Free Republic

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) conducted its Seventh National Population Census (hereinafter referred to as the Census) using 00:00 hours of Nov. 1, 2020, as the reference time. Although an official government report of the census reveals an increase in China’s population, the CCP hastily launched the “three-child policy” because its economic growth, which is “stable with a growing momentum,” as claimed by the state-owned People’s Daily in May, is actually no match for the current fertility crisis in China. An unnamed senior official from the CCP Health and Family Planning Commission revealed three sets of data during an interview...

It was an easy story to miss. On Feb. 22, the Beijing newspaper China Business Herald, citing an anonymous source, reported that PetroChina International Vice President Shen Dingcheng had been missing for weeks. As a single point of data, the story means little. But the disappearance of Shen (which dozens of other Chinese news outlets covered) is likely another piece of the still unfolding and maddeningly opaque saga of Zhou Yongkang. Shen, it turns out, served as Zhou's secretary for part of the 1990s. Formerly one of the most powerful men in China, Zhou ran China's state security apparatus as...