ISSUES
: Our Changing Population
Chapter 2: Global population issues
35
creates a huge number of people
who are frustrated.”
History showed that countries with
a very large number of unmarried
men of military age were more
likely to pursue aggressive,
militarist foreign policy initiatives,
Tsang said.
In one of the most shocking recent
cases of human rights abuses
related to the one-child policy, a
woman who was seven months
pregnant was abducted by family
planning officials in Shaanxi
Province in 2012 and forced to
have an abortion.
Opponents
say
the
policy
has created a demographic
“timebomb”, with China’s 1.3
billion-strong population ageing
rapidly, and the country’s labour
pool shrinking. The UN estimates
that by 2050 China will have about
440 million people over 60. The
working-age population – those
between 15 and 59 – fell by 3.71
million last year, a trend that is
expected to continue.
There were no immediate details
on how or when China’s new
‘two-child policy’ would be
implemented. But Gietel-Basten
said the policy change was good
news for both China’s people and
its leaders, who stood to gain from
ending a highly unpopular rule.
“From a political, pragmatic
perspective, loosening the policy
is good for the Party but also it is
a good thing for individual couples
who want to have that second
child. It is a kind of win-win for
everybody,” he said.
“Millions of ordinary Chinese
couples will be allowed to have a
second child if they want to – this is
clearly a very positive thing.”
Experts said the relaxation of
family planning rules is unlikely
to have a lasting demographic
impact, particularly in urban areas
where couples were now reluctant
to have two children because of
the high cost.
“Just because the Government
says you can have another child,
it doesn’t mean the people will
immediately follow,” said Liang
Zhongtang, a demographer at
the Shanghai Academy of Social
Science.
Gietel-Basten said: “In the short
term, probably there will be a little
baby boom particularly in some
of the poorer provinces where the
rules have been very strict, like in
Sichuan or in parts of the south.
But in the long term I don’t think
it’s going to make an enormous
amount of difference.”
Dai Qing, a Chinese writer who
has publicly called for all family
planning rules to be scrapped, said
the announcement was a positive
step.
“It shows that the authorities have
understood the changes in the total
population and the demographic
structure and started to address
them,” she said.
But Dai said questions remained,
particularly about how Beijing
would enforce its new two-child
policy.
“Even if people are allowed to have
two children, what if they want
to have three children or more?
What if unmarried women want
to have their own children? At the
end of the day, it’s about women’s
reproductive rights and freedoms.”
Others expressed concern that
the announcement of the new
two-child policy, which referred
to Chinese couples, suggested
children born outside of wedlock
would continue to be penalised by
the Government.
Liang called on the Communist
Party to completely dismantle its
unpopular and outdated family
planning rules.
“I think they should abolish the
family planning [system] once and
for all and let people decide how
many children they want to have.
Only that way can they straighten
out their relationship with the
people.”
But Gietel-Basten said it would
have been virtually unthinkable for
Beijing to completely abandon its
family planning rules.
“That would in some ways imply
that the policy was wrong… which
of course would be a smack in the
face of the last two generations of
policymakers who stuck by it,” he
said.
“Getting rid of it completely
probably wasn’t an option in the
short term. But in the long term it’s
certainly not inconceivable that they
would move towards a pronatalist
policy at some point, maybe over
the next five or ten years, and that
they would develop policies similar
to in Korea or in Taiwan, or in Hong
Kong or in Singapore, where there
would be incentives for couples
with one child to have a second
child. I certainly think that is the
future direction it [policy] is likely
to go in.”
As news that the notorious policy
was coming to an end spread
on Thursday, Chinese citizens
celebrated on social media, while
also lamenting how long change
had taken to arrive.
Some
government
critics
expressed their contempt for the
policy by altering photographs
of the red Communist Party
propaganda banners that adorn
towns and villages across China
urging residents to obey family
planning rules.
“We reward families with two
children and fine those with only
one,” read one spoof poster
mocking Beijing’s change of heart.
“Those who decide not to have
children or who are infertile should
be thrown in jail.”
Additional reporting by Luna Lin.
29 October 2015
Ö
Ö
The above information is
reprinted with kind permission
from
The Guardian
. Please
visit
for
further information.
© 2015 Guardian News and
Media Limited
