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Alexander F. Yuan/AP
Parents play with their children at a kid's play area in a shopping mall in Beijing on Jan. 10.
BEIJING — China has quelled speculation its controversial "one-child" policy is to be scrapped, instead announcing Wednesday that family planning laws to curb the birth rate will remain.
"The policy should be a long-term one and its primary goal is to keep a low birthrate," Wang Xia, minister in charge of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, said.
The pronouncement comes after months of speculation that the decades-old restriction would be abandoned.
In October, a Chinese government think tank urged the policy be relaxed to allow two children for every family in the country by 2015.
"I’m surprised," said Professor Shaun Breslin, associate fellow at U.K. think tank, Chatham House. "Almost everything we had heard in recent months pointed towards a relaxation of one-child."
The 1979 law prohibits about one-third of China’s 1.3 billion citizens from having a second child. The policy is officially backed up by fines, but campaigners say more than one million forced abortions are carried out every year.
It has slowed the spectacular growth of the country’s population, preventing an estimated 400 million births over three decades.
In a related statement on Wednesday, the family planning commission said China’s current low birthrate "is not stable because, with the exception of some developed cities, the fertility level in most of China's regions will rise if the basic state policy of family planning is abolished."
"Therefore it is necessary to stick to the basic state policy of family planning to stabilize the current low fertility level," it added.
Breslin said China’s looming demographic crisis — a huge elderly population supported by a relatively tiny younger generation — highlighted social problems such as the need for greater universal healthcare.
"For most Chinese people the current system works fine if you have a sore throat, but a knee operation could use up all your savings," he said. "That means many are keen to ensure they have a male child in order to ensure there is enough income in the family."
He added that Wednesday’s announcement did not mean China’s new leadership was eschewing economic or social reforms. "It can take a year or two for any new leadership in China to introduce change," he said.
Professor Hu Xingdou, of the Beijing Institute of Technology, told the South China Morning Post it would be difficult for the government to abolish the one-child policy overnight.
"China still needs a family-planning policy due to our vast population and lack of cropland, as well as the relative deficiency of per capita resources,” he said.
The one-child rule is mainly enforced in urban areas.
Wang also announced an expansion of rural healthcare provision for pregnant women, and said efforts "should also be made to rectify the imbalance in gender ratio."
She also said a "complete working system" would be established to "in light of the great numbers of young migrant workers flocking to the cities for jobs."
Related stories:
Chinese say one child is enough as Beijing weighs end of policy
Growing calls in China to change the one-child policy
Not Chinese enough in China? Americans' dilemma
Leave a Comment:
TFNJ -- we wouldn't need bear hunts/deer population control if we hadn't eradicated their "natural" predators from their habitat.
And taking away the land where they live and feed so we can build concrete buildings or give the ranchers all the land they want for their livestock; eat everything so they can be eaten. God forbid a wolf shows his face. Hunt him down and throw poison gas into the dens where the cubs are helpless. Yes; man really knows how to make the world a better place.
Yet you live in a state which destroyed the environment so badly that driving down 95 is so sickening I go through Pennsylvania to get to Maryland so I don't have to smell your state as I drive through.
Better make it a 2 - child policy.
It's a sound policy for population control. I know this is extremely controversial, but fewer people who live longer healthier lives is a much better and more sustainable model, even at the cost of the temporary imbalance. If every woman had her one child at eighteen, for example, then each of those children would have fewer medical issues and live longer. It's not emotion, it's science. There is an upside to such control, your kid would be grown when you were 38.
36.....go back to school!
mark, would that be a sound policy for America? Can you imagine the uprising that would create? Nothing about this policy is sound for any company. There must be other ways to control your growth. Not just limiting the number of children that the poor to middle class can have. Just because one is rich, does not mean that their children will be successful.
Thank you Lord! Without this policy, they would have to start eating each other, Soilent Green, so to speak, as they have eaten nearly every living thing in their Surround, including the oceans. Tribals, like on the Star Ship Enterprise.
It doesn't matter, they are coming to the US to have kids lol. Once your BORN in the US you are a citizen and entitled to all of the benefits.
