China Plans to Abolish Labor Camps and Ease One-Child Policy HONG KONG - The Chinese government will ease its one-child family restriction and abolish its "re-education through labor" camps, significantly curtailing two policies that for decades have defined the state's power to control citizens" lives, the Communist Party said on Friday. The changes were announced in a party decision that also laid out ambitious proposals to restructure the economy by encouraging greater private participation in finance and market competition in key economic sectors, as well as promising farmers better property protection and compensation for confiscated land. Senior party officials, led by President Xi Jinping, endorsed the raft of 60 reform proposals at a four-day Central Committee conference that ended Tuesday, but the decision was announced days later. The decision also pledged to gradually reduce the number of crimes that qualify for the death penalty, but gave no details about what crimes might be affected. Mr. Xi described the proposals as a bold call for economic renewal, social improvement and patriotic nation-building - all under the firm control of one-party rule. "We must certainly have the courage and conviction to renew ourselves," he said in a statement accompanying the reform decision. Both were issued by the official news agency, Xinhua. "Overcome all the cross-cutting restrictions, surmount the constraints of sectional interests, and have an active, engaged spirit in studying and putting forward reform proposals," said Mr. Xi, who was appointed party leader a year ago and made president in March. For months, economists and party analysts have speculated about the economic shifts that could be introduced in the meeting. But the planned changes to population policy and punishment - two areas in which reforms have been debated, and delayed, for years - gave the decision significance well beyond the economy and are likely to stir public expectations of even bolder changes under Mr. Xi and Prime Minister Li Keqiang. For decades, most urban couples have been restricted to one child. That has been changing slowly in some cities, which have rules on the books that couples can have two children if both parents are single children. That policy will be further relaxed nationwide. Many rural couples already have two, or sometimes more, children. "Launch implementation of a policy that when the husband or wife is a single child, the couple may have two children," said the decision. Steadily adjust and improve family planning policies. If carried through, the relaxation would mark the first significant nationwide easing of family-size restrictions that were put in place from the 1970s, said Wang Guangzhou, a demographer at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. "This is the first time that a central document has clearly proposed allowing two children when a husband or wife is an only child," Mr. Wang said in a telephone interview. Now it's just talking about launching this, but the specific policies have to be developed at the operational level. Those restrictions were introduced to deal with official fears that China's population would devour too many resources and suffocate growth. But they have created public anger and international criticism over forced abortions, and have created a population of 1.34 billion, according to a 2010 census, that is aging relatively rapidly, even before China establishes a firm foothold in prosperity. Demographers and experts have for years urged some relaxation of the controls. The party leaders also confirmed an announcement made earlier this year, and then abruptly retracted, that they intended to abolish re-education through labor, which since the 1950s has empowered police authorities to imprison people without any real judicial review. Experts and officials have debated whether to adjust or abolish the system of camps since the 1980s. Now abolition is closer. "Abolish the system of re-education through labor," said the decision, which proposed expanding community correctional policies to partly replace the system. "This is a significant step forward," said Nicholas Bequelin, a senior researcher who specializes on China with Human Rights Watch, an advocacy organization with headquarters in New York. "It doesn't mean that China is going to be kinder to dissent and to its critics," said Mr. Bequelin. But it's an important step to do away with a system that not only profoundly violated human rights, but was also standing in the way of any further legal reform. Re-education through labor was introduced under Mao Zedong to lock away suspected political opponents, and it expanded into a system of incarceration holding more than 100,000 people, many of them working in prison factories and on farms. Sentences are determined by the police, and defendants have scant chance to appeal imprisonment that can last up to four years. The document gives no date for achieving that, or for introducing the changes to family planning policy. And it is possible that the government will delay or dilute the changes, or introduce similar restrictions under another name, said Mr. Bequelin. But the bulk of the Central Committee decision dwelt on economic changes intended to rejuvenate growth by encouraging private investment and more efficient use of bank capital, and persuading farmers to lease their land into larger, more viable holdings. "Reform of the economic system is the focal point of comprehensively deepening reform," said the decision. The core issue is properly handling the relationship between the government and the market. Mia Li contributed research from Beijing. An earlier version of this article misspelled the given name of the Chinese prime minister. He is Li Keqiang, not Kequang.