Population Control
Reporter Li Yumin describes the deliberations of a government planning group comprising three senior officials and some 250 experts. The group was formed to research population trends and their impact on economic growth. (See also China Business Account).
The Chinese government appears to be increasingly concerned about China's aging population and the future impact of distorted sex ratios. According to the article, Yu Xuejun, who heads the policy planning unit of the Population and Family Planning Commission, suggested that "a policy allowing two children per family would be better." Yu noted, however, that altering the current "one child" policy is serious and requires careful consideration. Li also says some Chinese economists worry that the aging of the population may lead to an economic slowdown such as Japan has been undergoing recently.
Human Rights in China reports that a Shanghainese woman, Mao Hengfeng, has reportedly been subjected to torture and abusive treatment because of her public protests against China’s official one-child policy. According to HRIC, Mao has been engaged in a 15-year struggle for redress since she was dismissed from her factory job for refusing to have an abortion. HRIC reports that, because Mao refused to give up her petitioning, in April 2004 the Shanghai Public Security Bureau sentenced her to 18 months of Reeducation Through Labor.
China's continuing policy of birth control has apparently reinforced the drop in birth rates expected in an industrializing economy. As a result, some large cities are experiencing a negative birth rate. Shanghai's Commission on Population and Birth Control has responded by dropping the program of giving childless couples a financial reward.
This article describes family planning activities in Tujia and Miao Nationality Autonomous Regions in Guizhou Province. The reporter describes family planning personnel visiting households that have produced out-of-plan births, collecting fines, and "educating the masses" by publicizing the Family Planning Law. A photograph of minority villagers and family planning personnel organizing a "joint court" in a stockade outside the village accompanies the article.
The article illustrates that birth control policies are in fact being implemented in minority areas, as specified under Article 18 of the 2001 Population and Family Planning Law.
Author Jiang Hongbing, writing in the People's Daily, discusses efforts to change rural traditions favoring sons. Jiang notes recent trafficking cases in Inner Mongolia and Guangxi involving large numbers of children acquired from hospitals and clinics. Mostly girls, these infants had been given away, abandoned at the hospital, or even sold.
Jiang concludes that economic development and education, rather than coercion, are key to eliminating son preference. However, she does not question the family planning policy itself.
The following text was retrieved from the People's Daily Web site on February 1, 2013.