China’s State Council Population Census Team and the National Bureau of Statistics recently released the results of the seventh national census, stating that China’s “total population reached 1.411.78 billion,” an increase of more than 72 million or 5.38 percent compared to the sixth census in 2010, which is This is a “low growth rate”.
Previously, the release of the results of this census was repeatedly delayed, and thus widely scrutinized and questioned. So what myths do the final public figures reflect about China’s population? Voice of America interviewed Dr. Fu-Hsien Yi, author of “The Great Empty Nest” and researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, to share his observations. Here is the interview.
Voice of America: What do you think about the results of China’s seventh census?
Dr. Fuxian Yi, demographer and senior scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, U.S. (Courtesy of myself)
Fuxian Yi: I think this census is the most unreliable one in China. I used to hope that the Chinese government might have shrunk a little bit because the actual population total should be less than 1.3 billion, but instead of shrinking, they continued to grow, unexpectedly.
Regarding the huge question about this census total, I judge from my analysis and research that the total population should be less than 1.28 billion, with 130 million water. In each age group, the most critical place is the younger age group of 0-14 years old, because most people in this group have no previous census data to refer to, and it will take after 10 years to find out the contradiction, so the census focuses on the younger age group. However, the figures for this group are always exaggerated. For example, the fertility index of 1.25 in the 2000 census was later publicly changed to 1.8; the 2010 census showed a fertility rate of 1.18, which was also changed to 1.63.
They changed the data publicly. 13.79 million births in 2000 were changed to 17.71 million, which was published. By 2015, the 15 year old population was indeed just over 13 million, not 17 million. 14 million births in 2014 were also changed to 17 million.
Communist Party officials announced on October 29, 2011 that all couples would be allowed to have two children. Pictured is Ms. Wang, 35, and her two children at home in Zhuji, Zhejiang province. (File photo on Oct. 17, 2011.)
It is necessary to take China’s ethnic minorities as a comparison. There is no need to tamper with the fertility rate of ethnic minorities because they do not practice the one-child policy and can have two, three or even more children without restrictions and without the problem of over-birth and under-reporting. However, the ethnic minority fertility rate was 1.66 in 2000 and 1.47 in 2010. based on China’s national education and medical level and urbanization rate, even if Han Chinese also implement the same lenient population policy as ethnic minorities, the national fertility rate will only reach 1.34 in 2000; 1.25 in 2010; roughly 1.06 in 2015; and should only be about 0.94 in 2020. So, the national population in 2020 will only be 1.28 billion, but, now they are saying it is 1.41 billion.
In fact, the population data is sacred and is the basis of all social, economic, educational, defense and foreign policies. For example, in the ancient Western Zhou Dynasty, special officials were set up to take care of the population and collect the data every year and then present it to the king, who needed to kneel down to receive this data and then plan the national financial expenditure. After all, if this data was distorted, it could lead to fallacies in various policies. So, very few countries hide population data.
Voice of America: You said that the most critical group is the 0-14 age group, so what are the specific problems that have emerged in this younger age group, under 14 years old?
Yi Fuxian: This is the age group where China’s National Bureau of Statistics has historically released birth numbers that are full of holes.
Baby room in a Chinese hospital (file photo)
The National Bureau of Statistics published 238 million births from 2006-2020. Due to the presence of some deaths, the population of 0-14 year olds will probably be only 233 million by 2020. However, this census announced a surprisingly high population of 253 million people aged 0-14, higher than the NSO’s. This results in an average of 16.89 million births per year from 2006 to 2020. What’s the concept? That’s a fertility rate of 1.6-1.7.
As I just said, the ethnic minorities are enjoying a lenient policy when the fertility rate is only 1.47 in 2010 when they are having random births. How is it possible that the dominant Han nationality can reach 1.6-1.7 under strict family planning, especially with one child? Taiwan and Korea are about 10+ years ahead of mainland China in terms of social development. It seems that China’s family planning has not lowered the fertility rate, but rather encouraged it! Is that funny?
The National Bureau of Statistics once announced that from 1998-2003, 17.49 million births per year, while the number of elementary school enrollment from 2004 to 2009 was only 17.03 million per year, and the household population aged 7-12 in 2010, averaged only 13.97 million per year, not more than 17 million at all; from 2012-2017, the third year of junior high school, averaged 14.39 million per year. That is, the number of births published by the National Bureau of Statistics based on education data is watered down.
This is not counting the numbers of primary and secondary school students that are falsely reported for funding purposes. “CCTV reported on January 7, 2012 that Jieshou City in Anhui Province reported 51,500 students, but only 36,200 in reality, a 42% misrepresentation, and 10.63 million in education funds. A school with 700 students was reported as having 3,000 students. One school has been closed for four years and is still reporting education funding to the government. In Shaoyang County, Hunan Province, the number of students was also misreported by 40%. It’s the same across the country.
Voice of America: Why doesn’t the Chinese government squeeze the water?
