China is the most populous country in the world, with 1.28453 billion people at the end of 2002, one-fifth of the world’s total. This figure does not include the Chinese living in the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions, and TaiwanProvince. Moreover, the population density is high — with 134 people per sq km — and unevenly distributed. Along the densely populated coastal areas in the east, there are more than 400 people per sq km; in the central areas, over 200; and in the sparsely populated plateaus in the west there are less than 10 people per sq km.
When the PRC was founded in 1949, China had a population of 541.67 million and the population grew rapidly, reaching 806.71 million in 1969. Since the 1970s, China had implemented a policy of family planning to control population growth and thus the birth rate began to decrease. By 2002, the annual rate of population growth had decreased to 12.86 per thousand. In line with the requirements of the Outline of National Economic and Social Development during the 10th Five-Year Plan period (2001-2005), adopted at the Fourth Session of the Ninth NPC in March 2001, the goal is for the growth of population not to exceed 9 per thousand and the population as of 2005 to be controlled to less than 1.33 billion.
Family planning has been promoted as one of the basic state policies in China, combining government guidance with the voluntary compliance of citizens. The government guidance includes: The central and local governments make the policies and legislation for controlling the population increment, improving the population quality, and improving the population structure and the macro population development plans. Meanwhile, the governments also provide consultations, instructions and technical services concerning reproduction care, contraception and good birth and good rearing. Voluntary compliance means that couples at child-bearing age can, with the instruction of the relevant policies and regulations of the state, choose responsibly and in a planned way the proper contraception methods according to age, health, job and financial conditions.
The basic guidelines of family planning are late marriages and late childbearing, so as to have fewer but healthier babies, especially one child per couple. But a flexible family planning policy is adopted for rural people and ethnic minorities. In rural areas, couples may have a second baby in exceptional cases, but must wait several years after the birth of the first child. In areas inhabited by minority peoples, each ethnic group may work out different regulations in accordance with its wish, population, natural resources, economy, culture and customs: In general a couple may have a second baby, or a third child in some places. As for ethnic minorities with extremely small populations, a couple may have as many children as they want.
