III. Monitoring Compliance With Human Rights

III(i) POPULATION PLANNING

Changes to Population Control Policy

FINDINGS

• The Chinese government continues its population control policy, which is scheduled to continue through the mid-21st century. Coercive fines are the main enforcement mechanism, although reports of local officials using physical coercion to ensure compliance continue, even though this practice violates Chinese law.
• The severe gender imbalance resulting from the population control policy has grown worse over the past two decades. The Chinese government has established a commission to draft legislation to criminalize sex-selective abortion.

The Chinese government continues to maintain a coercive population control policy that violates internationally recognized human rights standards in three ways. First, the Population and Family Planning Law limits the number of children that women may bear.¹ Second, this law coerces compliance by penalizing women who illegally bear a child with a "social compensation fee," a fine that often exceeds an average family's annual income.² Third, although physical coercion to ensure compliance with population control requirements is illegal in China, reports persist of local officials using physical coercion to ensure compliance, and in one case Chinese officials attempted to physically coerce a visiting Hong Kong woman to have an abortion.³ In December 2004, the International Relations Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives heard credible testimony that compliance with the Chinese government's population control policy continues to be enforced through coercive fines and loss of employment, as well as physical coercion including forced abortion, forced sterilization, forced implants of contraceptive devices, and other violent abuses against pregnant women or their families.⁴ These abuses create an atmosphere of fear in which most women feel they have little choice but to comply.⁵

Local officials who fail to meet provincial and central government birth rate targets face loss of bonuses and denial of promotions. These practices implicate China's central and provincial government in the abuse that occurs at the local level. Physical coercion against women by local officials seeking to meet population planning goals has continued over the past year, according to credible reports.⁶ For example, credible sources reported in August and September that population planning officials in Linyi city, Shandong province, administered forced abortions, sterilizations, prison sentences, and beatings during the spring of 2005. A September 19 statement from a National Population and Family Planning Commission official acknowledged that a preliminary investigation had disclosed that "some persons did commit practices that violated law and infringed upon legitimate rights and interests of citizens while conducting family planning work. Currently the responsible persons have been removed from their posts.⁷

Chinese citizens who publicly oppose the Chinese government's population control policies also face possible detention and abuse. Linyi officials abducted Chen Guangcheng, who brought news media attention to the abuses there, in Beijing and returned him forcibly to Linyi, where he allegedly has been beaten and remains under house arrest.⁸ Mao Hengfeng, who opposed the government's population control policy and protested against it, was sentenced to 18 months of re-education through labor in April 2004. Mao has been protesting on her own behalf as well as for others since she was dismissed from her job in Shanghai in 1988 for becoming pregnant in contravention of the population control policy. She reportedly was tortured in October and November 2004, and her sentence was increased by three months in December 2004.⁹

Changes to Population Control Policy

Since its inception in the early 1980s, China's population control policy has been adjusted periodically, as population planners fine-tune local rules and quotas.¹⁰ Couples living in cities have almost always been limited to one child, but provincial officials have permitted exceptions in various circumstances, such as for rural couples whose first child is female.¹¹ In the past year, the population control policy has been under discussion again. Although some officials have recommended moving toward a "two-child policy," this proposal seems unlikely to be adopted soon. Chinese officials have emphasized that the government will continue to decide how many children its citizens may have and when they may have them.¹²

At the same time, the government's population control policy is already changing, chiefly as a result of impending social crises caused by the policy itself. Since the early 1990s, ultrasound testing has been widely available in China, and many parents determined to have sons have used it to establish the sex of the fetus and to abort female fetuses. As a result of this sex selection, the ratio of male to female newborns is about 120:100 in China, and in many rural areas of China the ratio is 130:100 or even 140:100.¹³ Experts consider a ratio of about 105:100 to be normal. In addition, since the introduction of the one child policy, the rate of female infanticide and death of female infants due to neglect appears to have risen sharply.¹⁴ The government has belatedly attempted to address these problems in various ways. The 2002 Law on Population and Family Planning forbids prenatal sex identification and sex-selective abortion, but imposes no criminal penalties on parents or doctors and is widely ignored.¹⁵ In January 2005 the government established a commission to draft changes to the criminal law that will make selective abortion a criminal offense.¹⁶ In a legislative experiment intended to prevent sex-selective abortion, the city of Guiyang banned all abortions after the 14th week of pregnancy—before the point when ultrasound technology can detect the sex of a fetus.

