscure the flaws in the breakdown figures. Judging by the number of newborns to nine years old in the 2000 census, one could infer that as many as 39 million fewer babies were born in 1991 to 2000 than had been recorded in the revised data. Accordingly, the actual population in 2000 might have been closer to 1.227 billion than to the 1.266 billion that was officially reported.
Last year’s census is similarly misleading. The statistics bureau claims that 227 million babies were born in 2006 to 2019, and the census report shows that there were 241 million Chinese aged one to 14 last year. However, that would mean that China’s average fertility rate in 2006 to 2019 amounted to 1.7 to 1.8.
Given that the government was enforcing strict population-control policies during that period — the two-child policy was introduced on Jan. 1, 2016 — this seems highly unlikely.
Yes, China’s ethnic minorities were exempted from its one-child policy, so there was no need to hide their births. Yet their fertility rate was only 1.66 in 2000 and 1.47 in 2010. Given that Han Chinese tend to be wealthier and more educated, their fertility rate would be lower even if they were not subjected to stricter family-planning rules.
The truth is that China’s population last year was probably about 1.28 billion — about 130 million fewer people than reported. That would make India, not China, the world’s most populous country.
The Chinese authorities are going to great lengths to pretend population growth is continuing. It's almost like their planning ability isn't what Westerners think it is.
I've been on the demographic decline coming at China for quite some time. And I haven't panicked about China's economic growth. Which is why I haven't panicked about China's rise.
