The Financial Times quoted experts as saying that the results of the census will have a big impact, so officials must “handle it very carefully.
China completed its latest census in December last year, and the data was scheduled to be released in early April, but it has been repeatedly delayed. The Financial Times quoted experts as saying that China’s population will decline, with a total of less than 1.4 billion people, down from more than 1.4 billion recorded in 2019, the first contraction since records began in 1949. Overseas dissidents believe the sensitivity of the census data is related to “unnatural deaths” in China. (By Lucy Lu/He Jingwen/Huo Liangqiao)
The Financial Times reported Tuesday (27) that the late census data showed China’s population to be less than 1.4 billion, citing sources close to the situation. The figures are considered “very sensitive,” so officials must be “very cautious” in releasing them only after multiple government departments have reached a consensus on the data and its implications, in order to avoid a major shock from the results.
New York political commentator Han Wu told the station that the official delay in reporting the latest census, which was completed in December last year, is believed to be related to the “unnatural deaths” in the country.
Han Wu said: “The reluctance to have children is not a problem in China, it’s a whole world, young people are now reluctant to have children. This is a tendency, but what really hides this population is the unnatural deaths. This causes him to be inaccurate at all. Add to this the factor of reluctance to have children, which is present, and the population of China is inexplicable. Including the official, feel unable to get an exact figure.
In late 2019, an outbreak of Chinese Communist pneumonia first broke out in Wuhan, China, and then swept through the provinces and “out of Asia and into the world. There has been controversy over the number of deaths caused by CCP pneumonia in China, particularly in Wuhan. According to Han Wu, the census figures have become politically sensitive because they are linked to the shrinking population after the outbreak.
Han Wu said: “Population and economic growth are closely linked to the establishment of various systems, political systems. (Population) is ostensibly a number, but it’s actually a major political issue. He (China) should have exceeded 1.4 billion (population) last year, or 1.45 billion, but after the epidemic, the number of decline, or growth is very inaccurate. So, it’s normal that he can’t come up with any plan by now.
China’s decades-long family planning policy began to loosen in 2015, and after the relaxation of the two-child policy, the number of newborns in China increased in 2016, but then declined for three consecutive years. Some analysts worry that China’s population could fall into an “irreversible” downward slope if it falls below the 1.4 billion mark.
Although the Chinese government has gradually relaxed its family planning policies in recent years, it has not been able to reverse the declining birth rate. The decline in China’s population will not only affect China’s economy and consumption, which used to be supported by the “demographic dividend,” but will also give rise to a series of problems such as an aging population.
As Reuters reported earlier, China’s declining population rate is linked to the high cost of living and urban couples not wanting children. The Chinese Communist Party authorities must take effective measures to prevent the population from embarking on an irreversible slope that would break the bones of economic development.
China is conducting a 10-yearly national census from Nov. 1 to Dec. 10, 2020, when the official Xinhua news agency reported that it would begin releasing key census data in April 2021. By March 15 of this year, Liu Aihua, spokesman for China’s National Bureau of Statistics, said the census had reached the final stage of data review and aggregation, with the intention of releasing it in early April.
However, on April 16, Liu Aihua said that the census results would “strive for early release” and was unwilling to say even the approximate date, because “the seventh national census is prepared to release more and more detailed information on the basis of the information released in the sixth national census, and at the same time significantly increase the number of The number of census bulletins” has increased, thus increasing the workload.
According to China’s National Bureau of Statistics last January, China’s total population will exceed 1.4 billion in 2019. If China’s latest population figures fall instead of rise, it will be the first time since the “three years of hardship” in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
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