A renowned Chinese economist has been banned from posting new comments on social media platform Weibo after calling on the country’s central bank to print trillions of yuan to encourage births.
Ren Zeping has been banned from posting on Weibo over his recent comments suggesting that the central bank should print money in order to support birth in light of China’s ageing population.
«The central bank [should] print an extra 2 trillion yuan to encourage society to have 50 million more kids in 10 years,» Ren said in an article published earlier this week that soon went viral.
«This can solve China’s low-birth and ageing-population problems and energise the future without burdening people, companies and local governments. Based on our studies, this is the only, and the most practical, solution.»
Ren Zeping
Ren is a renowned online celebrity and also, interestingly, a former economist with troubled developer China Evergrande.
While he has been banned from making new posts on Weibo, his account has not been closed. The article has also been removed from his Wechat platform.
Ageing Population
China’s population is rapidly ageing in part due to its decades-long one-child policy which was finally overturned to two in 2015 and three in May last year.
In 2020, Chinese mothers gave birth to just 12 million, an 18 percent drop from 2019’s 14.65 and a near 60-year low.
