China: Population controls to stay in place

 

Translated by Chen Ping.

计生委会主任表示计划生育政策不会调整

RFA Washington – Han Qing reports on March 10:

China’s National Family Planning Committee Chairman Zhang Weiqing recently said the present family planning policy of China would not change. He said in the next decade, China’s birth rate will be surging, forming a small upwards curve in population increase projections. If China changes birth control policy now, there will be even more people around compared with the small surge currently predicted.

Liu Xiaozhu, a Chinese commentator in the U.S. told RFA “Family planning has pros and cons. It is good for controlling the birth rate; but it also results in ageing of the population and it violates human rights. Now the family planning policy in China has more cons than pros. Particularly, as the population structure in China gets more and more seniorized, human rights issues come to the fore. So now is the time to change the family planning policy in China.”

Song Meiya, senior editor of the China Women’s Daily in Beijing agrees with the government policy of not changing its current position on family planning. She told RFA “In China if you have a second child, than the third is not necessary. But in Cambodia the second and even the third are equally important. In the U.S., Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong, having more children is good. So this is not a problem of whether we get more children or not.”

Song Meiya said most Chinese people understand the government policy. “The total population should be controlled. For the time being, the problems China is now facing include arable land, environment, and resources. They are all related to population. I think we should see the thing from the view of the relationship between population and the economy, and that of resources utilization. If China gives up control, we don’t know where we might end up.”

According to China’s official statistics, it has prevented the birth of about 400 million people since beginning its current draconian family planning practices in the 1970s. Some people point out, however, that the policy has caused many social problems, such as an ageing population and an imbalance in gender among newborn babies. Western societies constantly fault China on inhumane activities like forced abortion and sterilization, etc.

Liu Xiaozhu said “No matter how well China controls its population, if the political system does not change, it still have the same economic, social and political problems. Thus China should give up its family planning policy. The government should put emphasis on reform of the system, because China’s future is not decided by those children who have not yet been born.”
中国考虑废除一胎化政策

 

RFA Washington An Pei reports on Feb. 29

According to China’s current family planning policy, a couple is only allowed to have one child. But minorities such as Tibetans, Uyghurs or Mongolians can have two to three children. In Beijing and Shanghai and other urban areas, if a couple is both one child from their own family before the marriage, they are allowed to have second baby. Sometimes, in rural areas, if the first child is a girl, they can also have a second child.

But Li Xige, a health rights activist in Henan told RFA that in rural areas fewer women now want to have a second child. “In the past if you don’t bear a son, you might be discriminated against. But people don’t think that way any more. People’s standard of living has been improved drastically in the countryside as well as their level of education. China also treats girls much better now. Thus if a woman has two girls she doesn’t want a third child.”