China's population swells to 1.3 billion

Statisticians say China's one-child family planning policy has helped to control population growth.China's population was 1.339 billion in November 2010In a decade, China grew by approximately the current population of TurkeyChina's one-child family planning policy has been relatively effective, official says

Beijing (CNN) -- China's population today is larger, more urban, aging and more mobile than ever before.

The population of the second largest economy in the world shot up by 73 million people over the past decade, up 5.7 percent to 1.339 billion in November 2010 from 1.27 billion in 2000, according to new statistics released Thursday by China's Bureau of National Statistics.

At of the end of 2010, population was expected to be 1.34 billion.

While China grew by approximately the current population of Turkey, its overall rate of increase was slower than the preceding decade. This could affect China's economy as the number of future workers is likely to contract.

The census also revealed that China's population is also aging, better educated and made up of more migrants than ever, the head of the National Bureau of Statistics Ma Jiantang said in a news conference.

The proportion of mainland Chinese people aged 14 or younger was 16.6%, down by 6.29 percentage points from the last census, a decade earlier.

"The data from this census show that our country faces some tensions and challenges regarding population, the economy and social development," said Ma. "First, the aging trend is accelerating, and second, the size of the mobile population is constantly expanding."

China's migrant population is up 81.03 percent since 2000.

"The rapid shift of rural labor force to non-agricultural activities and fast economic development contributed to the growing size of population migration," Ma said in a statement. The urban population shot up by 13.46 percent over the past decade, which means nearly half of Chinese people live in urban areas, the census stated.

China's one-child policy shrunk the average size of a family to 3.1 people from 3.4 people. For national statistician Ma, this demonstrates China's one-child family planning policy has been relatively effective in bringing down population growth. The overall population growth rate was down 0.57 percent on an annual basis. "These figures have shown the trend of excessively rapid growth of China's population has been under effective control," Ma told reporters.

Gender numbers were a surprise, after more than a year of speculation that single Chinese men would eclipse single Chinese women in the near future. Contrary to expectations, males accounted for 51.27 percent of China's population, while females made up 48.73 percent.

There was good news in education. Literacy is up by nearly 3 percentage points in China. As of 2010, 4.08 percent of Chinese are illiterate, down from 6.72 percent in the 2000 census. The frequency of a university education more than doubled over the past decade. For every 100,000 Chinese people, 8,930 have university educations as opposed to just 3,611 in 2000.

China deployed over 100,000 census takers in Beijing alone for the 2010 Census, its biggest ever. Over 6 million people were involved in visiting 400 million households across the country, according to the state-run China Daily. China's first population census was conducted in 1953 and counted approximately 594 million people, less than half today's population.

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U.S. challenges China's 'serious backsliding' on human rights

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner speaks during a press conference following the United States' first review before the U.N. Human Rights Council, on November 5 in Geneva.U.S. diplomats pressed China on missing activistsChinese and American officials end two days of talks "Our disagreements are profound," a U.S. diplomat saysThe two nations talk again next month

Beijing (CNN) -- Talks between China and the United States about human rights issues, including missing Chinese activists, ended Thursday with little progress and many unanswered questions, a U.S. diplomat said.

"It was a tough set of discussions," said Michael Posner, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor. "Our disagreements are profound."

The Beijing meetings came at a particularly frosty time in U.S-China relations, with diplomatic sparring between the two countries.

"In recent months, we've seen a serious backsliding in human rights," Posner said.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently said she was "deeply concerned" about the arrests of dozens of activists in China.

Both sides engaged "frankly and candidly" in the meetings, which focused largely on the status of dozens of recently detained activists and a series of disappearances.

"The dialogue was respectful in tone and based on the facts," Posner said. "And the facts are not good."

Beijing has been silent on a long string of detentions and arrests of activists and lawyers in the aftermath of anonymous calls for a Middle East-style "Jasmine" revolution.

The Chinese government has responded with a wider crackdown on musicians, artists and religious groups in recent weeks.

"We have been very concerned that dozens people have been arrested and disappeared with no regard to legal measures," Posner said at a Beijing news conference at the end of the talks Thursday.

Posner said the U.S. delegation inquired about several missing Chinese activists, including lawyers Teng Biao, Chen Guangcheng and Gao Zhisheng. Police took Gao in April 2010, and his family hasn't seen him since.

Posner also filed a formal request to meet with Liu Xia, the wife of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo. She's been under house arrest without any formal charges since her husband won the prize last fall. A meeting has not been scheduled.

Posner called Liu Xiaobo's 11-year prison sentence "unacceptable and a violation of the right to basic free speech."

The status of artist and critic Ai Weiwei, who has been detained without being charged since April 3, also remains a mystery, Posner said.

"We certainly did not get answers that satisfied," he told journalists. "There was no comfort in the response or rather lack of response."

Chinese officials had little to say about the human rights dialogue.

"We oppose any country interfering in China's internal affairs under the pretext of human rights issues," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a news briefing Thursday.

The editorial pages of Chinese state-run media called the U.S. diplomats "aggressive" and "offensive in dialogue." The same article, appearing in the Global Times, asserted most Chinese people "are disgusted with Western pressure on human rights."

U.S. diplomats disagreed.

"Human rights are not about us, but about how Chinese citizens determine their own future," Posner said. "We are reinforcing what Chinese people themselves are asking."

Posner pointed to a tightening political climate as the root cause of China's actions.

"There is no question the atmosphere is different," Posner said. "Both sides recognized that."

As for how it will affect the ever important U.S.-China relationship, Posner was cautious.

"Protecting human rights is one essential feature of what we do as the United States," Posner said. "When you have a deterioration as it has been here, it makes the relationship more difficult."

The tone of this week's discussion are a far cry from Chinese leader Hu Jintao's visit to Washington in January, where he publicly acknowledged "a lot still needs to be done in China in terms of human rights."

This session of the U.S.-China Human Rights dialogue is the 16th meeting of its kind.

Posner told reporters that human rights topics would also be discussed in next month's U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue to be held in Washington.

Posner said a dialogue between Chinese and American legal experts, which was first proposed during Hu and Obama's January meetings, will take place in June.

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