Population Control
The following Chinese text was retrieved on December 6, 2016, from the website of National Health and Family Planning Commission of the People's Republic of China.
Regulations Regarding the Prohibition of Non-Medically Necessary Gender Determination Examinations and Sex-Selective Termination of Pregnancy, issued on November 29, 2002, and effective on January 1, 2003, was repealed on May 1, 2016.
The CECC will examine the social, economic, and political implications of gendercide in China. The cultural preference for boys, exacerbated by China’s birth-limitation policies, has led to millions of girls being aborted and killed over the past several decades. As a result, China faces some of the world’s most severe gender imbalances—according to official estimates, there are currently 34 million more males than females in China. Demographic experts have warned that China’s large number of “surplus males” could lead to societal instability, higher crime rates and sexual violence, and increased trafficking of women and girls.
The following Chinese text was retrieved on December 6, 2016, from the website of the PRC Central People's Government.
Refer to this page for the prior version of the Population and Family Planning Law of the People's Republic of China, passed on December 29, 2001, and effective on September 1, 2002.
After 35 years of brutal enforcement of the one-child policy, the Chinese Communist Party announced in late October that a universal two-child policy will be adopted, allowing all married Chinese couples to have two children. The policy change was driven by serious demographic concerns currently facing China—a rapidly aging population, a shrinking labor force, and a dramatic gender imbalance that drives regional human trafficking problems and potentially higher levels of crime and societal instability. Central authorities continue to insist that family planning will continue to be a “fundamental national policy” and many unanswered questions remain about implementation of the policy.
China’s infamous “One-Child Policy” marks its 35th anniversary this year. It has been called the world’s largest social experiment and has had tragic effects on Chinese families and society. Coercive population control policies are also the cause of a demographic time bomb. China has a rapidly aging population, a shrinking labor force, and a dramatic gender imbalance that drives regional human trafficking problems and potentially higher levels of crime and societal instability. China’s central government has started to gently revise its population control policies in the past year, though the overall policy and the huge bureaucracy that enforces it remain intact.
At the Third Plenum of the 18th Communist Party Congress held in November 2013,[1] central Party authorities issued the Decision on Certain Major Issues Regarding Comprehensively Deepening Reforms, which, among other reforms,[2] included a new exception to China’s population planning policy.[3] This exception allowed couples in which one parent is an only child to bear a second child.[4] Rural couples, ethnic minority couples, and couples where both parents are only children were among those couples already permitted under previous exceptions to bear a second child.[5] At a November 2013 press conference, National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC) Deputy Director Wang Pei’an
Proposed Revision and Projected Impact
On November 15, 2013, China’s state-run media agency Xinhua released an official version of the reform package that came out of the 18th Party Central Committee’s Third Plenary Session, held on November 9–12, 2013.[1] The reform package, titled the “Decision on Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening Reforms” (hereinafter “Decision”), lays out 60 directives for reform, covering a wide range of economic, legal, and social issues.[2] Under item 46 of the Decision, Party officials proposed a new exception to China’s population planning policy:
The Yinan County People's Court in Linyi city, Shandong province, sentenced Chen Kegui to three years and three months in prison on November 30 for "intentional injury" (a crime under Article 234 of the PRC Criminal Law), according to a November 30 Associated Press (AP) report (via Google). The charges against Chen are in connection to his clash with officials when they invaded his home after discovering that his uncle, prominent legal advocate Chen Guangcheng, had escaped illegal home confinement (Washington Post (WP), 30 November 12).