China May Adopt 'Two-child Policy, Demographic Timebomb Looms
China could be on the verge of introducing a two-child policy, under which all Chinese couples would be allowed to have two children.
The NYRB China Archive
07.09.15
A Blind Lawyer vs. Blind Chinese Power
from New York Review of BooksIn early 2012, Chen Guangcheng, a self-taught lawyer who had been blind since infancy, lived with his wife and two children in the village of Dongshigu, where he’d been raised, on the eastern edge of the North China plain. They were not there by...
Conversation
03.18.15
Dark Days for Women in China?
With China’s recent criminal detention of five feminist activists, gender inequality in China is back in the spotlight. What does a crackdown on Chinese women fighting for equal representation say about the current state of the nation’s political...
Soft Recruits Hinder China’s Military Modernization
Many of China's army conscripts have been raised as spoiled children of the one-child policy and need toughening up, a RAND report says.
Media
11.12.14
“Having a Second Kid Isn’t as Simple as Adding Another Pair of Chopsticks”
When China loosened its family planning rules a year ago in November, allowing more couples to have a second...
Caixin Media
08.19.14
A Chinese Town’s Imported Cambodian Brides
It is a hot and sticky midsummer day in a small village along the Chang River in the eastern province of Jiangxi. The most popular spot is in front of the local grocery where a few women are playing mahjong as children chase each other around....
Why China’s Second-Baby Boom Might Not Happen
Six months since China announced the loosening of its restrictive one-child population policy, it is still too early to judge the ultimate impact. But experts now express more modest expectations.
Caixin Media
07.08.14
Hard Choices for Family Planners and Parents
The technocrats in charge of China's one-child policy have the power to force sterilizations, abortions, and intra-uterine device (IUD) implants, as well as punish uncooperative parents by denying them jobs, denying their children schooling, and...
China Scrambles to Adjust to Baby Boomlet
China's health officials are taking steps to accommodate two million more births annually after a landmark decision last year to relax population controls.
Many in China Can Now Have a Second Child, but Say No
Many couples blamed the rising cost of living for their reluctance to have more than one child. Some cited a cultural norm that requires husbands to provide an apartment, car and other material riches to a bride, demands that can push families...
Film Director Zhang Yimou Pays 7.5 Million Yuan Fine Over Children
Zhang admits he has two sons and a daughter with his current wife and a daughter with a previous wife.
China Fines ‘House of Flying Daggers’ Director for Breaching One-child Policy
Film-maker Zhang Yimou, who has three children with wife Chen Ting, has to pay £750,000 for breaking law.
China Formally Passes Law Easing One-Child Policy
China's legislature on Saturday formally eased two restrictive social policies of its authoritarian system, allowing some couples to have a second child and ending a form of extralegal detention. The standing committee of the National People's...
Caixin Media
12.17.13
Are Changes to China’s Family-Planning Rules Too Little, Too Late?
Among the sixty areas covered in the Communist Party’s “decision” document released after the third plenum of the Eighteenth Central Committee, the most popular among ordinary people is a revision to the family planning policy to allow some...
The End of China’s One-Child Policy? An Interview with Mei Fong
What exactly did the recent Third Plenum reveal about China’s strategy for dealing with the “One-Child Policy?” Questions for Mei Fong, a Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter working on a book about the...
Media
11.21.13
For Cash-Strapped Parents, Two Babies Are Too Many
Call it reproduction with Chinese capitalist characteristics. On November 15, authorities announced that the country’s One-Child Policy would be...
Conversation
11.19.13
What Will the Beginning of the End of the One-Child Policy Bring?
Leta Hong Fincher:
The Communist Party’s announcement that it will loosen the one-child policy is, of course, welcome news. Married couples will be allowed to have two children if only one of the spouses is an only child, meaning...
Population Control Is Called Big Revenue Source in China
Nineteen province-level governments in China collected a total of $2.7 billion in fines last year from parents who had violated family planning laws, which usually limit couples to one child, a lawyer who had requested the data said....