Second, the Chinese government has begun to move toward a population control system that will financially reward compliance, while continuing to punish non-compliance.¹⁷ In 2004, the government launched a pilot project granting a small sum of money to rural couples over 60 years old who have only one son or two daughters.¹⁸ Introduced in five provinces in 2004, the project is expected to be extended to 23 provinces by the end of 2005 and to the entire country in 2006. Similarly, in an ethnic Hui region of Ningxia province, the government began a program to persuade Hui couples to have contraceptive surgery after the birth of their first child, in exchange for a financial reward.¹⁹ These changes respond to the rapid aging of the Chinese population, another consequence of the one-child policy. The Chinese government estimates that the number of people 60 years and older in China will grow from 7 percent of the population in 2005 to 11.8 percent in 2020, and that by the mid-21st century China will have over 400 million people 65 years and older and more than 100 million people 80 years and older.²⁰ Many of China's elderly do not have a family member that can care for them and few of them have pensions. The government has assured elderly people that they will be cared for, but does not currently have a system of social security and public services adequate to this task and has not undertaken financial commitments on a national level.²¹

Third, provinces and cities have been given the authority to authorize more second children, and many have used this authority.²² Reacting to birthrates below the replacement level, Shanghai and some other cities with particularly low birth rates have permitted new categories of couples to have second children and ended mandatory waiting periods between children.²³ Other cities, including Beijing, have maintained the one-child policy.²⁴ The Ministry of Education has lifted the ban on marriage and childbearing for university students.²⁵

Notes to Section III(i)—Population Planning

1 PRC Population and Family Planning Law, enacted 29 December 01; Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), para. 17; Cairo International Conference on Population and Development (1994), Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development, para. 72.

2 PRC Population and Family Planning Law, enacted 29 December 01, art. 41.

3 "Rights Defender Chen Guangcheng Released, But Remains Under Police Surveillance," Chinese Rights Defenders' Information Bulletin (Online), 8 September 05; Philip P. Pan, "Rural Activist Seized in Beijing," Washington Post (Online), 7 September 05 (reporting violent seizure of Chinese activist against abuses in enforcement of one child policy); Philip P. Pan, "Who Controls the Family? " Washington Post (Online), 27 August 05 (discussing Chinese activist collecting testimony of abuses in one child policy enforcement in preparation for class-action lawsuit against population control officials); "The One-Child Policy: Stripping Away Human Rights in the Name of the State," Laogai Research Foundation (Online), 16 June 05; Better Ten Graves Than One Extra Birth: China's Systemic Use of Coercion to Meet Population Needs (Washington, D.C.: Laogai Research Foundation, 2004); Thomas Scharping, Birth Control in China, 1949–2000: Population Policy and Demographic Development (New York: Routledge, 2002); John S. Aird, Slaughter of the Innocents: Coercive Birth Control in China (Washington, D.C.: AEI Press, 1990). In July 2005, a Hong Kong woman, pregnant with her third child, was visiting relatives in Shanghai. When local population control officials saw her with her two other children, they immediately attempted to take her—by force—to a local government-run abortion clinic. She protested that she was not from China to no avail. Only the physical intervention of her relatives prevented a forced abortion. "PRC Tries to Force HK Woman to Abort Six-Month Pregnancy," Agence France-Presse, 12 July 05 (FBIS, 12 July 05).

