China doesn't need a smaller population, it's actively trying to increase birth rates after 35 years of the One Child Policy caused a demographic catastrophe. The population projects are for a declining to below 1 billion people (potentially as low as 700 million by 2100)

The evidence of deaths in Wuhan being 10 times officially reported numbers (of 4,000) is very strong, based on analysis of crematoriums. The same is actually true of India too (which fared much worse than China).