One-child policy is not a mandatory policy in China

Chinanews, Beijing, July 17 – The current one-child policy is not a mandatory policy in China. Local governments in both urban and rural regions can make slight changes to the policy based on their concrete conditions, said Yu Xuejun, director of the Policy-making Department under the National Population and Family Planning Commission.
China has now become a country with a low birth rate. In the 1970s, while every Chinese couple gave birth to 5.8 children on average, the number has now been reduced to 1.8. However, it should be noted that as China has a large absolute number in population, the net increase of population will still be large. It is expected that over the next few years, Chinese population will grow with a net increase of 8-10 million every year to reach 1.5 billion by 2030. According to the national population strategic plan, China will witness a crucial period in the 30 years to come when population growth rate will remain low and, even reach zero. During the Eleventh Five-Year Plan Period (2006-2010), China will continue to implement its current family planning policy and try to keep the birth rate at a low level. It is no good for China either to tighten or loosen its present policy.
China should not loosen its present birth control policy because the country will encounter a small baby boom during the Eleventh Five-Year Period. Furthermore, currently, some local governments have made adjustments to the current policy by allowing more couples in their regions to have two babies already, said Yu.
Yu stressed that China should not tighten its current policy, either, because a tightened policy will bring more structural problems to the country’s population issue in future.