The decline of the Chinese population growth-rate, and the continued trend of such, since the latter half of the 1970s, apart from the slight rebound, is obviously the result of the population control policy implemented since the early 1970s.
In 1998, China has set forth new objectives for population and planned childbirth policies to the end of the century, and up to the middle of the 21st century. The first objective is to keep the Chinese population within 1.3 billion until 2000; the second is to control it within 1.4 billion until 2010; and the third is to lead the peak national population of the mid 21st century (estimated at around 1.6 billion) to a gradual decline. The country's fertility rates have been under the replacement level in recent years. However, due to the scale of the population, about 20 million babies are born every year, and about 13 million net annual increase has been maintained. Under the circumstances, the Chinese population is expected to increase by 400 million over the next several decades.
According to the UN Prospects, as shown in Table 2, the population China is not seen as exceeding 1.3 billion by the end of this century. It will approach 1.4 billion by high-variant estimate in 2010, but could be a little over 1.36 plus by medium-variant estimate or a little under 1.33 billion by low-variant estimate. Thus, the population is estimated, by any of these three methods, to be within the target limit for 2010 which the country aims at. In the meantime, it will go above 1.7 billion by high-variant estimate in 2050, or above 1.5 billion by medium-variant estimate, but under 1.2 billion by low-variant estimate. The population is expected to continue to grow until 2050 by high-variant estimate, but could be turning to a slight decline in or after 2040 by medium-variant estimate, and the speed of the decline could be even faster by low-variant estimate after 2030.
In any event, the future trend of the population growth in China depends on the continuing planned childbirth policy, i.e., the process of implementation of the population control policy, and the variation of the birth rate as well as the mortality rate.
