The Chinese. There’s millions of them on the mainland. Hundreds of millions. Actually, 1.33397 billion to be precise. The results of last year’s census have been released and the figures show that the national population increased by a head count of 73.9 million from the last census back in 2000, translating into a growth figure of 0.57%. That compares to a jump of 1.07% for the period 1990-2000, suggesting that things are certainly slowing down in the ol’ baby-making department. But the survey also showed that the number of mainlanders over the age of 60 has actually increased three percentage points since the previous decade to 13.35 of the overall population. While the number of slightly-elders is growing, the amount of official bigwigs – and their Ivy League mycelia – getting privileged access to US visas and the like may be about to fall dramatically. This is in response to outgoing US ambassador Jon Huntsman having apparently gotten a bit of the Beijing cold shoulder after his recent words in support of locals exercising those pesky fundamental rights (articles 35 through 41) enshrined in the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China.