4 54 China: Human Rights Violations and Coercion in One Child Policy Enforcement, Hearing of the Committee on International Relations, U.S. House of Representatives, 14 December 04; Man Whose Wife Was Sterilized in China Wins Asylum," Los Angeles Times (Online), 9 March 05.

5 Steven W. Mosher, "The Passion and Mrs. Wong," Global Family Life News, March–May 2005, 3, 9f.

6 China: Human Rights Violations and Coercion in One Child Policy Enforcement, Hearing of the Committee on International Relations, U.S. House of Representatives, Testimony of John S. Aird, Former Senior Research Specialist on China, U.S. Bureau of the Census; "Violence in Enforcing Family Planning in a Chinese City," Chinese Rights Defenders Information Bulletin (Online), 23 June 05; "Chinese Jails for Violators of One-Child Policy," Kyodo World Service (Online), 11 July 05; "At a Meeting of Part-Time Members of the State Population and Family Planning Commission, Hua Jianmin Stresses the Need to Implement the Basic National Policy on Family Planning Unswervingly and Strive to Stabilize the Low Birth Rate," Xinhua, 9 July 05 (FBIS, 9 July 05); "China Adheres to Family Planning to Keep Low Birth Rate: Official," Xinhua (Online), 10 July 05; "Unreasonable Hunan Officials Arbitrarily Apply 'One-Child Policy' by Forcing Hong Kong Woman To Have Abortion; Hong Kong Immigration Department Successfully Rescues Victim Within 24 Hours," Apple Daily (Online), 11 July 05 (FBIS, 12 July 05); "PRC Tries to Force HK Woman to Abort Six-Month Pregnancy," Agence France-Presse, 12 July 05 (FBIS, 12 July 05); "Gaocheng City Abuses Illustrate Flaws of China's Family Planning Policy," Laogai Research Foundation (Online), 15 July 05; "Henan Family Planning Official Brutalizes Local Residents," China Information Center (Online), 15 July 05; "Family Planning Cadres in Sichuan Cities Line Their Pockets With 'Violator's' Fines," China Information Center (Online), 21 July 05; "Henan Woman Seized on the Street and Coerced to Have an Abortion," China Information Center (Online), 18 July 05.

7 "Comments of Yu Xuejun, spokesperson for NPFPC and Director General of the NPFPC Department of Policy and Legislation on the Preliminary Results of Investigating Family Planning Practices in Linyi City of Shandong Province," National Population and Family Planning Commission of China (Online), 19 September 05. Regarding the violence in Linyi, see, Philip P. Pan, "Who Controls the Family? " Washington Post (Online), 27 August 05; Hannah Beech, "Enemies of the State? " Time (Online), 12 September 05; Michael Sheridan, "China Shamed by Forced Abortions," Times (London) (Online), 18 September 05; Philip P. Pan, "China Terse About Action on Abuses of One-Child Policy," Washington Post (Online), 20 September 05.

8 Philip P. Pan, "Rural Activist Seized in Beijing," Washington Post (Online), 7 September 05; "Blind Social Activist, Lawyers Beaten in China," Radio Free Asia (Online), 4 October 05. The case of Chen Guangcheng is also discussed extensively in Pan, "Who Controls the Family? "; Beech, "Enemies of the State? "; Pan, "China Terse About Action on Abuses of One-Child Policy."

9 "One-Child Policy Opponent Tortured," Human Rights in China (Online), 5 October 04; "Violence Against Women," in Report 2005, Amnesty International (Online) (covering events from January–December 2004). See also, "China Denies Detaining Woman Who Protested 1-Child Policy," Associated Press, 10 January 05 (FBIS, 10 January 05); "Chinese Woman Tortured After Coerced Abortion Faces More Jail Time," LifeNews (Online), 5 January 05; PRC Anti-Abortion Protestor Released, Continues to Face Police Harassment," Agence France-Presse (Online), 30 September 05; China: Human Rights Violations and Coercion in One Child Policy Enforcement, Hearing of the Committee on International Relations, U.S. House of Representatives, Testimony of Michael G. Kozak, Acting Assistant Secretary, U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor.