Yi Fuxian: I don’t know the political reasons why the government doesn’t shrink. But whether the central government is afraid to disclose the data on population shrinkage or it is difficult to get the real population data, those are two questions, and I don’t know which one. My guess is that even if the central government dares to disclose the population data, it may still be difficult to obtain it.
The actual operators of the census are still the officials of the National Bureau of Statistics, the Population Association and the Family Planning Commission in the past. They used to operate them all, so if this time it is admitted that the census figures do not match up with the past, it means that that group of people will not be blamed and face accountability. It also means admitting that many lives have been lost and many families have suffered for no reason in the past decades, all unnecessary sacrifices and major mistakes.
Interest groups misled the top central leaders and the public with false data, which would have erupted into no less a scandal than the Watergate scandal in Western countries like the United States. But in China, the result of the constant flooding of population data is that Yu Xuejun and Zhai Zhenwu have risen through the ranks.
Yu Xuejun was the director of the General Office of the National Health Commission in 2013, became the deputy director of the National Health Commission in 2018, is also the deputy head of the leading group for this 2020 census, and is the only demographer on the entire leading group. He is also the deputy editorial board member of the China Health Yearbook, and was able to make the data from the Health and Welfare Commission look like a continuation of the recent years.
Zhai Zhenwu, formerly vice president of the Demographic Society and now promoted to president of the Demographic Society, continues to use the previous data to defend the household registration data and argue that China’s fertility rate is still above 1.6.
Voice of America: What is the consequence of the population being constantly flooded?
Yi Fuxian: China says that economic growth in 2035 is going to double from 2020, which is based on the existing book demographics. In 2012, the labor force of 15 to 59 year olds already started to decline, so the economy started to decline that year. 1979-2011, China’s economy grew at an average of 10% per year. By 2019 it will only be 6%.
According to Fuxian Yi, China’s age structure in 2035 will be similar to Japan’s in 2018. Photo shows two women wearing masks walking through an empty street in Kyoto, Japan. (File photo on Feb. 13, 2021)
China’s age structure is already similar to Japan’s 1992, and the age structure in 2035 will be similar to Japan’s 2018. By about 2035, all demographic parameters in China will be worse than in the United States, and the economic growth rate will probably be lower than in the United States.
Moreover, China’s reduced labor force cannot support the expansion, which includes foreign investment, Belt and Road, foreign aid, and military, all without financial support. There are also sources of various infrastructures, including railroads and highways, that will dry up. In the end it will be a total collapse situation.
Real data tells us that China’s population is getting older and older, with the median age going to 42, 49, 50, meaning that the ability to innovate in science and technology is getting worse and worse. This will make predictions on all fronts fall short. The mistakes in various decisions have made the Chinese government even more unpredictable.
I would say that this time it was not corrected and it will be very difficult to restore the truth in the future because the government is trying to strictly control all kinds of data and stipulate that it cannot be released.
I also need to emphasize that it took more than six months to release the results this time, which is mind-boggling. 1982 and 1990 censuses, which were not yet electronic and could only be calculated with tiny calculators and abacuses, released population data in a little more than three months.
If the real population data had been published, it would not have taken so much time this time. This time, electronically, together with the big data, it took a surprising six months to publish it. What’s the reason? It was to tamper with the various data in order to make them match. It took six months to make the population data highly unreliable, and it was the most unreliable ever.
Voice of America: Looking back again, why has China’s population been allowed to continue to be inflated?
Richie Yee: I think there are six reasons.
One, for the various parties involved in the census, as mentioned earlier, if the data is not continuous, it means that the officials involved have compiled false data in the past and are to be held accountable.
Two, China has always counted its population by reference to household registration. For example, the 2010 census initially counted significantly less than the household register, but the government chose to stay consistent with the household register, announcing a population of 1.34 billion compared to 1.345 billion. Among them, the population announced in Fujian Province is 10.8% more than the total number of remittances from the original census, which is the relationship with the household registration to maintain consistency. 2019, the household registration population is already 1.41 billion people, more than the 1.4 billion announced by the Bureau of Statistics. The Ministry of Public Security insiders revealed that it is easy to fake the household registration, and police stations can do it. Recently arrested a director in the northeast, he has more than 2,000 sets of properties, and China’s property is a real-name system, how many household registration he really has? Some years ago reported out of the house sister, house sister and so on endlessly is also indirect evidence. A small county in Shaanxi has a cadre with 10 hukou that are used to buy houses in Beijing and other places. I think China has already had negative growth with about 10 million live births of babies in 2018, but the statistics bureau announced 15.23 million births, an increase of more than 5 million, while the number of household registration increased by 9 million, where did this 9 million figure come from?
Third, the income of grassroots census takers is directly linked to the number of censuses, and they get more money for more investigations. China News Weekly once revealed the inside story of the 2010 census, saying that some census takers did not even go door to door to register and compare, but directly photocopied household registration data at police stations and filled them in, saving time and trouble, and increasing the number of people, making the income higher. This latest census has even more reasons not to go door-to-door due to the new crown epidemic. I have heard people complain that the census takers did not visit homes to check the facts and that this was common.
