China's population is growing at its slowest rate in 67 years

One simple question has kept China-watchers scratching their heads for years: Will the country get old before it gets rich? The metaphorical needle between both those two words has just shifted hard toward "old."

China's National Bureau of Statistics released data on Tuesday from its once-a-decade national census, which was conducted in late 2020.

"The population problem has always been an overall, long-term and strategic problem facing our country," bureau director Ning Jizhe told journalists at a morning news conference.