Translation : Gan Yung Chyan, KUCINTA SETIA
Reporter : Ning Haizhong / Editor : Sun Yun / https://www.epochtimes.com/b5/25/2/24/n14444610.htm / Image : A delivery man waits for orders in Beijing on February 24, 2025. (Pedro Pardo/AFP via Getty Images)
The official Chinese Communist Party claims that China has a population of 1.4 billion, but recently many Chinese bloggers have posted videos saying that from cities to rural areas, there are fewer and fewer people, questioning whether China’s population data is correct: Where have all the Chinese gone? Musk's X AI Grok 3 calculated the huge population decline in China based on official Chinese data, and some commentators believed that this revealed a big secret of the Chinese Communist Party.
The National Bureau of Statistics of China released data on 17 January 2025, stating that China's population will be 1.4828 billion at the end of 2024, a decrease of 1.39 million from the end of 2023, and the natural population growth rate will be negative 0.99%. According to this data, China's population has only declined slightly, but videos shot by bloggers from all over the country show that shopping malls and streets in many places, which were once bustling with people, are now sparsely populated. During this year's Chinese New Year, even first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou were deserted, with only tourist attractions and major hospitals crowded with people.
Overseas YouTube channels have collected a lot of bloggers’ videos. Here are some of the bloggers’ sharing:
"Have you noticed that there are fewer and fewer people in Beijing this year? The post-Chinese New Year period is the peak season for people to return to Beijing, but this year a lot of houses cannot be rented out, and the streets are much quieter."
"The New Year is over. Where have all the people in Shanghai gone? Have you noticed that there are fewer people on the subway? The shopping malls are also very deserted. Even the most bustling pedestrian streets in the past are now closed."
"Do you feel that in big cities like Guangzhou, there are fewer people, no one in the shopping malls, no one on the streets, no one everywhere? Can anyone analyze where the people have gone?"
"In a country with a population of 1.4 billion, Jinan has a population of 9 million. There is no one on the streets or in the shops. Where have all the people gone?"
"I suddenly discovered a very scary problem. During the Chinese New Year, you said that there were no people in the cities. Everyone knows this, but my cousin in the countryside said that there were not many people in the countryside. The countryside was so deserted. You said that China has a population of 1.4 billion. Where did all these people go? I even began to doubt whether China has a population of 1.4 billion. Does China really have 1.4 billion people?"
It remains a mystery how many people have died from the covid epidemic, which broke out in Wuhan at the end of 2019, then spread across the country and overseas. In particular, after the CCP’s three-year extreme "zero-COVID" policy ended without warning in December 2022, the epidemic broke out like a tsunami, and crematoriums and funeral homes across China were overloaded but the civil affairs department stopped publishing funeral data afterwards. As of today (24 February 2025), the authorities have not resumed publishing funeral data.
Around the Chinese New Year this year, a wave of influenza A epidemic broke out. In mid-February, people in many parts of Hebei told Epoch Times reporters that around the Chinese New Year, people around them generally showed flu symptoms, and major hospitals and crematoriums were packed.
Mr. Hua, a villager in Tangshan, Hebei, said: "Now the big hospitals are overcrowded, like a market. The number of people who died in the hospital cannot be burned in the crematorium. I am now in my hometown in the countryside. Many people have died. To burn the bodies, we have to find people (with connections). It's like the end of the world! Those who died are all older, including middle-aged people, older people, and young people. Now it's still covid. My sixth aunt died of covid, and the government controls the media and does not allow them to talk about it."
Mr. Zhang, a resident of Ankang City, Shaanxi Province, said that due to the death of many people in his area, new graves are everywhere in the rural valleys and fields.
Interestingly, according to actual measurements, Musk's X AI Grok 3 estimates that China's population will decrease by 150 million to 200 million people from 2020 to 2023 based on official Chinese data, which seems to echo the Chinese people's feeling that the population has decreased significantly.
On February 20, 2025, a netizen posted on X: "Grok3, the Musk version of AI, is amazing! I just challenged it with a major question using its thinking function: How many people died in China during the three-year epidemic? It searched a large amount of public data in 29 seconds, designed a regression analysis model, provided control variables, and finally came up with a pure data analysis result: China's population decreased by 150 million to 200 million in three years! Do you accept it?" (link)
In response to this, well-known commentator Wen Zhao said in a video program on 22 February 2025 that this netizen limited the analysis to consumption data, which restricted the direction of reasoning too rigidly. Key factors such as GDP and unemployment rate should also be included as set conditions.
He personally tested Gork3 and asked, "Please combine China's consumption data with China's economic growth rate, unemployment rate and other economic operation data to creatively estimate the number of people who will be reduced in China during the COVID-19 pandemic from 2020 to 2023."
The result given by Gork3 is also that the population decreased by between 150 million and 200 million. Wen Zhao said that this result was shocking. Musk's Gork3 had leaked a big secret to the CCP and created a big hole.
However, many observers have long pointed out that the official data on GDP and unemployment rate provided by the Chinese Communist Party are themselves "beautified" for the sake of regime stability.
As early as two years ago, Mr. Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Gong, stated that the CCP has been covering up the epidemic for more than three years. The epidemic in China has killed 400 million people, and 500 million people will die in China by the end of this wave of epidemic.
At the beginning of the outbreak, Mr. Li Hongzhi pointed out in his article "Reason" in March 2020: "In fact, the plague itself is aimed at people's hearts, morals, and karma." He also told the world how to avoid danger in this plague: "People should sincerely confess to God where they are not good, and hope to be given a chance to correct their mistakes. This is the solution, this is the panacea."
