China population: census results in question after township suddenly reports 31 per cent plunge in permanent residents

News goes viral online, and demographer suspects grass-roots officials ‘falsely reported the population on the census’

Internet users ask whether similar adjustments will be made elsewhere, or if this was simply a matter of residents leaving a small township after the census

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China’s once-a-decade census shows that the number of births keeps falling while the country continues to age rapidly. Photo: AP

Published: 7:30pm, 25 Oct 2021Updated: 10:12pm, 25 Oct 2021

The veracity of China’s most recent national census is being called into question by the public after a township government in the northeastern province of Jilin slashed its population figure by nearly a third.

An official notice released by Pingtai township officials on Tuesday has gone viral online after it revealed a 31.44 per cent reduction in the population of the township’s four local villages, to 1,195 people.

In the national census results released in May, the permanent population of those four villages – Yongle, Minsheng, Daling and Taifu – was 1,743.

Internet users are calling on local authorities to better explain the sharp adjustment, which came amid growing concerns that a steady decline in regional births is creating a national demographic crisis.

Stamping out rumours of an overall population decrease, Beijing said its once-a-decade census showed that the Chinese population grew last year, but that the number of births fell for the fourth consecutive year – from 18 million in 2016 to 12 million last year – while the country was also ageing rapidly.

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