BEIJING (AP) — A Chinese government
think tank is urging the country's leaders to start phasing out its
one-child policy immediately and allow two children for every family by
2015, a daring proposal to do away with the unpopular policy.
Some demographers see the timeline put forward by the China Development Research Foundation
as a bold move by the body close to the central leadership. Others warn
that the gradual approach, if implemented, would still be insufficient
to help correct the problems that China's strict birth limits have created.
Xie
Meng, a press affairs official with the foundation, said the final
version of the report wil be released "in a week or two." But Chinese state media have been given advance copies. The official Xinhua News Agency
said the foundation recommends a two-child policy in some provinces
from this year and a nationwide two-child policy by 2015. It proposes
all birth limits be dropped by 2020, Xinhua reported.
"China
has paid a huge political and social cost for the policy, as it has
resulted in social conflict, high administrative costs and led
indirectly to a long-term gender imbalance at birth," Xinhua said,
citing the report.
But it
remains unclear whether Chinese leaders are ready to take up the
recommendations. China's National Population and Family Planning
Commission had no immediate comment on the report Wednesday.
Known to many as the one-child policy, China's actual rules are more complicated. The government
limits most urban couples to one child, and allows two children for
rural families if their first-born is a girl. There are numerous other
exceptions as well, including looser rules for minority families and a
two-child limit for parents who are themselves both singletons.
Cai
Yong, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of North
Carolina, Chapel Hill, said the report holds extra weight because the
think tank is under the State Council, China's Cabinet. He said he found
it remarkable that state-backed demographers were willing to publicly
propose such a detailed schedule and plan on how to get rid of China's
birth limits.
"That tells us
at least that policy change is inevitable, it's coming," said Cai, who
was not involved in the drafting of the report but knows many of the
experts who were. Cai is currently a visiting scholar at Fudan
University in Shanghai. "It's coming, but we cannot predict when exactly
it will come."
Adding to the
uncertainty is a once-in-a-decade leadership transition that kicks off
Nov. 8 that will see a new slate of top leaders installed by next
spring. Cai said the transition could keep population reform on the back
burner or changes might be rushed through to help burnish the
reputations of President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao on their way
out.
There has been growing
speculation among Chinese media, experts and ordinary people about
whether the government will soon relax the one-child policy — introduced
in 1980 as a temporary measure to curb surging population growth — and
allow more people to have two children.
Though
the government credits the policy with preventing hundreds of millions
of births and helping lift countless families out of poverty, it is
reviled by many ordinary people. The strict limits have led to forced
abortions and sterilizations, even though such measures are illegal.
Couples who flout the rules face hefty fines, seizure of their property
and loss of their jobs.
Many
demographers argue that the policy has worsened the country's aging
crisis by limiting the size of the young labor pool that must support
the large baby boom generation as it retires. They say it has
contributed to the imbalanced sex ratio by encouraging families to abort
baby girls, preferring to try for a male heir.
The
government recognizes those problems and has tried to address them by
boosting social services for the elderly. It has also banned
sex-selective abortion and rewarded rural families whose only child is a
girl.
Many today also see the birth limits as outdated, a relic of the era when housing, jobs and food were provided by the state.
"It
has been thirty years since our planned economy was liberalized,"
commented Wang Yi, the owner of a shop that sells textiles online, under
a news report on the foundation's proposal. "So why do we still have to
plan our population?"
Though open debate about the policy has flourished in state media and on the Internet, leaders have so far expressed a desire to maintain the status quo. President Hu
said last year that China would keep its strict family planning policy
to keep the birth rate low and other officials have said that no changes
are expected until at least 2015.
Wang
Feng, director of the Brookings-Tsinghua Center for Public Policy and
an expert on China's demographics, contributed research material to the
foundation's report but has yet to see the full text. He said he
welcomed the gist of the document that he's seen in state media.
It says the government "should return the rights of reproduction to the people," he said. "That's very bold."
Gu
Baochang, a professor of demography at Beijing's Renmin University and a
vocal advocate of reform, said the proposed timeline wasn't aggressive
enough.
"They should have reformed this policy ages ago," he said. "It just keeps getting held up, delayed." LINK
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