China to Crack Down on Family Planning Fines After Abuses Found
The National Audit Office’s investigation of 45 counties in nine provinces and municipalities from 2009-12 found 1.6 billion yuan ($260 million) in fines had been given out in contravention of the rules, Chinese newspapers said....
China Past Due: Facing the Consequences of Control
In the midst of it all, the Chinese people increasingly expect a different kind of relationship with their government – one of citizens and not subjects. They want their rights respected and their preferences heard.
Media
09.06.13
Follow the Money: Who Benefits from China’s One-Child Policy?
When debating China’s one-child policy, China’s domestic media and observers overseas mostly focus on its impact on the population structure or incidences of inhumanity involved in the implementation of the policy (such as...
China Seeks Western-Style Care Amid Explosion of Elderly
In Confucian tradition, children and grandchildren have cared for the elderly, but with almost 200 million over-60 year olds, and a projection that sees that figure more than doubling in the next 40 years, China faces a deluge of infirm...
Media
06.03.13
Online Outrage After Chinese City Proposes Fine on Single Mothers
Women giving birth out of wedlock in China have to contend with family pressure, social stigma, and financial hardship. Now, some of them may have to pay a hefty fine as well.
Wuhan, a city of more than 10 million people in Central China,...
China’s Brutal One-Child Policy
In the countryside, where the need for extra hands to help in the fields and the deeply entrenched patriarchal desire for a male heir have created strong resistance to population control measures, officials has been merciless....
China Investigates Director Alleged To Have 7 Kids
Reports circulated online this week that Zhang Yimou has seven children from his two marriages and from relationships with two other women in violation of the country’s strict family planning laws.
The Reborn of Beichuan
The Sichuan earthquake that struck this mountainous region on May 12, 2008 killed an estimated 90,000 people, including thousands of children. For many families in China, losing one child means losing an only child. The Reborn of Beichuan...
Viewpoint
03.19.13
For Many in China, the One Child Policy is Already Irrelevant
Before getting pregnant with her second child, Lu Qingmin went to the family-planning office to apply for a birth permit. Officials in her husband’s Hunan village where she was living turned her down, but she had the baby anyway. She may...
Conversation
03.15.13
Is the One Child Policy Finished—And Was It a Failure?
Dorinda Elliott:
China’s recent decision to phase out the agency that oversees the one-child policy has raised questions...
Population, Policy, and Politics
Population Council
One of the main puzzles of modern population and social history is why, among all countries confronting rapid population growth in the second half of the twentieth century, China chose to adopt an extreme measure of birth control known as the one...
Opinion: Will China End the One-Child Rule?
Historically, China's supplied workers to the world. But as it ages the country might seek to recruit immigrants as labor.
Online Poll Shows Overwhelming Support For End to China’s One-Child Policy
Out of 30,006 votes cast, 71.7% support abrogating the one-child policy, and only 28.3% want to keep it. The poll was conducted after a study by the China Development Research Foundation emerged, recommending an abolition of the current one-child...
Media
08.30.12
Chinese “Traitors” and the Foreign Press
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On June 2nd, local family planning officials forced Feng Jianmei, a...
China Needs To Ease One-Child Policy, State Researchers Say
Chinese government researchers called on the nation to ease its one-child policy as soon as possible to cope with an aging population and labor shortage. One option is allowing all people to have a second child, three researchers including Yu...
Sinica Podcast
06.22.12
The One-Child Policy
from Sinica PodcastWhile the African community in Guangzhou has taken to the streets to protest the suspicious death of a foreign national in police custody, the Chinese Internet has proven equally volatile as gruesome photos of a late-stage abortion have...
The NYRB China Archive
05.30.91
The Myth of Mao’s China
from New York Review of BooksIn China Misperceived Steven Mosher strikes back at the profession, clan, or family of China watchers that cast him out. The official reasons have never been made public, although his university, Stanford, hinted at academic misconduct...