China’s debt spiral and population crash—It’s worse than you think

#1

Lei breaks it down very well. She goes over China’s GDP and I think it was around the 15 minute mark she goes into the data she got from the Ministry of Education regarding the closures of all these schools in China. She finished her case at the 30 minute mark. Her estimate is 300 to 500 million as the real population of China. Then at the end she gives the number 400 million as the population.

Lei’s Shocking Findings on China’s Real Population and GDP Collapse

Independent journalist Lei from Lei’s Real Talk has uncovered disturbing evidence that China’s real population is not 1.4 billion, but between 300–500 million today . She argues that both China’s demographic numbers and GDP figures are massively inflated , with far-reaching implications for the global economy.

1. China’s Real GDP Is Massively Overstated

  • Official GDP for 2024: 135 trillion yuan.
  • Lei’s claim: The real GDP is actually 50–67% lower, meaning the actual output could be closer to 45–67 trillion yuan.
  • Reasoning:
    • Asset prices are collapsing.
    • State-owned enterprises and local governments are drowning in inefficient, unproductive debt.
    • Consumption and private sector activity are flatlined or declining.
  • Debt Burden:
    • Total debt stands at 455 trillion yuan.
    • Even at a low interest rate of 3%, 20% of real GDP is consumed by interest payments alone .
    • Financial sector liabilities are 500 trillion yuan , or 780% of real GDP if you adjust for inflation .

Conclusion: China’s economy is too hollow to stand — and is on the verge of a financial and social collapse.

2. Population Collapse Evidence

  • 74% of primary schools have closed between 2000–2023.
  • From 2022–2025, 23% of kindergartens are projected to shut down.
  • Average kindergarten class sizes shrank 22% from 2017 to 2024.
  • Combined, these statistics reveal a 40–50% collapse in preschool-age children in just a few years .
  • Lei attributes this to:
    • COVID-19’s real death toll in China, potentially hundreds of millions .
    • An already declining population before the pandemic — China may have been at 800 million pre-COVID, and post-pandemic numbers could be 300–500 million today.

3. Visible Signs:

  • Videos from China show empty megacities, deserted highways, and lifeless public spaces, even during holidays when travel should surge.
  • The government’s lockdowns and door-welding policies may have been more about concealing mass casualties than containing the virus.

***

4. Economic & Geopolitical Implications

  • A shrinking population can’t support the massive debt burden .
  • China’s supposed rise to global dominance is based on fabricated numbers.
  • If true, this hidden collapse is already reshaping the global economic landscape , and could explain why the CCP is more aggressive geopolitically — it’s acting from a position of weakness, not strength .

Lei’s Final Statement:

“China is missing 1 billion people. The official number is a lie. Case closed.”

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https://www.youtube.com/live/TPPPfzSDAyw?si=vVlfhtgyEIQb63Dr

4 Likes
#2

Wonder what the real numbers are elsewhere?
For example: The USSA?
How many died from these military-grade injections[that’s what they were] ?
How many small businesses killed?
How many schools?[doesn’t matter, as their practically just daycare centers, or worse]?
Worldwide: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED?
Did the Chinese export - totalitarion technocratic “social-credit systems” worldwide?

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#3

The weekly newspaper published in the town where I grew up (population now about 12,00) lists the obituaries and births each week. The number dying far exceeds the birth rate. The number of those dying from what would be considered old age is quite small. Under 65 seems quite normal now.

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#4

China isn’t collapsing, it’s being positioned to become a multi-ethnic financial hub after the West’s engineered collapse. Those empty cities aren’t meant for Chinese citizens; they’re being prepared for imported slave classes. Dubai, Doha, Astana, and other cities under construction will house the elite of Elysium, while China is the holding cell and test tube for the labor forces of the oncoming Eurasian mega economy.

*I edited this. China, especially the Western portions are going to be feudal encampments.

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#5

If that’s the case I am fine living in the backwards USA if they just leave us alone.

#6

Right, I’ll defecate in woods, it’s fine.

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#7

I can see the planet divided up into zones accessible under varying conditions and limitations. Like cattle the prols will be assigned to different “pastures” as needed and confined there as needed, including slaughtering.

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#8

omnimatter the empty cities that Chinese citizens are talking about are major cities like Shanghai and Beijing for example during major holidays. You can find these videos on Youtube and TikTok.

#9

I travel to China multiple times a year and have never seen the major cities empty. What I have noticed, though, especially while taking high-speed rail through central and western regions, are large urban construction sites that are completely devoid of people.

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#10

Well, my neighbour who is Korean and is in sales that sells Chinese mortar, just told me about 5 minutes ago that the population is a lot less because I asked him. He travels to China two or three times a year. I’ll believe him and Lei over you any day. The videos of Chinese citizen in large cities like Shanghai and Beijing showing much less traffic and people especially during the holidays is pretty solid proof. There are Chinese citizens that were stating that certain roads should be busy like they were years ago, but now are not. There are many videos and I recommend others to look it up on Youtube and Tiktok.

#12

Cool, Steve. You keep that belief system rolling, buddy.

#13

Yeah, very cool. I shall, buddy. Rolling all the way…I’m not the only one…Dr. Joseph P. Farrell wrote about it as well. Bye.

#14

Thank you for sharing that — that’s exactly the kind of on-the-ground observation that the official stats tend to obscure. Declines like these, whether in the U.S. or in China, are part of the broader demographic shift Lei has documented, and even Dr. Farrell has flagged. Appreciate your insight!

#15

For those interested in this topic, here is a video months ago from Lei’s channel where she shows Chinese people asking where has the population gone. It’s in the first 11 minutes.
https://www.youtube.com/live/gsIg-_5Yl_8?si=lKGVB3Bot4NW-JYL

#16

Summary of a video that Lei did 3 months ago: https://youtu.be/UM57HhM8yV8?si=I-qtgJFig5iaf7R9

In that video, she estimates that China’s real population is actually between 300 to 400 million, not the official 1.4 billion. She cites:

Dr. Yi Fuxian, who has been vocal for years about China’s inflated population numbers.

A Russian expert who calculated that all of China’s urban populations combined add up to only 800 million, maybe less.

Japanese scholars** who studied salt consumption, arable land, and grain imports, concluding that **China’s pre-pandemic population was 800–900 million.

Chinese YouTuber, Li Muyang, who said one of his fans working at the WHO analyzed the data and estimated 750 million people pre-pandemic.

That same source calculated that during COVID:

China averaged 7 million deaths per month during the first three years (2020–2022) .

After the zero-COVID policy ended, another 120 million people died, based on internal data from Beijing police.

Plus another 50 million deaths during the initial outbreak in 2020 .
This totals to around 422 to potentially 500 million deaths .

Furthermore, the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs officially says that in normal years, 10 million people die annually, with 1 million per month in winter. But during COVID, Lei said that according to people working in the Chinese funeral industry, their workload grew 8 to 10 times compared to normal. This doesn’t even include deaths in the countryside, where families buried their dead locally — meaning the actual numbers are likely higher.

Lei also mentioned that a Japanese business contact reported that Japan’s salt exports to China have dropped by half compared to a few years ago, another economic indicator of a shrinking population.

Your experience seeing the increase in obituaries really adds weight to this larger picture of silent global depopulation, especially in China. Thanks again for sharing — it’s valuable to connect these local observations with the bigger trends.

#17

The only thing certain worldwide, misery loves company. In the pool of lies what rest is finger in the air to catch from where the wind blows!