China conducts a census every 10 years, and last year was the seventh. Official sources say it was done last December, but Beijing chose not to make it public for now. It’s a curious decision, since the census is a basic piece of national information about a country and generally doesn’t involve any issues of state secrecy. Officials from China’s Human Services Bureau said two weeks ago that they “strive to release the final results of the census to society at an early date.” Anhui, Hebei and other local governments held a meeting of census office directors, emphasizing the need to “do a good job of interpreting census messages,” raising many questions. First, why not announce it as soon as possible? Second, why does the official “to do a good job of interpretation”?
The Financial Times quoted sources as saying that the results of the 2020 census showed that China’s population had declined for the first time since records began in 1949, with the total population expected to be less than 1.4 billion.
In fact, a lot of data has been revealed during the census, such as super cities like Shanghai and Beijing, which have seen a significant drop in birth rates, to the tune of more than 14%. Also, data from the Ministry of Public Security said that last year China registered only a little over 10 million newborns, and according to the estimate of less than 20% of unregistered data in previous years, 12 million newborns were born last year, compared to 14 million the year before, which is exactly a 14% decrease, and Beijing’s figures are actually identical.
According to previous analyses by some population experts, China’s population was overestimated, and the authorities were a bit overwhelmed by the significant decrease in this statistic.
In the Chinese Communist Party’s authoritarian system, the population size of a place is related to the financial allocation from the higher level, the rebate from the central government, the education funding, etc., and in the last decade, the performance assessment indicators such as the urbanization rate, so there is the phenomenon of over-reporting the population.
There is also some analysis as to whether too many deaths caused by the new crown epidemic in 2020 may be imputed in the population figures. three years of famine in China in the early 1960s, the number of starvation deaths were imputed through population data, officially the number of unnatural deaths, which ranged from 20 to 45 million.
If the 2020 census figure drops significantly, it may be projected in the same way, that is, by counting the population decline as part of the epidemic deaths. The official figures for the number of deaths from the epidemic are only a few thousand, but now there are millions and millions, and whether or not they are really deaths from disease, the Communist Party can’t argue with them anyway.
This is why the authorities are hesitant to release the population figures and have asked localities to “do a good job of interpreting” them.
In fact, the CCP’s official media have recently started to publish various population studies, which means that they have started to make official interpretations. First of all, these reports all agree that the population growth figures are decreasing sharply, the birth rate is dropping sharply, the population is already “getting old before it gets rich”, and the future socio-economic development will face huge problems.
Let’s look at the report of Ren Zeping’s team. Ren Zeping is the managing director and chief macro analyst of Guotai Junan Securities Research Institute in China, and he was the deputy director of the research department of the macro department of the Development Research Center of the State Council.
According to his report, the number of births in China fell to 14.65 million in 2019, with the population aged 65 and above accounting for 12.6%, and the total population will inevitably enter negative growth in the 14th Five-Year Plan (Note: 14th Five-Year Plan: 2021-2025). According to the current trend, the total fertility rate will decline from 1.5 in 2019 to about 1.0 to 1.2 as the effect of the comprehensive two-child policy completely disappears, education level increases, and urbanization advances.
If the total fertility rate is estimated at 1.0, by 2050 and 2100, China’s total population will be 1.21 billion and 520 million respectively, with the proportion of elderly people at 31.2% and 53.4% respectively (that is, by 2050, there will be one elderly person out of three in China, and by 2100, there will be one elderly person out of two).
Even with a slightly optimistic estimate of a total fertility rate of 1.4, the total population will be 1.27 billion and 730 million by 2050 and 2100, respectively, with the proportion of elderly people at 29.6% and 40.7%, respectively.
The report says that if the total fertility rate gradually rises to 1.8 in the next decade, China’s population will be 1.36 billion and 1.00 billion in 2050 and 2100, respectively, and the proportion of elderly people will reach 28.9% and 32.5%, respectively.
Raising the fertility rate to about 2.1, China’s population will be 1.40 billion and 1.29 billion by 2050 and 2100, respectively, and the proportion of the elderly population will reach 26.8% and 26.7%, respectively.
Ren Zeping’s team also made some predictions about the impact of population on socio-economic development, and there are probably several of them. First, aging, the United States, Japan, South Korea, these countries, more than 15% of the population over 65 years old, the per capita GDP is about 24,000 U.S. dollars, China is now 60 years old (China’s retirement age of 60 years old) more than 18%, but the per capita GDP is 10,000 U.S. dollars, is the typical “old before rich”. Second, the demographic dividend has entered a negative phase. For the past 30 years, mainland China has been receiving a positive demographic dividend, but from now on, it is going to receive a negative one. Because there is less labor force but more and more old people to feed, there are less productive people in society but more people who need help.
Their recommendations are, first, to liberalize childbirth, or even encourage it, and second, to prepare for an aging society, such as building more hospitals, nursing homes and whatnot, and maybe less schools.
The report argues that the 1.42 billion in 2020 expected by China’s National Population Development Plan (2016-2030) is unlikely to be achieved. According to the Chinese government’s projections, China’s population is supposed to peak at 1.46 billion in 2031. This year is 2021, which is tantamount to saying that this peak has arrived ten years earlier and with 60 million fewer people than originally estimated.
This illustrates how socialist-style central planning for economic and social development can easily lead to all sorts of problems. The Communist Party’s 14th Five-Year Plan, which was originally planned for 1.46 billion people, turned out to be 1.36 billion people, 100 million less.
Officially, it is relatively easy to restrict the birth of children, and one can use population, health care, and education as a means to force implementation, but it is difficult to force more children. In fact, this problem was encountered long ago in the former Soviet Union. Russians did not like having children, and the Soviet Union believed that population size determined future superpower status, so everyone was encouraged to have children. I remember the Soviet Union praised a “heroic mother” who gave birth to more than 50 children, but it is hard to imagine. 35 children a year from the age of 15 to 50, how did she give birth?
It was not a coincidence that family planning began in 1979 and that Deng Xiaoping returned to power in 1979. The CCP’s family planning policy is related to a slight change in the CCP’s global strategy. After the Korean War, the CCP military counted 1 to 5 to 1 to 8 casualties against the U.S. Based on this calculation, the CCP would have to have at least five times the population to beat the United States. When Deng Xiaoping came to power in 1979, he decided that “a world war could be avoided” and that he would no longer export the revolution or fight the U.S., so too much population became a burden. As a result, a strict family planning policy was ordered, which directly led to China’s future demographic crisis.
Therefore, China’s population crisis is basically designed by the central policy. This is the biggest problem of the authoritarian system.
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