If you wonder how many inhabitants cities (really) have, like Beijing or Shanghai: figures vary so much among “official” figures that it takes genuine China insight to figure out the real one. See earlier blog entry on Beijing’s inhabitants (my estimate is near 20 million grand total for the whole Municipality, including the floating population). The confusion is not restricted to Chinese sources. In the Real Estate Focus of the China Economic Review (January 2007) I found the following figures:
– page 6: figures quoted from the Shanghai Statistics Bureau: “more than 100,000 foreigners” in Shanghai
– page 14: figures quoted from the Ministry of Labor and Social Security: at the end of 2005, over 150,000 foreigners were registered, 40,000 being in Shanghai; but “some estimate the true number of foreigners living in China at 300,000”.

So, you can guess yourself. Why the confusion? These are some of the factors:
– confusion between holders of work permits and the others (students, family members, diplomats, foreigners working or residing in China without the proper work permit;
– are people from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau included? Technically speaking they are “foreigners”, even if they enjoy some privileges. Some figures (credible?) mention one million Taiwanese in East China alone and other sources often quote very large Japanese and South Korean communities.

In other words – one has to be very cautious with those data. I wonder if the Chinese authorities actually have a clue. Most reliable would be the Immigration services – I understand their computerized records are very good – too good for foreigners who mistakenly believe they can escape income tax as the tax bureaus don’t know how many days in a year they are in China. As a matter of fact, the tax people can have a detailed and accurate report from the border police at any time. Be warned.