Because of complex natural conditions, the population of China is quite unevenly distributed. Population density varies strikingly, with the greatest contrast occurring be­tween the eastern half of China and the lands of the west and the north-west. Exceptionally high population densities occur in the Yangtze Delta, in the Pearl River Delta, and on the Ch'eng-tu Plain of the western Szechwan Basin. Most of the high-density areas are coterminous with the alluvial plains on which intensive agriculture is centred.

In contrast, the isolated, extensive western and frontier regions, which are much larger than any European na­tion, are sparsely populated. Extensive uninhabited areas include the extremely high northern part of Tibet, the sandy wastes of the central Tarim and eastern Dzungarian basins in Sinkiang, and the barren desert and mountains east of Lop Nor.

In the 1950s the government became increasingly aware of the importance of the frontier regions and initiated a drive for former members of the military and young intel­lectuals to settle there. Consequently, the population has increased, following the construction of new railways and highways that traverse the wasteland; a number of small mining and industrial towns have also sprung up.

INTERNAL MIGRATION

Migrations have occurred often throughout the history of China. Sometimes they took place because a famine or political disturbance would cause the depopulation of an area already intensively cultivated, after which people in adjacent crowded regions would move in to occupy the deserted land. Sometime between 1640 and 1646 a peas­ant rebellion broke out in Szechwan, and there was a great loss of life. People from Hupeh and Shensi then entered Szechwan to fill the vacuum, and the movement contin­ued until the 19th century. Again, during the middle of the 19th century, the Taiping Rebellion caused another large-scale disruption of population. Many people in the Lower Yangtze were massacred by the opposing armies, and the survivors suffered from starvation. After the defeat of the rebellion, people from Hupeh, Hunan, and Honan moved into the depopulated areas of Kiangsu. Anhwei. and Chekiang, where farmland was lying uncultivated for want of labour. Similar examples are provided by the Nien Rebellion in the Huai River region in the 1850s and '60s, the Muslim rebellions in Shensi and Kansu in the 1860s and '70s, and the great Shensi and Shansi famine of 1877-78.

In modern history the domestic movement of the Han to Manchuria (now known as the Northeast) is the most Migration significant. Even before the establishment of the Ch'ing to dynasty in 1644, Manchu soldiers launched raids into Manchuria North China and captured Han labourers, who were then obliged to settle in Manchuria. In 1668 the area was closed to further Han migration by an Imperial decree, but this ban was never effectively enforced. By 1850. Han settlers had secured a position of dominance in their colonisation of Manchuria. The ban was later partially' lifted, partly because the Manchu rulers were harassed by disturbances among the teeming population of China proper and partly because the Russian Empire time and again tried to invade sparsely populated and thus weakly defended Manchuria. The ban was finally removed altogether in 1878, but set­tlement was encouraged only after 1900. The influx of people into Manchuria was especially pro­nounced after 1923, and incoming farmers rapidly brought a vast area of virgin prairie under cultivation. About two-thirds of the immigrants entered Manchuria by sea, and one-third came overland. Because of the severity of the winter weather, migration in the early stage was highly sea­sonal, usually starting in February and continuing through the spring. After the autumn harvest a large proportion of the farmers returned south. As Manchuria developed into the principal industrial region of China, however, large urban centres arose, and the nature of the migration changed. No longer was the movement primarily one of agricultural resettlement; instead it became essentially a rural-to-urban movement of interregional magnitude. After 1949 the new government's efforts to foster planned migration into interior and border regions produced no­ticeable results. Although the total number of people involved in such migrations is not known, it has been estimated that by 1980 about 25 to 35 percent of the population of such regions and provinces as Inner Mon­golia, Sinkiang, Heilungkiang. and Tsinghai consisted of recent migrants, and migration had raised the percentage of Han in Sinkiang from about 10 to 40 percent of the total. Efforts to control the growth of large cities led to the resettlement of 20,000,000 urbanites in the countryside after the failure of the Great Leap Forward and of 17,-000,000 urban-educated youths in the decade after 1968. Within the next decade, however, the majority of these "rusticated youths" were allowed to return to the cities, and new migration from rural areas pushed urban popu­lation totals upward once again.

China Sticks to Population Control Policy in New Century

China will continue its efforts to control the growth of the population in the 21 century, said Zhang Weiqing, minister of the State Family Planning Commission on November 2, 2000.

At the annual board meeting of the Partners in Population and Development by South-South Cooperation, which opened Thursday in Beijing, Zhang said that keeping a low birth rate is the key task of China' s family planning program in the coming decade.

He said that China has made it a goal to keep the population below 1.4 billion until 2010 on the basis of scientific feasibility study.

In order to realise the goal, China is persisting in popularisation and education about family planning and contraception, and it will make efforts to build a perfect population control system suitable for China's situation, said Zhang.

According to Zhang, population will continue to be a pressing issue for China in the 21st century. The annual net population growth will be more than 10 million at the start of the new century. The population will not decline until it reaches a peak of 1.6 billion in the middle of the 21st century, Zhang said.

At present, China has a large work-age population, which puts a heavy burden on employment. The work-age population will peak at 900 million in the coming decades.

In addition, Zhang predicts that the number of senior citizens over the age of 60 in China will reach 130 million at the end of this year, and will exceed 357 million in 2030, and 439 million in 2050, or a quarter of the total population.

Zhang said that China will stick to family planning policy for a long time depending on future population situation.

President on Population Control, Resources and Environmental Protection