An “unimaginable crisis” is coming. China may have been lying about its population for years

The Office for National Statistics released the data on the decline in the number of citizens on Wednesday. The number of births decreased by 5.6%. 9.02 million, while the death rate reached its highest level since the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s.

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The population decline was greater last year than in 2022. When China's population dropped to 850,000. Folks, for the first time since 1961, the country was ravaged by a massive famine under the then leader Mao Zedong.. Data from the Office for National Statistics showed a decline in the birth rate to 6.39 births per 1,000 people in 2022, compared to 6.77 births in 2022.

Last year, 11.1 million people died in China, 690,000 more than in 2022, meaning the death rate rose to 7.87 per 1,000 people after the lifting of epidemic restrictions at the end of 2022.

Officials have not released the number of Covid-19-related deaths since China lifted strict containment measures in late 2022. But last year's death rate was 7.37 per 1,000, the highest since 1974.

The problem is that we don't know the true extent of the decline in the Middle Kingdom. Official data is falsified to make it look better. For example, although China has grown economically in recent decades, scientific analyzes point out, among other things, that China's GDP growth rates are questionable. Yi Fuxian, a prominent US demographer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says the same is true of population data.

He estimates that this actually happened in 2014. According to him, China will experience negative natural growth from 2018 onwards.

Over the years, the official statistics have been increasing individual regions, thanks to which they receive more subsidies from the central government. As a result – according to Fuxian's estimates – China's population in 2020 is 1.28 billion people, not 1.41 billion as reported by officials.

If this is true, it will have huge consequences for the entire world. It primarily means, as Fuxian points out, All predictions about China are based on false assumptions.

“China's population crisis is beyond any imagination of the Chinese authorities and the international community, and economic growth will be worse than it appears now“- writes Fuxian.

But that's not all, because of the structural problems of the Chinese economy, especially the real estate market (which we write a lot about here), things may turn out to be very favorable for the whole world – the demographer warns.

The real estate market in China is 4 times the country's GDP, compared to 1.6 in the US and 2.1 in Japan. It accounts for 25 percent. 2/3 of the Chinese economy and household wealth. Thus, this sector has become a threat to the entire economy. If the local real estate market collapses, it will not only cause an economic slowdown and a credit crunch for local authorities. It would also wash away China's credit market and banking system, leading to widespread social unrest and a global financial crisis – warns the expert.

According to Fuxian, “the Chinese government is very good at covering up small problems.” But these, in his opinion, often pile up into bigger problems that can no longer be ignored.

According to an American scientist, Chinese authorities may try to prevent problems in the real estate market. But they will “delay the inevitable and accelerate an even greater population crisis“Buying a home and raising children will become out of reach for many young people.”

Due to the bursting of the housing bubble in the 1990s, Japan has one of the highest fertility rates in East Asia, resulting in lower prices and lower urban population density. Now that China's overall population is shrinking, especially at home-buying age, a housing market collapse seems inevitable. How this happens, as well as how quickly it happens, will have a profound impact on China's socio-economic situation and international geopolitics for decades to come. – says Yi Fuxian.

China's population began to decline in 2016 following the controversial one-child policy that was in place from 1980 to 2015. In 2021, authorities allowed up to three children.

To stem the decline in births, Beijing has introduced a number of measures, including increasing fiscal spending. Fertilization Refund In laboratory testing mode or enabling unmarried women to have children legally. However, this did not stop the birth rate from falling.

According to the UN, India, with a population of 1.425 billion, will overtake China as the world's most populous country at the end of April 2023.

The United Nations predicts that China's population will drop below 1 billion by the end of the 21st century as fertility drops to 1.2 per woman in 2022. This places China among the countries with the lowest fertility rates in the world. A birth rate of 2.1 births per woman is necessary to maintain a stable population.