A monograph by Yi Fuxian, a demographer at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a longtime critic of China's population policies, argues that China's actual population may be closer to 1.27 billion than the 1.4 billion reported in official statistics. The shortfall — as much as 130 million people — is roughly the population of Mexico. Yi contends that the distortion has warped strategic thinking in both China and the United States, feeding overconfidence in Beijing and anxiety in Washington. Population totals of that magnitude anchor projections of labor supply, market size, and and pension planning, which is why the baseline figure carries weight well beyond the statistics bureau.

The monograph is available online.

To make his case, Yi points to discrepancies between China's health and education records and its official birth counts.

China requires every newborn to receive a BCG tuberculosis vaccine within 24 hours of birth. Because multi-dose vials must be discarded 30 minutes after opening, each vial yields only about 1.2 to 1.6 usable doses in practice, according to Yi. Between 2018 and 2020, he noted, the government approved roughly 5.8 million vials a year, while official statistics claimed more than 14 million births annually. That would mean each vial somehow vaccinated 2.4 babies — a rate Yi described as medically and practically impossible nationwide.

Yi also flags inconsistencies in the reported size of individual birth cohorts. The National Bureau of Statistics said 17.7 million babies were born in 2000. When that cohort reached age 10, the 2010 census counted only about 14.4 million, and by their middle school graduation in 2015, roughly 14.2 million remained. About 3.5 million people from a single birth year were unaccounted for.

Yi said he cross-checks census records against school enrollments, hospital births, vaccine batches, and household registrations. The picture that emerges, in his analysis, is a pattern of systematic inflation across multiple official data sources.

Official Chinese population figures have drawn growing scrutiny in recent years, particularly after government data showed the national population beginning to decline. The most recent national census, conducted in 2020, put the official count at roughly 1.41 billion — the baseline Yi's analysis calls into question. Going forward, the same records he relies on for cross-checking, including annual birth statistics, school enrollment figures, and future census releases, are the benchmarks against which his estimate of a roughly 1.27 billion population can be tested.

Additional detail is available in The Wall Street Journal's report, shared by Bob Davis on X.

This item originally appeared on Marginal REVOLUTION as China fact (?) of the day.