https://www.reuters.com/world/china/researcher-questions-chi...

https://thediplomat.com/2022/03/how-reliable-are-chinas-stat...

High level, the CCP is playing with stats to hide various factors (COVID, rapidly declining total fertility rate, etc). Population is power, and their total fertility rate is near 1.15 with the CCP having no ability to juice it (common prosperity, nuking the tutoring industry from orbit, etc). The longer it stays low or further declines, the more rapidly the country ages and declines in power (economically, militarily, anything that requires a low median citizen age) and the go forward population momentum is locked in.