Fourth, local governments have a strong incentive to misreport population. China does not have a population tax, so there is no benefit to under-reporting the population; it is only profitable to over-report. The central government’s allocations for poverty alleviation, education, and health care are all tied to how much population is available, and more reporting is more profitable. In addition, plans to build high speed railways and highways are based on the size of the population in order to be approved by the central government; there are also counties that have to meet the population target to be promoted to cities. Their incentive to misrepresent is very strong.
Fifth, Chinese demographers also need to “keep the data consistent”. The census is the first step in obtaining data, which then needs to be revised. This process is relevant to demographers, who revise from the original data and then publish it. These are virtually the same demographers who have been responsible for researching official Communist Party data for decades. If they admit that the past data are false, it means that their lifetime of research is wrong, and their work not only has no positive meaning, but hinders the truth and the adjustment of policies, so they instinctively will not admit that the data are soaked in water.
Sixth, even the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) wants the latest data to be consistent with the past. The UNFPA was instrumental in China’s family planning efforts, allocating $50 million to China in 1979 to promote the implementation of family planning. At that time, China’s entire foreign exchange reserves were just over $100 million, and the UN’s $50 million was an astronomical lure. So, China began family planning.
Since then, China’s mainstream demographers, birth control committees, and policy-making agencies have all relied on that money to gain a foothold. The United Nations Population Fund has cumulatively given China more than $200 million to support family planning. The U.S. Congress has demanded several times that funding for the UNFPA be withdrawn, accusing the agency of funding Chinese family planning. However, the U.N. kept the U.S. funding after desperate lobbying. So, the UNFPA also helped to cover up the truth about China’s population by claiming that there are no forced abortions and no forced sterilizations in China, claiming that these acts are voluntary. Moreover, they also falsified China’s population data, saying that China’s fertility rate in 2000 was 1.25 as 1.8; and 1.18 in 2010 was also said to be 1.63.
The director of China’s National Family Planning Commission once said publicly that their population data came from the UN data. Now, the United Nations has announced that China’s population has reached 1.43 billion in 2019, which is more than the official Chinese Communist Party’s. Just as the UN announced that China’s population was 1.24 billion in 2010, China’s census that year announced the same result, in line with the UN. 2019, the UN Population Fund projection, says China’s population reached 1.43 billion.
Voice of America: You’ve said that a country with an aging demographic tends to be a country that needs to develop shrinking policies in military, diplomatic and economic terms. So what does an aging population mean for a country’s regime?
Yi Fu-hsien: Generally speaking, the older a country’s population is, the more stable the regime is.
The young population of a country between the ages of 15 and 29 is the most dynamic group of people in society, Yi Fu-hsien said. Recent high school graduates review their homework before the annual college entrance exam in Handan, Hebei province, China, May 23, 2018. (File photo)
A country’s youth population between the ages of 15 and 29 is the most economically and politically dynamic in society; once the percentage of this population is above 28 percent, society is economically developed on one hand and volatile on the other. In Korea, for example, the proportion of young people was 24% around 1965, and increased to 31% in the early 1980s, so the pro-democracy movement and the school movement came, resulting in the democratization of Korea in 1987.
In China, the proportion of young people was about 24 percent in 1966, when the government organized the “going up to the mountains and going to the countryside”; in 1990, the figure grew to a peak of 31 percent; in the 1980s, there was social unrest, so the government implemented a “strict crackdown” in ’83; then there was the school movement in ’86 and the pro-democracy movement in ’89. Although the Communist Party used high-handedness to subdue this youth unrest, the government’s strict control was only one of the reasons, but the main reason was that the proportion of youth dropped sharply after that and the society became conservative. Now, with only 17 percent of this group, instability is very low and the overall population has no passion to speak of.
The older a country’s population is, the more stable the regime is, Yi Fu-hsien said. Photo shows police patrolling Tiananmen Square in Beijing during China’s two sessions. (March 8, 2021 file photo)
In 1989, the median age in China was 25, and now it has “matured” to 42; the mentality of these two age groups is incomparable. The median age in the Northeast is now 46, older than the whole country, so it is the most stable. Despite the low economic level there and the pressure on social security and Medicare, the population is lopsidedly supportive of the government because they depend on it to continue providing Medicare and social security.
In short, the aging population is on the one hand increasing longevity and on the other hand declining fertility. It is like a stone rolling down a mountain, if you don’t push it, it will slowly roll down, Taiwan and Korea are slowly declining; China was already declining in the 70s, and family planning is like kicking a stone that is slowly rolling down, kicking it off a cliff. It’s easy to kick a rock off a cliff, but it’s very difficult to lift a rock off a cliff. It’s like raising the fertility rate.
Voice of America: Thank you, Dr. Richie Yee, for the interview with Voice of America.
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