|Family Planning in China|
I. A Strategic Policy That Suits National Conditions
II. A Social Undertaking That Benefits the People
III. Combination of State Guidance with Voluntary Participation by the Masses
IV. Bringing the People to a Common Level of Understanding
V. Satisfying the Reproductive Health Needs of People of Child-bearing Age
VI. Optimization Through Reform and Development
VII. The Correct Choice for Human Rights Protection
Excessive population growth is an extremely serious problem facing the contemporary world. Each minute, the earth's population is increased by 160 people. In face of this problem, the UN Population Fund sounded a warning to the international community: Lacking prompt and determined moves to control population and maintain a balance between consumption and development, the world population would be 12.5 billion people by the middle of the next century and humanity be unable to develop further.
The global emergence of the population question poses a serious challenge to many countries and regions. For a populous developing country like China the challenge posed by the population question not only has a bearing on the survival and development of the Chinese nation but also affects the stability and prosperity of all human society.
How is China taking up the challenge to deal with this problem? Why has China adopted the strategic policy of carrying out family planning? What policies and measures has it taken to implement its family planning programme and what results has it achieved? We shall introduce the problem and provide some answers.
The population problem is an important question that touches upon the survival and development of the Chinese nation, the success or failure of China's modernization drive as well as the coordinated and sustained development between the population on one hand, and the economy, society, resources and environment on the other. It is a natural choice that the Chinese government has made to implement family planning, control population growth and improve the life quality of the population a basic state policy on the basis of a wish to make the state strong and powerful, the nation prosperous and the people happy.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, due to the stability of the society, the development of production and the improvement of medical and health care conditions, the people lived and worked in peace and happiness. The death rate was reduced markedly, while the population increased rapidly, thus the situation then was characterized by more births, fewer deaths and high growth. It should be pointed out that this was an inevitable phenomenon at that time. But, just as the international community then was not responding promptly to the question of swelling global population, China lost the chance to solve the problem of over-rapid population growth in the first birth peak period after the founding of New China.
In the 1960s, China's population entered its second peak birth period. From 1962 to 1972, the annual number of births in China averaged 26.69 million, totalling 300 million. In 1969, China's population exceeded 800 million. Beginning from the 1960s, the contradiction between the population on one hand, and the economy, society, resources and environment on the other had become gradually apparent. In view of the situation, the Chinese government issued a call for family planning and advocated the use of contraceptives. However, as there was still the lack of a deep understanding of the seriousness of the population problem and the government still had not worked out a clear population policy, family planning was not effectively carried out throughout the country.
From the early 1970s, the Chinese government had become increasingly deeply aware that the over-rapid growth of population was unfavourable to economic and social development and decided to energetically carry out family planning in both urban and rural areas and integrated the plan for population development into the plan of national economic and social development. Conse