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Politics

中国的人口操纵

Aug 5, 2021 Yi Fuxian

发自威斯康星州麦迪逊市—很少有人口普查报告能跟中国今年5月发布的那份一样引人注目。鉴于中国在人口统计数据上做手脚的悠久历史，我们至少可以认为推迟一个月发布2020年全国人口普查公报的做法是相当可疑的，但正是不久之后发生的事件有效确证了中国暗淡的人口现实。

从官方数据上看，中国的人口状况没有什么值得担心的：2020年全国人口普查公报显示中国的人口在2020年达到了14.1亿人的预期水平并持续增长。然而在该数据发布后不到一个月后当局就宣布放宽计划生育规定，允许家庭生育三个孩子（而不是原本的两个），随后又提出了一项更全面的提高生育率计划。

这些政策动向表明中国的实际人口结构要比当局希望我们相信的要糟糕得多。事实上有一项对中国年龄结构的分析表明中国的人口数量要远低于人口普查报告的数字且正在下降。

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 6 Comments on this article

Kyon Haruki Aug 12, 2021

Mr. Yi has been advocating abolishing the one-child policy for many years. I would be surprised if he didn't rant after the census data shows that the Chinese population increase is slowing. It is, however, unwise to conclude that a slowing population leads to a slowing economy. There will be an environmental disaster to all humans on the earth, if Chinese leaders firmly believe that fertility, instead of productivity, is their only way out.
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Tom Pool Aug 8, 2021

Mr Yi seems to discount the well-known phenomenon of Chinese parents hiding their 2nd, 3rd, and nth babies to avoid penalties of the strict family planning policy. So, adjustments in the data and deviations of census data from data on the numbers of births seem well justified.
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Leo Arouet Aug 7, 2021

A good article in honor of the truth...
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j. von Hettlingen Aug 6, 2021

Yi Fuxian reveals that questions have been raised about the reliability of the demographic figures out of China in May, with critics accusing the government of manipulating data to hide its population decline, while some officials scratch their heads over numbers that do not seem to add up. The 2020 census called into question over 14 million children who seem not exist. Puzzling birth numbers have also drawn criticism over Beijing's family planning policy in the past.
Following the 7th - a once-in-a-decade - national population census, conducted by China's National Bureau of Statistics, population on the mainland had grown by 72 million over the past 10 years to 1.41 billion. “The truth is that China’s population in 2020 probably amounted to about 1.28 billion – some 130 million fewer people than reported. That makes India, not China, the world’s most populous country.” The figures show that population growth is slowing down as fewer couples have children. The decline will add to the strain on an aging society with a shrinking workforce.
The figures purport the population “continues to grow. And yet, less than a month after the census was released, Chinese authorities announced the loosening of family-planning rules, so that households can have three children, rather than two. They have now also put forward a more comprehensive plan for boosting the fertility rate. These policy moves suggest that China’s demographic structure is actually much worse than the authorities would have us believe.”
According to the author, “an analysis of the country’s age structure suggests that it has far fewer citizens than the census reported and that its population is already declining. Past censuses indicate that China’s fertility rate began to fall below replacement level (generally around 2.1 children per woman) in 1991 – 11 years after the one-child policy was implemented nationwide.” The census was published weeks after it was supposed to be released. “Given China’s long history of fiddling with demographic data, the one-month delay…..was suspicious.”
The Covid-19 pandemic could have been a possible culprit for the delayed release. Critics believe the leaders in Beijing may have been disappointed when the findings were presented to them in May. They must have seen the results as not sufficiently positive enough to show off. Worse, in January the official Xinhua News Agency announced that China's population had surpassed the 1.4 billion mark. They could not afford such a blunder when they wanted to celebrate the centenary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in July.
The prospect that the population may be shrinking, when China was supposed to assert itself as the new global superpower worried the CCP. Apparently, two weeks before the official publication, the Financial Times reported that China was set to report its first population decline in five decades. On April 28, the article was quickly rebuffed by the Global Times, a mouthpiece close to the CCP. It said that that information was based on a "statistical error."
After the official results were finally released on May 11, China's propaganda machine tried to downplay the still disapointing figures. "No need to panic," said the Global Times, in an editorial, lambasting "western public opinion" that uses China's demographic changes to "badmouth” the country. The paper urged for confidence, saying China were a country with strong macro-control capabilities, able to adjust the population structure, and do it more effectively than the West.
According to the author, “something else is going on in China, and it is not hard to discern what it is. After facing a strict one-child policy for 36 years, and a two-child policy after that, Chinese people’s ideas about marriage and childbirth have changed profoundly. (The divorce rate in mainland China is 1.5 times that of Taiwan.) Yet China’s top leaders have not fully grasped the demographic challenges they face.”
Despite taking all steps necessary to boost birthrate, Chinese leaders “also seem convinced by the state economists’ predictions – based on (distorted) official data – that China’s GDP will keep growing until it dwarfs that of the United States. It is this belief in China’s inexorable rise that has spurred them to pursue strategic expansion” across Asia - like in the East and South China Seas and in the Himalayas.
We, in the West are “buying into this narrative. In underestimating China’s demographic challenges, Western leaders are overestimating its economic and geopolitical prospects. They see a fire-breathing dragon when what stands before them is really a sick lizard. This raises the risk of strategic miscalculation on both sides.”
It remains to be seen whether the author is right - he predicts that by around 2035, China will be doing worse than the US on all demographic metrics, and in terms of economic growth. In fact, its GDP is unlikely to surpass that of the US.”
The question is whether Xi Jimping does recognise the demographic deficit his country faces. Is he capable of showing humility? If he does he may have to rethink his “Made in China 2025” strategy.
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中国的人口操纵

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