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The Chinese government implements a family planning policy in the
light of the Constitution, with the aim of promoting economic and
social development, raising people's living standards, enhancing
the quality of its population and safeguarding the people's rights
to enjoy a better life.
China is a developing country with the biggest population in the
world. Many people, little arable land, comparatively inadequate
per-capita share of natural resources plus a relatively backward
economy and culture -- these features spell out China's basic national
conditions.
The population which is expanding too quickly poses a sharp contradiction
to economic and social development, the utilization of resources
and environmental protection, places a serious constraint on China's
economic and social development, and drags improvement of livelihood
and the quality of the people. By the end of 1990, the mainland
population had reached 1.14 billion. With such an immense population
base, China, despite the implementation of birth control, still
sees a yearly net increase of 17 million people, a number equal
to the population of a medium-sized country. As for the per-capita
area of cultivated land, it had dropped to 1.3 mu, representing
only 25 percent of the world average. Similarly, the per-capita
share of freshwater resources is just one quarter of the world average.
China's grain production ranks first in the world, but divided among
the population, the amount of grain per person accounts for just
22 percent of that in the United States. More than a quarter of
the annual addition to the national income is consumed by the new
population born during the same year. As a result, funds for accumulation
have to be cut, and the speed of economic growth slowed down. The
rapid swelling of the population has brought about many pressures
on the country's employment, education, housing, medical care, and
communications and transportation. Faced with the gravity of this
situation, the government, in order to guarantee people's minimum
living conditions and to enable citizens not only to have enough
to eat and wear but also to grow better off, cannot do as some people
imagine -- wait for a high level of economic development to initiate
a natural decline in birthrate. If we did so, the population would
grow without restriction, and the economy would deteriorate steadily.
Hence, China has to strive for economic growth by trying in every
possible way to increase the productive forces, while at the same
time practice the policy of family planning to strictly control
population growth so that it may suit economic and social development.
This is the only correct choice that any government responsible
to the people and their descendants can make under China's given
set of special circumstances.
It is universally acknowledged that China has achieved tremendous
successes in family planning. The birthrate dropped by a big margin
from 33.43 per thousand in 1970 to 21.06 per thousand in 1990, and
the natural population growth dropped from 25.83 per thousand to
14.39 per thousand. In 1970, the child-bearing rate of Chinese women
was 5.81, and the figure decreased to 2.31 in 1990. At present,
the above three indicators are lower than the average level of other
developing countries. To a certain extent, this success has mitigated
the contradiction between China's ballooning population and its
economic and social development. It has played an important role
in advancing socialist modernization and raising the living standard
and the quality of the population. Also it has been an important
contribution to the stability of the world's population.
The Chinese government, proceeding from national conditions, has
fixed the target of population growth and formulated the following
family planning policy: delayed marriage and postponement of having
children, giving birth to fewer but healthier children, and one
family, one child. Rural families facing genuine difficulties (including
households with a single daughter) can have a second child after
an interval of several years. Family planning is also being encouraged
among minority nationalities to further their well-being and prosperity,
and is based on the minority people's own free will. The specific
requirements for minorities are different from those for Han families
and are determined by the governments of autonomous regions and
provinces according to the population, economy, resources, culture
and customs of each nationality. Such a population policy, taking
into account both the state's necessity to control population growth
and the masses' real problems and degree of acceptance, tallies
with China's actual economic and social situation and conforms to
the people's fundamental interests. As experience proves, the policy
has been understood and supported by the masses after thoroughgoing
publicity and education. The fourth census showed that among the
children born in 1989 throughout the country, the more-than-three-children
birthrate dropped to 19.32 percent from 62.21 percent in 1970.
China adheres to the principle of combining government guidance
with the wishes of the masses when carrying out its family planning
policy. Since it involves all families, it would be impossible to
put the policy into effect in a country with a population of more
than 1.1 billion without the masses' understanding, support and
conscientious participation. Family planning is also a reform of
social custom and cannot possibly be carried out just by administrative
orders. In the countryside, which is inhabited by 80 percent of
the population, millennia-old traditional ideas remain influential,
the economy is backward in some areas, and the social welfare and
guarantee systems are still inadequate. People have real difficulties
in their production and livelihood. Given these factors, the government
has always given priority to tireless publicity and educational
work among the masses to enhance public awareness that birth control,
as a fundamental policy, has a direct bearing on the nation's prosperity
and people's happy family life.
Government officials are required to take the lead in carrying
out the policy and set a good example. In recent years, the Chinese
Family Planning Association has set up more than 600,000 grass-roots
branches with 32 million members to aid the masses in self-education,
self-management and self-service, combining ideological education
with helping the masses solve practical problems.
At the same time, the government has adopted some necessary economic
and administrative measures as supplementary means. These measures
are all adopted in keeping with the law, and with the ultimate aim
of persuasion.
The family planning program puts contraception first, to protect
the health of women and children. The government has made great
efforts to spread scientific knowledge of contraceptive practices,
and to provide couples of child-bearing age who do not want child
with safe, efficacious, simple and inexpensive contraceptives and
the choice of a birth-control operation. At present, about 75 percent
of the couples of child-bearing age throughout the country are resorting
to various kinds of contraceptive practices. All forms of forced
abortion are resolutely opposed. Artificial abortion, only as a
remedy for contraception failure, is performed on a voluntary basis
and with guarantee of safety. In a situation of a notably lower
birthrate, the ratio of annual births to artificial abortions is
about the medium level in the current world. This has resulted from
effective practices of contraception. Now China is adopting practical
and effective measures to further lower the ratio.
China's population policy has two objectives: control of population
growth and improvement in quality of the population. Work in this
field not only encourages couples of child-bearing age to have fewer
children but also provides them with mother care, baby care and
advice on optimum methods of child-bearing and child-rearing. These
services include premarriage check-ups, heredity consultation, pre-natal
diagnosis and care during pregnancy to help couples have sound,
healthy babies.
Drowning or abandoning female infants, a pernicious practice left
over from feudal society, occurs much less often now, but has not
been stamped out entirely in some remote areas. China's law clearly
forbids the drowning of infants and other acts of killing them.
The government has adopted practical measures for handling these
kinds of criminal offenses according to law.
China's family planning policy fully conforms to Item 9 of the
United Nations' Declaration of Mexico City on Population and Growth
in 1984, which demands that "countries which consider that their
population growth rate hinders their national development plans
should adopt appropriate population plans and programs." It also
accords with the UN World Population Plan of Action which stresses
that every country has the sovereign right to formulate and implement
its own population policy. Some people who censure China's family
planning policy as "violating human rights" and being "inhuman"
do not understand or consider China's real situation. But some others
have deliberately distorted the facts in an attempt to put pressure
on China and interfere in China's internal affairs. China has only
two alternatives in handling its population problem: to implement
the family planning policy or to allow blind growth in births. The
former choice enables children to be born and grow up healthily
and live a better life, while the latter one leads to unrestrained
expansion of population so that the majority of the people will
be short of food and clothing, while some will even tend to die
young. Which of the two pays more attention to human rights and
is more humane? The answer is obvious.
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