The government mouthpiece accused Western media of using China’s population decline to “speak bad” about the country.
Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said Western media reports that China’s population was being overtaken by India deliberately ignored China’s development, using the topic to “bad-mouth” it and advocate decoupling.
CCTV commented sharply on Thursday that the subtext of Western media in recent years is that China’s development is in “big trouble”. When China’s demographic dividend disappears, China will decline and the global economy will also be affected.
“They slandered all the way, and China developed all the way, creating a miracle of sustained and stable economic development with a large population,” CCTV said.
India is overtaking China as the world’s most populous country, with nearly 3 million more people than its neighbors by the middle of this year, United Nations data showed on Wednesday.
“The United States stepped up efforts to contain China’s development, advocated further decoupling, and found new hype points from the UN report,” CCTV said, saying that the West simply equated population size with development achievements.
“This kind of hype lacks a basic understanding of the laws of population development. With the development of human society today, the decline in fertility and willingness to bear children is a common problem facing the world.”
CCTV added that Western developed countries generally face problems such as labor shortages.
Last year, China’s population fell for the first time in 60 years, a historic turnaround that is expected to usher in a long-term decline in the number of citizens, with profound repercussions for its economy and the world.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said that the demographic dividend depends not only on quantity, but also on quality.
“Population is important, but talent is also important … China has taken active measures to deal with population aging,” Wang told reporters on Wednesday.
