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A Note on the Population of Communist China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Robert Michael Field
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Extract

Communist China has not published official population statistics for any date since 1 January, 1958, when it claimed a total population of 646,530,000 persons. For nearly a decade after that, the rounded figure of 650 million was given almost without exception. On 11 March, 1966, however, a figure of 700 million was cited for the first time by Lin Piao in his letter to the Industry and Communications Front, and in August it appeared again in the communiqué of the Eleventh Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee. More recently, the figure 750 million was used in a speech at a workers' congress in Lanchow on 10 February 1968.

Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 38 , June 1969 , pp. 158 - 163
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1969

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References

1 State Statistical Bureau, Ten Great Years (Peking, 1960), p. 11.

2 Other figures have been used occasionally. In 1959, for example, Hsü Kang referred to the population as being 670 million (“Make a Success of Wage Statistical Work in 1959,” Chi-hua yü t'ung-chi (Planning and Statistics), No. 4, 1959, p. 30) and in 1964 Mao Tse-tung told Edgar Snow that some people thought the population was 680 or 690 million people (Edgar, Snow, “Interview with Mao,” The New Republic, 27 February 1965, p. 20).Google Scholar

3 Jen-min jih-pao (People's Daily), 19 June 1966.

4 Jen-min jih-pao, 14 August 1966.

5 Radio Kansu, 11 February 1968. To the best of my knowledge, this is the only time that the figure has been used publicly.

6 The upper end of the range is calculated from the data for Model I on the assumption that the death rate would have fallen smoothly from 18·3 per thousand in 1958 to 16·0 per thousand in 1965, if there had been no agricultural crisis. The lower end of the range is calculated on the more conservative assumption that the death rate would have remained constant.

7 The sources for this table are as follows:

Official:

1953–57: “Data on China's Population from 1949 to 1956,” T'ung-chi kung-tso (Statistical Work), No. 11, 1957, p. 24.

1958: State Statistical Bureau, Ten Great Years (Peking, 1960), p. 11. The population of Taiwan has been excluded.

1964: Jen-min jih-pao, 19 June 1966.

1968: Radio Kansu, 11 February 1968.

Aird: Aird, John S., Estimates and Projections of the Population of Mainland China: 1953–1986, U.S. Bureau of the Census, Series P-91, No. 17 (Washington, 1968). The series are drawn from the following models:Google Scholar

For the years 1953–65, the series are estimates; and for the years 1966–68, are projections.

8 If the 1953 census was an undercount, as has been suggested by Aird, the absolute level of the figure from the 1958 registration might be too low.

9 Kung-jen jih-pao, 6 January 1965. The figure actually refers to ethnic Tibetans (New China News Agency, 20 August 1965), but it has been and continues to be used as the population of the Tibetan Autonomous Region.

10 New China News Agency, 11 November 1966. Tientsin was made a special municipality some time in 1967. Since then, the population of Hopeh has been listed as 43,000,000 (Jen-min jih-pao, 5 February 1968) and the population of Tientsin as 4,000,000 (Jen-min jih-pao, 7 December 1967).

11 Many of these figures are cited in Lin, Tsun, “What is the Population on the Chinese Mainland?” Fei-ch'ing yueh-pao (Chinese Communist Affairs Monthly) (Taipeh), No. 5, 1968, pp. 51–58.Google Scholar

12 The sources for these figures are as follows:

aAird, John S., “Population Growth and Distribution in Mainland China,” in Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress, An Economic Profile of Mainland China, (Washington, 1967), Vol. II, p. 370.Google Scholar The figures from the 1953 census, which are adjusted to the boundaries of 1957, are taken from Chung-Hua jen-min kung-ho-kuo ti-t'u-chi (Atlas of the People's Republic of China) (Peking, 1957).

b State Statistical Bureau, Ten Great Years (Peking, 1960), p. 11.

c The figures, which were collected from provincial newspapers, regional broadcasts, and New China News Agency releases, are listed under 1 January 1964, on the assumption that they are the results of the 1964 registration. The validity of this assumption is discussed in the text.

d Projected from the data for 1953 and 1958 on the assumption that growth rates remained constant.

e Derived from the 1958 data and the 1964 data as reported.

f The figures include the population of Shanghai.

g The figures include the populations of Peking and Tientsin.

h Derived as the sum of the data reported for individual provinces.

i Derived as the sum of the data projected for the individual provinces.

13 It is for this reason that the municipalities of Peking, Shanghai, and Tientsin are not listed separately. The figures for these municipalities (in thousand persons and per cent.) are as follows:

It is not known to what extent these relatively high rates of growth are due to natural increase, rural-to-urban migration, and boundary changes.