Sorry to tell you this but most of you don't have the slightest accurate idea about this subject. If the "one-child" policy is effective why has the population of China increased from 818 million in 1970 to 1.344 billion in 2011 - a doubled population in 41 years. See the chart at >
One comment stated that the "one-child" policy only applied to the non-Hun population. Just the opposite is true. Some 55 ethnic minorities do not fall under the one child policy. Further there are many exceptions for the Hun component of the population e.g., divorced individuals. Huns may have more than one child if they are willing to pay a fine - represented as the government social costs of the additional child(ren). When I was visiting China in 2006 the Government had changed the tax levy from before tax to after tax income.
The stated disparity between male and females of marriageable age is a problem. The last time I was in China this gap was about 6-7%. I did not read a comment that discussed the basic reason China needed to restrict population growth. Only 30% of the land in China is arable and under the Communist system this land was not as productive as it could be. Therefore, the Communist government introduced Capitalist motivations. The farmer could sell for his own economic benefit could sell everything produced above a stated quantity (for land use). Are you surprised that the quantity of food raised from a given area of land dramatically increased? Government operated business (Communist system) is being replaced by businesses with Capitalist incentives. Today the majority of businesses operate under competitive Capitalist methods. As the Chinese workers become more wealthy (10% year-on-year real wage increases) more Chinese will be able to afford more than one child - unless their increasing affluence causes them to decide that they don't want any or only one child - as is happening in the United States and in all of Western Europe. Entire cultures are at risk of being lost because ethnic populations are on the decline.
I see thet the cited URL did not get copied. Let's try it again.
One more try and then I'll say goodnight. Just Google Chinese population.....
www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=sp_pop_totl&idim
=country:CHN&dl=en&hl=en&q=population%20of%20china
bravi, china...the rest of the world should adopt this policy...most of this world's woes are directly related to overpopulation...
One Child policy is good for China......perhaps NO child would be better. I live in China and because Chinese are obnoxious rude people with no manners it would be best if there are fewer of them! Just saying!
Where in China do you live? That is not the China I know.
The one child policy is the smartest thing that any country has done. With more than 400 million fewer babies, according to their own figures, they have been able to expand their education systems and have now been able to start welfare for older people – – as small as it is. Overpopulation is the world's major ecological problem. If you don't believe this you might read book 1 of the series andgulliverreturns.info. The amount of unemployment in the Western world is another indication of our overpopulation – – too many people for the jobs is available. Supermarkets replace small shops with fewer employees and more selection goods. Farmers behind an ox pulled plow are replaced by machines. Automation and computer technology quickly replace unskilled labor. China's idea of higher education in the universities is the key to future success. I am amazed by the progress that I have seen in international educational conferences in the last 25 years. The Chinese researchers were once used behind the West. Now they lead. It is because of the one child policy and how resources can now be directed to the societal areas where society will advance. I would expect the next thing they do would be to lengthen the working life. Retirement at 65 is to early with our lifespans increasing.
I know about people complain about their communist government's emphasis on society. But just compare how they have advanced economically and socially compared to those of us in the West. They have the closest thing to an informed oligarchy that Plato suggested in the Republic. The only stupid thing they are doing is not eliminating the abortions of girls. Any man in his right mind realizes how the females of the species have handled organizations with more tact and with more peaceful objectives than we men. They do need some women on the Politburo.
Odd to me that not one comment touches on the fact that this "one child only" policy goes hand in hand with a "one political party only" policy. The Chinese people don't get to make choices about a LOT of things that pertain to their lives, thanks to the government that many here are praising. If Washington dictated a one child only policy for Americans, people would be whining about their rights, no matter how sensible such a policy would be. Even Hitler did a few good things in his time that were not connected to atrocities, but few today praise those "sensible Nazis".
when we have exausted the planets resources thats when the population will go down. we will be fighting over food and clean water to drink.
The only peoples not trying to control their populations but in fact are encouring their people to plop out as many kids as possible are Muslims, African'rs, and Mexicans/Latinos. How about a little birth control there please. We dont need Billions more of them...thanks
Which one of those groups is Octomom from again?
