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China's Demographic Evolution 1850–1953 Reconsidered

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Peter Schran
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Extract

There remains little doubt that the offcial population statistics which indicate the beginning and the end of the most recent down swing in China's “dynastic cycle” of demographic development – 430 million people in 1850 and 582·6 million on 30 June 1953 – are close approximations of the true totals. Detailed scrutiny of all evident irregularities in the reported data is unlikely to suggest corrections by more than five per cent, and such modifications are subject to questions and reservations in turn.

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Type
Research Notes
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 75 , September 1978 , pp. 639 - 646
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1978

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References

1. For a reproduction of the official data and their first careful consideration in recent years see Ping-ti, Ho, Studies on the Population of China, 1368–1953 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1959).Google Scholar

2. See Perkins, Dwight H., Agricultural Development in China 1368–1968(Chicago: Aldine, 1969), pp. 209–216.Google ScholarNote, however, that Aird, John S., “The present and prospective population of Mainland China,” Milbank Memorial Fund, Population Trends in Eastern Europe, the USSR and Mainland China (New York: Milbank Memorial Fund, 1960), esp. pp. 115–16, considers the likely omissions to be somewhat larger.Google Scholar

3. See Liu, T.C. and Yeh, K. C., The Economy of the Chinese Mainland: National Income and Economic Development, 1933–1959, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965), pp. 171–79, esp. p. 178.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4. See Perkins, , Agricultural Development, p. 216.Google Scholar

5. See ibid. pp. 213–14.

6. See Ho, , Studies, Ch. 4, esp. p. 64.Google Scholar

7. See Chang, Yu-i, Chung-kuo chin-tai nung-yeh shih tzu-liao, Vol. 3 (Peking: San Lien Bookstore, 1957), p. 907.Google Scholar

8. See Ibid.

9. See Aird, John S., “Population growth,” in Alexander Eckstein et al. (eds.), Economic Trends in Communist China (Chicago: Aldine, 1968), p. 265.Google Scholar

10. See Ho, , Studies, p. 252.Google Scholar

11. See China Magazine, Vol. 16, No. 1 (May 1946), p. 4.Google Scholar

12. Note that ½[582·6/(430·0−97·7)+(582·6+97·7)/430·0]=1·005103

13. Note that 582·6/430·0=1·003103

14. See John, Lossing Buck, Land Utilization in China (Nanking: University of Nanking, 1937), pp. 361–63.Google Scholar

15. Ibid. and personal communication of 1 February 1963.

16. See Cheng-hsin, Chao, “Recent population changes in China,” Yenching Journal of Social Studies, Vol. 1, No. 1 (June 1938), pp. 16, 23–29.Google Scholar

17. See Ta, Chen, Population in Modern China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1946), pp. 29, 32.Google Scholar

18. Cecil, Roberston, “Public health,” China Yearbook, 1938, p. 132.Google Scholar

19. Ta, Chen, Population, pp. 90, 98.Google Scholar

20. See Ibid. pp. 28–29, for references to the estimate of C. M. Chiao and J. L. Buck. Note that similarly high rates of natural increase may be inferred from the Manchurian population data for 1925–31 and 1941–47. I am indebted to John Nuttall for their derivation.

21. See Buck, , Land Utilization, p. 395.Google Scholar

22. See Barclay, George W., Coale, Ansley J., Stoto, Michael A., and Trussell, T. James, “A reassessment of the demography of traditional rural China,” Population Index, Vol. 42, No. 4 (October 1976), pp. 606–635.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23. I am indebted to John Nuttall for the compilation of the reported estimates of disaster victims and for the calculation of this fatality rate. The materials are available on request.

24. See supra, note 7.

25. See Frank, Lorimer, The Population of the Soviet Union: History and Prospects (Geneva: League of Nations, 1946), pp. 36–37.Google Scholar

26. See Kantner, John F., “The population of the Soviet Union,” as reprinted in Franklyn D. Holzman (ed.) Readings on the Soviet Economy (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1962), p. 289, and Brackett, James W. and DePauw, John W., “Population policy and demographic trends in the Soviet Union,” in Joint Economic Committee, New Directions in the Soviet Economy, Part 3: The Human Resources (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1966), p. 607.Google Scholar

27. Note that the collectivization of agriculture and the mass purges added substantially to mortality during this period.

28. Note that 147·0/140·5=1·0172·7

29. See supra, note 25 and note that 194·4/190·7=1·017