Expert doubts China's population number, saying India may be No. 1

According to the United Nations, India's population had grown to 1.33 billion in 2016

Chinese people cheering on their country’s ascent sometimes comfort themselves with the idea that Asia’s other behemoth, India, is years from surpassing China’s population and decades from emerging as a potential economic peer.

But Yi Fuxiang, a Chinese scientist based in Wisconsin, boldly challenged that assumption this week in Beijing. He laid out arguments that India may already be more populous than China, a view that has created a controversy about whose numbers to believe in forecasting China’s demographic and economic destiny.

“India could become the No. 1 country,” Yi, a medical expert and population researcher at the University of