China's one-child policy is/was prima facie evidence that the policy makers consider(ed) population size to be an important enough aspect to enact and enforce a pretty socially difficult and costly program.
Modulating family size is not an uncommon undertaking by political leaderships. Through history (including fairly recent history in places like Mongolia) it tended to go the other way. That is to say, increased family sizes were rewarded. When a leadership sees a use and need for bullet-stoppers that is usually how it goes.
As I personally look at things, it looks to me as though China is not particularly blessed with an abundance of arable land relative to their population. If anyone has a genuine problem with problematic population density numbers it probably really is the Chinese.
Everyone knows about the hypothetical demographic issues which will eventually result from the one-child policy (to few workers to care for the aged.) It wasn't long before this issue was put forward as a possible reason why China might have created a self-inflicted wound in the form of the SARS++ event. For my part I don't have much doubt that the CPP could and would employ such a 'solution', but it remains just another hypothesis worth exploring.
Even if the CPP didn't have the 'strength' to do the deed, they probably don't have the final word in terms of how China is run any more than Trump does for the U.S.. If told by those who operate the monetary system to jump, both Xi and Trump will say 'how high?' They wouldn't be where they are otherwise.
I agree the one child per family policy was a problem, and will cause depopulation over the next generation, however this policy was retired in 2016.
East China, especially the North East that borders the Pacific/China Sea, is very densely populated, however West China is not. There is also the potential for technology that the Chinese Government will steal from the West that can take care of its elderly population more efficiently. The Coronavirus has the potential to kill both the elderly and working aged men, and the very young.
You have to realize there is the Chinese government (technically), then the CCP, which controls it. Essentially you should stop looking at it like a government, and more like a country run by gangsters and cartels. A country run by gangsters and cartels depends on revenue to grease the wheels to maintain order. The Chinese economy is failing, that makes its one and a half billion residents dangerous to the CCP. In that light, depopulation seems quite a bit more realistic. After all, it is not like China was already the home to the largest mass depopulation of its own people on Earth or anything... oh wait...
The Chinese economy is growing, although at a slower rate than it has in the past. I would generally view the Chinese government and the CCP to be one and the same.
I am hesitant to believe this is intentional depopulation by the Chinese government because I can see scenarios in which the Chinese government is either overthrown, or its people find ways to get information to flow more freely. The Chinese government has been propping up its economy for years, if not decades by doing things such as building cities that are vacant.