ng up experiences of history and the innovations of the people, the Chinese government in recent years has put forward that the rural areas should combine family planning with developing economy, helping peasants to become better off through hard work, and building progressive and happy families. Through providing service to peasants in production, livelihood and fertility, and above all through helping families practising family planning to become better off, more and more families were guided to have less children and to improve their financial situation as soon as possible. This practice has won warm support from governments at all levels, cadres at grass-roots level and the people. In a relatively short period of time, this work has been implemented in most of the provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities throughout the country. This is not only good for accelerating rural economic development, increasing peasants' income, and improving their living standard, but it can also make them realize from their immediate interests the benefit of having less children, gradually changing their attitudes towards fertility, hightening their awareness of and enthusiasm for carrying out family planning. Rural women not only take an active part in these activities but they also benefit mostly from them. Through these activities, they have enhanced their enthusiasm for production, increased their income from labour, improved their status in both the family and society and obtained greater independence in marriage and childbirth.
In order to fundamentally and comprehensively solve China's population problem, comprehensive measures have to be adopted. Such measures include vigorously developing the economy, getting rid of poverty, protecting the ecological environment, rationally developing and utilizing resources, popularizing education, developing medical service and maternal and child health care, improving the social security system --especially the insurance system for the aged, steadily advancing urbanization, improving women's status, and guaranteeing the legal rights and interests of women. Over the past few years, the Chinese government has formulated plans, policies and measures in these fields, providing a more favourable environment for the implementation of family planning.
The Chinese government and the society as a whole have paid close attention to the recent tendency of the high sex ratio. The problem will be gradually solved through heightened publicity and education, and measures have been taken to guarantee the legal rights and interests of women and children; to severely prohibit, except when called for medically, the technical examination of fetus for determining sex followed by selective abortion; and to improve birth report and statistical system.
The Chinese government strongly believes that the problems that have appeared in the course of implementing China's family planning programme will be solved steadily in the process of reform and development, before it can be gradually improved and perfected.
In the practice of carrying out family planning programme, whilst persistently proceeding from its reality and taking into full account and observing principles and regulations concerning population and family planning formulated by international institutions and organizations, the Chinese government has gradually set up guiding principles, policies, measures and methods that reflect the basic interests and various rights and interests of the people, and has continuously improved these as the actual situations change, so as to better safeguard the right to subsistence and development of the Chinese nation.
It has been China's consistent stand and principle in international exchange and cooperation to fully respect the sovereignty of all nations, and not to interfere with the internal affairs of other nations. The "Programme of Action" adopted by the International Conference on Population and Development by that conference in Cairo, 1994, pointed out: "The formulation and implementation of population-related