Chinese state media accuses the West of ‘slander’ after reporting India’s population boom

Chinese state media has taken exception to reports a rival nation is overtaking their population, accusing the West of “slander”.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin gestures during a press conference at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing on August 8, 2022. (Photo by Noel Celis / AFP)

Beijing’s state broadcaster, CCTV, has accused Western media of “ignoring China’s development” and using India’s overtaking of the superpower’s population to criticise it.

In a commentary on Thursday, the broadcaster claimed Western media’s subtext was that China’s development was in “big trouble” and that the country would decline when its demographic dividend disappears.

India is set to overtake China as the world’s most populous country by the end of June, UN estimates showed on Wednesday.

China has generally been regarded as the world‘s most populous country since the fall of the Roman Empire but last year its population shrank for the first time since 1960, while India’s continued to rise.

The Chinese state broadcaster also noted the West simply equated population size with development achievements, lacking a basic understanding of the law of population development.

CCTV added that Western developed countries generally faced problems such as labour shortages, while China has taken active measures to respond to population ageing.

“They slandered all the way and China has developed all the way, creating a miracle of sustainable and stable economic development with a huge population,” CCTV said.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin stated that population dividends did not only depend on quantity but also quality.

“China’s demographic dividend has not disappeared, the talent dividend is taking shape, and development momentum remains strong,” Wang Wenbin said.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said ‘development momentum remains strong’.

“The United States is stepping up efforts to contain China’s development and advocate further decoupling and found new hype points from the United Nations report,” the CCTV continued.

“Such hype lacks a basic understanding of the law of population development. With the development of human society today, the decrease in birthrate and decline in willingness to bear children are common problems faced by the whole world.”

China ended its strict “one-child policy”, imposed in the 1980s amid overpopulation fears, in 2016 and started letting couples have three children in 2021.

Many blame its falling birthrates on the soaring cost of living, as well as the growing number of women going into the workforce and seeking higher education.

China said on Wednesday that it “implements a national strategy to actively respond to population ageing, promotes the three-child birth policy and supporting measures, and actively responds to changes in population development”.

India is set to overtake China as the world‘s most populous country by the end of June, UN estimates showed Wednesday.

India has no recent official population data because it has not conducted a census since 2011, with a follow-up in 2021 delayed by the Covid pandemic.

The initiative is now bogged down by logistic hurdles, making it unlikely the massive exercise will begin anytime soon. Some accuse the government of deliberately delaying the count until after national elections next year.

The census will shine a spotlight on how the Indian economy under Prime Minister Narendra Modi is struggling to provide jobs for the millions of young people entering the job market every year.

The new UN report also estimated that the global population will have hit 8.045 billion by mid-2023, by which time almost one in five people on the planet will be Indian.