10 The Chinese government also does long-term population planning. It has set population targets through the mid-21st century. State Council Information Office, "White Paper on China's Population and Development in the 21st Century", December 2000.

11 But there are other exceptions to the one-child rule: in some rural areas at some times two children were allowed in all cases; couples in which both spouses were only children were usually allowed two children; in some places, couples in which one spouse is an only child and the other a farmer were allowed two children; and members of minority communities have also been allowed more children—though it is unclear how often the government respected this latter exception. "China's Family Planning Policy 'Misinterpreted,' " Xinhua, 16 May 05 (FBIS, 16 May 05); Charles Hutzler and Leslie T. Chang, "China Weighs Easing Its Harsh 'One Child' Rule," Wall Street Journal (Online), 4 October 04; "More Shanghai Couples Have Second Child," Xinhua, 15 April 05.

12 "China to Continue Its Population Control Policy," Xinhua, 5 January 05 (FBIS, 5 January 05); "China Remains Firm in Carrying Out Family Planning: Official," Xinhua, 9 June 05 (FBIS, 9 June 05); Charles Hutzler and Leslie T. Chang, "China Weighs Easing Its Harsh 'One Child' Rule," Wall Street Journal (Online), 4 October 04; "Is China's High-Level Leadership Taking the Lead on Research for a Reevaluation of the Family Planning Policy? " [Zhongguo sangaoguan qiantou yanjiu jihuashengyu zhengce mianlin tiaozheng?], Xinhua (Online), 19 October 04; Low Birth Rate Unstable: Official," Xinhua (Online), 16 September 05. Indications that the population control policy aims not only to reduce population growth but also to improve population "quality" can be found in "Family Planning Policy Saves China 300 mln Births," People's Daily, 8 September 05 (FBIS, 8 September 05); "China To Focus on Improving Population Qualities: Official," Xinhua (Online), 27 June 05 (FBIS, 27 June 05); "At a Meeting of Part-Time Members of the State Population and Family Planning Commission, Hua Jianmin Stresses the Need to Implement the Basic National Policy on Family Planning Unswervingly and Strive to Stabilize the Low Birth Rate," Xinhua (Online), 9 July 05 (FBIS, 9 July 05); China: Human Rights Violations and Coercion in One Child Policy Enforcement, Hearing of the Committee on International Relations, U.S. House of Representatives.

13 "Tougher Line Sought on Aborting Girl Fetuses," South China Morning Post, 28 February 05 (FBIS, 28 February 05); "Building a Girl-Caring Society," Xinhua (Online), 21 June 05; Vanessa L. Fong, Only Hope: Coming of Age Under China's One-Child Policy (Palo Alto, California: Stanford University Press, 2004); "Sex Imbalance Could Threaten Progress: Experts Say Excess of Single Men May Lead to Instability," Agence France-Presse (Online), 21 July 05.

14 Life tables for China published by the World Health Organization document a mortality pattern in which female infants have a much higher mortality rate than male infants. For background on this topic, see, Judith Banister, "Shortage of Girls in China Today," Journal of Population Research, No. 1, 2004, 19–34.

15 "China to Outlaw Aborting Female Fetuses," Canadian Broadcasting Corporation News (Online), 7 January 05. There were also many provincial regulations on this. "PRC to Amend Criminal Law to Curb Unbalanced Sex Ratio: Population Official," People's Daily, 10 January 05 (FBIS, 10 January 05); "Abuse of Fetus Identification Could Result in More Men than Women," Xinhua, 7 March 05 (FBIS, 7 March 05).

16 "China Moves to Tighten Up Laws Against Selective Abortion," Agence France-Presse, 7 January 05 (FBIS, 7 January 05).

