Communist China has not published official population statistics for any date since 1 January, 1958, when it claimed a total population of 646,530,000 persons. For nearly a decade after that, the rounded figure of 650 million was given almost without exception. On 11 March, 1966, however, a figure of 700 million was cited for the first time by Lin Piao in his letter to the Industry and Communications Front, and in August it appeared again in the communiqué of the Eleventh Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee. More recently, the figure 750 million was used in a speech at a workers' congress in Lanchow on 10 February 1968.