ABSTRACT
Defying the all too tangible pressures of the state, Chinese population developments have deviated considerably from the course anticipated and charted by politicians in the past. Starting with the surprisingly high census results of 1953, continuing with the unmet objectives of the second and third birth-planning campaigns in the two following decades, and culminating in the abandonment of the original targets of the one-child policy in the late 1980s, a continuous upward revision of population figures has taken place. In the latter case, this has entailed discarding detailed demographic projections for desirable population numbers. Each time, the revision has been in the range of 70 to 100 million or more, equal to underestimates of 11 to 12 per cent for 1953 and 1980 and, depending on whether the initial and extremely ambitious target of 1.13 billion or the more liberal 1.20 billion limit is chosen, some 5 to 12 per cent per cent for the year 2000.
