An article on the latest issue of Outlook Weekly stressed that in a period to come China's total population will keep growing at a speed of 8 to 10 million each year, pressing up to the security line of 1.5 to 1.6 billion, and the country needs at least 30 years to achieve zero population growth.

Entitled "China facing five dangers in population security", the article pointed out five major problems existed on the population issue.

First, the population base is huge and keeps growing. As the world most populous country, China has made much achievement in population control. But under the law of inertia, in a period to come the total population will still keep increasing and at least 30 years are needed before reaching zero growth. Analysts say China's total population has long exceeded the most proper scale (7 to 10 million) and is now pressing up to the security line (1.5 to 1.6 billion).

Second, the population quality needs to be raised. China now has some 60 million disabled persons, nearly 20 percent of them are born with disability. The occurrence rate of born defects stays high. On the other hand, common people are facing challenges of both infectious diseases and chronic, non-infectious diseases. Besides, the cultural standard of the population is rather low and the overall schooling lags far behind developed countries.

Third, new perils appear in population structure. One is the serious imbalance of gender ratio in newborns. The fifth national census showed that the gender ratio of China's newborns had reached 117:100, much higher than the international accepted normal scope (between 103 and 107). The other is the soaring aged population, with the speed and number far exceeding any developed country. By now China has entered into an aged society, with the population over 60 reaching 134 million, or over 10 percent of the national total, which is believed to reach 15.6 percent by 2020.

Fourth, the urbanization of population has put greater pressure on strategic rare resources. So far 40.5 percent of China's population has been urbanized, and the percentage is expected to reach 65 percent by 2020. This means that in a dozen years the country's urban population would increase by 360 million, adding the total number of urban dwellers to 900 million. The increase of urban population will inevitably lead to the occupation of lands around cities. The same pressure is also on water resources.

Fifth, migrant population has cast a tremendous impact on traditional system and changed the layout of labor resources. Currently China has more than 120 million migrant people, which has become an import driving force for economic development in cities and developed regions. Besides, the pattern in which rural dwellers move to cities and developed regions has widened urban-rural gap, forcing the state to put more funds and material resources into poor and backward areas where young and middle-aged labors ran off.

By People's Daily Online