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

2-MIN READ2-MIN

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.

Pingtai authorities said they had to “adjust the number of permanent residents” to more accurately represent the number of people who had been tested for the coronavirus. They also said permanent residents in the area were highly mobile and frequently travelled to other places for work.

That explanation left much to be desired among netizens and demographers.