The Chinese Census

by Tony Lambert

First results of the Chinese census which was taken last November have been published. It will take two years for all the data to be collated.

The Chinese population now stands officially at 1.29533 billion people (including Taiwan, Macau and Hong Kong). Government targets were set to limit the population to below 1.3 billion by the end of 2000. The Director of the National Bureau of Statistics announced the good news on March 28.

The total population of China is as follows:

Mainland China (31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities): 1.26583 billion

Hong Kong SAR: 6.78 million

Macau SAR: 440,000

Taiwan, Jinmen and Mazu Islands: 22.28 million.

The census reveals some important shifts in the Chinese population since the last one was taken in 1990. Rapid population growth has been effectively curbed. The last decade has seen an increase of 132.15 million, or only 11.66%. This averages out to an annual increase of 12.79 million or 1% of the total population per annum during the 1990s. This level is 0.4% lower than that during the 1980s, indicating the family planning policy has taken effect, especially in the cities.

China’s population is also better educated. Illiteracy rates among adults aged over 15 have fallen to 6.72%, down from 15.88% in the 1990 census. People with university-level education have risen by 154% to 3,611 per 100,000, up from only 1,422 per 100,000 in 1990. (We would point out, however, that as today only 3.6% of the population are university educated, China has a long way to go to catch up with advanced countries such as the U.S., Japan and Europe where the percentage is as high as 25-50%).

The population is now aging. Citizens aged over 65 account for 6.96% of the total population, an increase of 1.39% on ten years ago. Reasons are improved health care, and a decline in the birth rate.

Ethnic minorities now number about 106 million. This is a greater percentage of the population, with 8.41%, as compared to 8.04% in 1990.

Average family size has declined to 3.44 people per household compared to 3.96 in 1990. Urban growth accelerated during the decade with 36% now living in cities compared to only 26.2% in 1990. Thus the rural population has shrunk from 74% of the population to only 64% and this trend may well accelerate in future.

For Christians, these cold figures have real meaning as a stimulus for prayer and evangelism. For instance, families are now smaller, with only one child (at least in the cities—in the countryside the peasants often have several children.) There is a great need for Christian material to help Christian parents bring up their children in an increasingly self-centered and materialistic environment. With both parents usually out to work there are great strains placed on the nuclear family (as in the West), with sexual infidelity and divorce rates increasing. So teaching on Christian family values is also greatly needed.

With more people receiving a university education, OMF continues to produce a wide range of quality booklets on Christianity and science, philosophy, history, etc., as well as more general issues, such as family and marriage mentioned above. The younger generation are less idealistic than previous generations of students, and more bent on simply carving out a good career. The church in China needs to think of imaginative ways of reaching out to them without compromising the gospel. The general desire to learn English presents Christian English teachers in China with unprecedented opportunities to share their faith. The hundred of thousands of Chinese students and graduates abroad are often very open to the gospel, and much more needs to be done to encourage Christians worldwide to open their homes and befriend them.

As in the West and Japan, the elderly are increasingly numerous in China. Family ties and the tradition of caring for aged parents are still stronger than in the West, especially in China’s rural heartland. However, the moral vacuum and the busy pace of life, especially in the cities, means many elderly folk face living out their last years in loneliness and poverty. This is a ministry in which the Chinese church is already involved; some churches run their own senior citizens homes.

National minorities now number over 100 million. Over the past decade or so many Christian ministries have encouraged prayer for different groups and engaged in evangelism and the translation of the Bible into various minority languages. However, many remain totally unreached. As mentioned in our previous issue, Operation China recently published gives details of 490 different people groups living in China. The task of evangelism and church planting has hardly begun in many of them. One major goal must be the education and equipping of the Chinese churches themselves to reach out effectively to their minority neighbors. We hear of encouraging reports of house-church evangelists going out to Tibet and Xinjiang but in most cases they lack basic resources, language and cross-cultural skills.

The vast majority of people still live in the countryside (some 830 million people). Many are still semi-literate and impoverished. Richer churches on the east and south coasts are sending aid to them, but much more needs to be done to lift them out of grinding poverty and to present Christ as the only hope of salvation. Rural churches are often growing and enthusiastic, but are prey to fanaticism and evil cults, such as Lightning from the East. Basic training in the ABCs of the gospel is still desperately needed by rural preachers, and simple evangelistic tracts for farmers.

Some observers believe that the census gives a conservative figure of the total population, as many of the “floating population” (peasants seeking a better life in the cities) were not counted. Cities such as Beijing and Shanghai each have over 2 million of such people who are without urban registration. Many migrants may have lied because they did not trust government promises that data would be kept confidential and would not be used to punish families in breach of family planning and migration laws. An official admitted that parents with “black kids” (children born illegally outside the quota) had realized that the amnesty was valid only during the census. (Daily Telegraph, 15 Nov 2000) So it is likely that many avoided being counted.

Doing menial jobs or living and begging on the streets, migrants are often feared by middle-class residents as many are drawn into crime and prostitution. Despised by city-dwellers, they must be shown the love of Christ by Christians, otherwise the Lord’s mandate to preach the gospel to the poor is being disobeyed. For this reason, OMF is encouraging overseas teachers, medical workers and others to go to the poorer parts of the country in the West rather than congregate in the more affluent coastal cities where most foreign business interests are concentrated. In this we seek to obey the Lord and carry on the good tradition of the CIM in going “inland”!

If you are interested to know more, or feel that God is calling you to serve Him in China, please contact OMF. They will be pleased to share details of the many openings to work or study in China and to pray with you for God’s clear guidance.

(Facts and figures taken from an article in the Shanghai English-language magazine City Weekend, May 9, based on article in People’s Daily, March 28.)

Copyright OMF International