He noted that the number of newborns this year could be as low as 7 million.
Kinda subtle but the original source just lists 7 million as a lower limit, but this weirdo website cites it as the prediction. They also use the pronoun “he,” but as far as I know the more famous Qiao Jie from Peking University is a woman. Might want something straight from that conference, which the Global Times doesn’t provide even a name.