She's an Obama voter.
Ah yes, fools support forced abortions - for other people.
When the population of America gets to about 600 million I wonder what the opinion will be let alone 1.5 Billion like China. That's with the capping of births.
If they just let people do whatever what would the world opinion be if there were 3.2 Billion Chinese now.
This planet will eventually self destruct. We are too selfish a species to ever sacrifice our wants and "rights" for the good of the planet. Keep populating, keep cutting down the forests, keep overfising, keep poluting because it's your right and see what happens. Keep telling yourself that god will provide and protect you. He wont and he hasn't. Your grandchildren are gonna love the earth without clean water, open space, most animal species. I can't wait until the fun begins.
now only if the middle eastern regions and african continent would put that policy in place. i swear their having a contest to see who can have more kids.
Interesting how these stories get twisted to support our preconceived notions about what life in China is like. My Fiancée lives in Chongqing and is one of six children in her family. She says that at least in her region this "law" was never enforced and is still not being enforced, so it's hardly what I would call a "law". She has never heard of "forced" abortions except in individual families where the woman's parents have forced them, but even that is dying out. She was forced into her first marriage with a man her parents chose, but that seldom occurs anymore, either. But she understands China's population problem and supports decreasing the size of families, but it is not "the law". We should have a similar law here and we need to stop worshiping the Duggars and people like them who seem to reproduce simply for the sake of getting on the women's talk shows.
Somehow people seem to overlook the main points. One child policy INCREASES aging population and they are not worried about it. They are still overpopulated. I do not think they favor immigration-they probably want to dump some of their poverty here in the US. China is developing very fast, have surplus money all in part to that policy. In spite of the lack of jobs we talk about immigration and worry about our aging population .The money from our SS was spent -maybe that is why . Our "Think Tanks " are nothing but propaganda for Globalists and contributed to our bankrupcy.
India should learn from the Chinese. If the current trend continues China will take over all the debt ridden countries including the US and the EU. Our rich oligarchs like Gates will just move to China and the rest of us will be enslaved. Why is this trend not discussed ?
we should have the same law here in the us.it getting alittle crowded plug with the global warming next will be food shortage and starvation not enough food to go around.and i beleive it will happen in out life time or out kids and grand kids life time.we (everyone on this planet) is screwing the planet up.
In October 2012, a colleague and I were guests of the Chinese Government in several major cities and Inner Mongolia. We immediately noticed the limited number of small children. Younger couples, some fluent in English, were assigned to us as we traveled. My colleague is from a large family and the young people of China lamented the lack of brother and sister relationships. They suggested it was so lonely as a child. We did learn that if a couple are both from single child families, this couple has the right to have two children. I asked about how the government manages when a family has more than one child without permission and the answer was "The second child does not qualify as much for education and health care." I don't have any offcial information, but the people were extraordinarily nice to us and seemed quite happy. As Anglos, we were an oddity and many Chinese wanted pictures at a distance. As a grandfather of three boys under age 5, I adore the little kids and the Chinese children were happy to see us even though we could not verbally communicate. Maybe if we got governments out of the way, all of us could co-exist quite happily.
"the people were extraordinarily nice to us and seemed quite happy"
You will act happy...or else.
Oh, so THAT's where Obama is getting his ideas.
we are way too smart to learn from this example
I have three words (ok, and a bit more) to say about this. Adoption. Adoption. Adoption.
These are human beings. Where is the reverence for a life? China's official policies and the centuries old degradation and abuse of women have done enough damage. Families all over the world experiencing economic stress and lacking knowledge have left innocent children to be literally, and emotionally, thown out like garbage.
I thank God every day that our beautiful daughter's Chinese birth mother chose NOT to abort or throw her out 8 years ago. We have been blessed beyond belief. Please, everyone, we must take care of our children. It does not matter if they were born to you or not. They are all our children.
We live in a country where Progressives claim a Constitutional right to murder children in the womb up until their birth and you wonder about a reverence for life?????