28 Apr 2021 China’s annual population report for 2020 will reveal a population decline unparalleled since the era of Mao Zedong, the Financial Times reported Wednesday, prompting Communist Party officials to delay its publication. China has seen a steady decline in its birth rate for the past five years, yet to be reversed by the repeal of its “one-child policy” — which mandated forced abortions, infanticides, and other atrocities for decades — in 2016. The Communist Party allows women to give birth to no more than two children legally now, though few appear to be taking up the opportunity. “Replacement fertility,” meaning the number of children each woman in a country must have to fully replace the currently existing population, is 2.1, slightly above the legal permissions in China.