India, not China, is most populous nation in the world now, claims Chinese demographer

Beijing: This CLAIM by an independent Chinese demographer has sparked a major debate.

According to Yi Fuxian, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, China’s population may be much smaller than what official data suggests.

This means that India may already have overtaken China as the world’s most populous nation.

According to a report in South China Morning Post, Yi Fuxian at a symposium at Peking University on Monday said, "China’s real population may have been about 1.29 billion last year, 90 million fewer people than the official figure released by the National Bureau of Statistics."

According to official data, India’s population reached 1.33 billion last year.

During the symposium, Yi’s theory of overstated government data was echoed by other researchers as well.

The researchers called for the removal of population controls and improved data quality in China.