17 Howard W. French, "As Girls Vanish, Chinese City Battles Tide of Abortions," New York Times (Online), 17 February 05; "New Chongqing Regulation—RMB 50,000 Fine for Termination of Pregnancy Based on Gender After Midway Point" [Chongqing xuanze xingbie zhongzhi zhongqi yishang renshen zuigao kef a wuwan yuan], Xinhua (Online), 29 September 05.

18 "China Remains Firm in Carrying Out Family Policy: Official," Xinhua, 9 June 05 (FBIS, 9 June 05).

19 The government rewards couples with monetary payments, remission of children's tuition fees, and the addition of points onto children's university entrance examination scores. "Cash Rewards for Family Planners," China Daily, 26 October 04 (FBIS, 26 October 04); "Rewards Give Impetus to China's One-Child Policy," Xinhua, 27 February 05 (FBIS, 27 February 05); "China Rewards Old Rural Couples Observing National Family Planning Policy," Xinhua, 8 April 05 (FBIS, 8 April 05); "China Rewards Rural Couples Practicing Family Planning With Special Allowances," Xinhua, 3 June 05 (FBIS, 3 June 05); "Building a Girl-Caring Society," Xinhua.

20 "A Bitter Task Becomes A Sweet Task: The Hui Autonomous Region in Ningxia Implements the 'Fewer Births Means Faster Fortune' Poverty Reduction Project" [Kuse de shiye biancheng le tianmi de shiye: Ningxia Huizu zizhiqu shishi 'shao sheng kuai fu' fupin gongcheng de shijian], Seeking Truth (Online), No. 1, 2005.

21 "China Faces Up to Aging Population," Xinhua (Online), 7 January 05.

22 Li Weiwei, "At the General Meeting of the National Committee on Aging, Hui Liangyu Stresses the Need to Do the Work on Aging in a Solid Way and Promote the Building of a Harmonious Society," Xinhua, 22 February 05 (FBIS, 22 February 05); Vivien Ci, "Mainland Struggles to Care for the Aged," South China Morning Post, 2 February 05 (FBIS, 2 February 05).

23 "Our Country Already Delegates Second Child Powers to Every Provincial and Municipal People's Congresses for Self-Regulation" [Wo guo yijing ba sheng ertong quanli xiafang geshengshi renda zixing guiding], Beijing News (Online), 15 March 05.

24 "China Ranks Among Developed Countries With a Low Fertility Level," Xinhua (Online), 7 September 04 (total fertility rate remains below replacement level); "Shanghai Eases Up Family Planning Policy," Xinhua, 8 September 04 (FBIS, 8 September 04); "More Couples Have a Second Child," Xinhua, 15 April 05 (FBIS, 15 April 05); "Home Alone," The Guardian (Online), 9 November 04; "Sichuan Officials Sell 'Right of Birth' for Money," China Information Center (Online), 21 July 05; "Nanjing: the 'Red Document' Expressly States the Conditions in Which a Second Child May Be Approved" [Nanjing 'hongtou wenjian' mingque ke pizhun sheng ertai de qingkuang], People's Daily (Online), 3 February 05.

25 "Beijing Sticks Tough To One-Child Policy," China Daily, 21 October 04 (FBIS, 21 October 04) (Beijing couples who want a second child must prove that their first child has some kind of disability and both mother and father must be only children).

26 Zhu Zhe, "For Students, Degree Weighs More Than Wedding Ring," Xinhua, 1 September 05 (FBIS, 1 September 05); "China Lifts Ban on Student Marriage," United Press International (Online), 11 August 05; "China to Lift Ban on Marriage, Childbearing for University Students," Xinhua (Online), 21 January 05. "More Chinese Graduate Students Marry in Secret," Xinhua (Online), 12 July 05; Paul Mooney, "China Withdraws Ban on Marriage and Childbearing by Students," Chronicle of Higher Education, 11 February 05.