[Epoch Times, March 07, 2022](The Epoch Times reporter Zhao Fenghua comprehensive report) According to the latest official statistics released by the CCP, the natural growth rate of Jiangsu’s permanent population last year was -1.12‰, and the annual population growth turned negative for the first time. Expert analysis points out that China’s population crisis is even more alarming than the reported data.
The number of annual births in Jiangsu fell below 500,000 for the first time, and the population growth turned negative
According to data recently released by the Mainland China Bureau of Statistics, in 2021, the permanent population birth rate in Jiangsu will be 5.65‰, the population mortality rate will be 6.77‰, and the natural population growth rate will be -1.12‰. Since 1949, Jiangsu’s natural population growth rate has turned negative for the first time.
According to the statistical report, from 2016 to 2019, the number of births in Jiangsu’s permanent population declined year after year, but it remained above 700,000 each year. By 2020 and 2021, the number of births fell below 600,000 and 500,000 in a row.
In terms of population aging, the population of Jiangsu aged 65 and above was 14.496 million last year, accounting for 17.04%. According to the demographic criteria, if the proportion of the population aged 60 and above exceeds 10%, it is an elderly society. In the mid-to-late 1980s, Jiangsu had already reached this standard.
The decline in Jiangsu’s population is partly due to a sharp drop in the number of women of childbearing age, the report said. Starting from 2020, the number of women of childbearing age between 20 and 39 in Jiangsu will be 11.2652 million, a decrease of 1.4738 million from 2010, and will drop to 11.15 million in 2021. The second reason is that the age of first marriage for women in Jiangsu has been delayed, from an average of 23.22 in 2000 to 29.66 in 2021.
The rate of population decline is underestimated and aging continues to increase
The statistics of the Chinese authorities have been questioned by the outside world. On December 4 last year, Yi Fuxian, a senior scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of the book “Empty Nest of Great Powers,” said at an event hosted by Reuters that Chinese officials may have underestimated the rate of population decline.
Taking the results of the 2020 census as an example, Yi Fuxian estimates that the population of the mainland in 2020 is 1.28 billion, not the official 1.41 billion. The CCP officially falsely reported 130 million people. He said there were more than 20 social benefits related to birth registration, and local governments inflated the population numbers to get more financial subsidies.
The Chinese Communist Party officially claimed that the 2020 census result was 1.41 billion, but it took several days to release the result, and it was questioned that it had undergone “special processing”. However, according to the revelations on the Internet by front-line enumerators who participated in the census, census takers are required to falsely report the population from the lowest level of government agencies. This means that not even the Chinese authorities have access to real census data.
In addition, Yi Fuxian said in an earlier interview with Radio France Internationale that the CCP Health Commission had been exaggerating the birth rate in order to continue to maintain the family planning policy. Yi Fuxian revealed that the actual birth rate in China in 2000 was only 1.22, which was tampered with by the Family Planning Commission to 1.8; in the 2010 national census, the birth rate was only 1.18, which was tampered with to 1.63; the highest birth rate in 2015 was 1.05, but was Exaggerated to 1.60.
Yi Fuxian said that in response to the population crisis, the CCP authorities were forced to introduce a “two-child” policy in 2016 and a “three-child” policy in 2021, and abolished over-birth fines, but with little success.
From “family planning” to “promoting birth” How serious is the population crisis?
In the third quarter of last year, the birth rate in many places in mainland China dropped by more than 10% compared with the previous year, and in some areas it exceeded 20%, according to a report by Lu media “First Financial”.
According to the report, data from the website of the Guiyang Municipal Health Bureau of Guizhou Province shows that from January to October 2021, the local resident population was born at 36,425, compared with 43,783 in the same period in 2020, a decrease of 16.8% over the same period; while Chizhou, Anhui, from January to October last year The number of births was 21% lower than the same period a year earlier.
In the face of the ever-increasing population crisis in the mainland, the CCP authorities canceled the “one-child” “family planning” policy, and issued several more policies to relax or even promote births, but the population crisis is still intensifying.
Ren Zhongdao, a researcher at the independent think tank Tianjun Politics and Economics, told The Epoch Times earlier that more than 20 provinces in mainland China have issued measures to encourage childbirth, such as extending maternity leave, increasing parental leave, and issuing maternity subsidies.
Ren Zhongdao analyzed that various crises are emerging in Chinese society. Among them, two crises may shake China’s national strength, including the population crisis and the aging or pension crisis.
Ren Zhongdao said that the “China Statistical Yearbook 2021” shows that the number of new born population in China will be less than 10 million in the future, while the number of new retirees will exceed 20 million each year, and the trend will continue to expand, which will have a significant impact on China’s economy. Fiscal deficits will also get worse.
Responsible editor: Gao Jing#