On China‘s one child policy

Attitutes on China’s One Child Policy The Chinese one child policy is unique in the history of the world. It was a source of great pain for one generation, but a generation later it began to yield important economic benefits. For China, and the world as a whole, the one child policy was one of the most important social policies ever implemented. ChapterⅠIntroduction:Background of the policy In the past thirty years of China,there existed a controversial policy which many countries in the world considered it aginst human right.This is China's one child policy. From the middle of last century,more and more people awared that the lasting high birthrate would make the world get into trouble.In that time ,China had the most number of population ,so this disinterested socialism country took the charge of the whole world. Rapid population growth is an unforgiving task master. Even with the one child policy—as a result of the high birth rate a generation before—China still has one million more births than deaths every five weeks. The Chinese State Council launched the policy in 1979, ―so the rate of populatio n growth may be brought under control as soon as possible.‖ However, the root cause of the policy lay back in the 1960s with Mao Zedong's belief that ―the more people, the stronger we are‖—an ideology that prevented China from developing the highly successful voluntary family planning programmes that countries such as South Korea and Taiwan had put in place in the 1960s. ChapterⅡCurrent Situation The limit has been strongly enforced in urban areas,but the actual implementation varies from location.In short rural areas,families are allowed to apply to have a second child if the first is a girl,or has a physical disability, mental illness or mental retardation.Second children are subject to birth spacing(usually 3 or 4 years).Additional children will result in large fines: families violating the policy are required to pay monetary penalties and might be denied bonuses at their workplace.Children born in overseas countries are not counted under the policy if they do not obtain Chinese citizenship.Chinese citizens returning from abroad can have a second child. Moreover, in accordance with PRC's affirmative action policies towards ethnic minorities, all non-Han ethnic groups are subjected to different rules and are usually allowed to have two children in urban areas, and three or four in rural areas. Han Chinese living in rural areas, also, are often permitted to have two children.. Because of couples such as these, as well as urban couples who simply pay a fine (or "social maintenance fee") to have more children, the overall fertility rate of mainland China is closer to two children per family than to one child per family. The steepest drop in fertility occurred in the 1970s before one child per family was implemented in 1979. Population policies and campaigns have been ongoing in China since the 1950s. During the 1970s, a campaign of 'One is good, two is okay, and three is too many' was heavily promoted. Chapter Ⅲ Advantages of one-child policy One-child policy is a wise choice that can have effects on different areas . First,it is reported that the focus of China on population control helps provide a better health service for women and a reduction in the risks of death and injury associated with pregnancy. At family planning offices, women receive free contraception and pre-natal classes. Help is provided for pregnant women to closely monitor their health. In various places in China, the government rolled out a ?Care for Girls‘ program, which aims at eliminating cultural discrimination against girls in rural and underdeveloped areas through subsidies and education. Second,the individual savings rate has increased since the one-child policy was introduced. This has been partially attributed to the policy in two respects. First, the average Chinese household expends fewer resources, both in terms of time and money, on children, which gives many Chinese more money with which to invest. Second, since young Chinese can no longer rely on children to care for them in their old age, there is an impetus to save money for the future. Third, the original intent of the one-child policy was economic, to reduce the demand of natural resources, maintaining a steady labor rate, reducing unemployment caused from surplus labor, and reducing the rate of exploitation.[32][33]The CPC's justification for this policy was based on their support of Mao Zedong's supposedly Marxist theory of population growth, though Marx was actually witheringly critical of Malthusianism. Chapter ⅣCriticisms of the Policy One type of criticism has come from those who acknowledge the challenges stemming from China's high population growth but believe that less intrusive options, including those that emphasized delay and spacing of births, could have achieved the same results over an extended period of time. Susan Greenhalgh's (2003) review of the policy-making process behind the adoption of the OCPF shows that some of these alternatives were known but not fully considered by China's political leaders. Another criticism is directed at the exaggerated claimed effects of the policy on the reduction in the total fertility rate. Studies by Chinese demographers, funded in part by the UN Fund for Population Activities, showed that combining poverty alleviation and health care with relaxed targets for family planning was more effective at reducing fertility than vigorous enforcement of very ambitious fertility reduction targets. In 1988, Zeng Yi and professor T. Paul Schultz of Yale University discussed the effect of the transformation to the market on Chinese fertility, arguing that the introduction of the contract responsibility system in agriculture during the early 1980s weakened family planning controls during that period.. Zeng contended that the "big cooking pot" system of the People's Communes had insulated people from the costs of having many children. By the late 1980s, economic costs and incentives created by the contract system were already reducing the number of children farmers wanted. As Hasketh, Lu, and Xing observe: "The policy itself is probably only partially responsible for the reduction in the total fertility rate. The most dramatic decrease in the rate actually occurred before the policy was imposed. Between 1970 and 1979, the largely voluntary "late, long, few" policy, which called for later childbearing, greater spacing between children, and fewer children, had already resulted in a halving of the total fertility rate, from 5.9 to 2.9. After the one-child policy was introduced, there was a more gradual fall in the rate until 1995, and it has more or less stabilized at approximately 1.7 since then." These researchers note further that China could have expected a continued reduction in its fertility rate just from continued economic development, had it kept to the previous policy. Meanwhile, family planning in China is pursued in complete accordance with the relevant principles and human rights requirements designated by the international community. China's family planning policies and programmes combine citizens' rights and duties, joining the interests of the individual with those of society. These conform to the basic principles outlined at the various international population conferences and have been established on the basis of the relationship of interpersonal interests under socialism. Never in any country are rights and duties absolute, but rather, they are relative. There are no duties apart from rights, or rights apart from duties. When there is conflict between social needs and individual interests, a means has to be sought to mediate it. This is something that the government of every sovereign country is doing. As China has a large population, the Chinese government has to limit the number of births of its citizens. This is a duty incumbent on each citizen as it serves the purpose of making the whole society, and whole nation prosperous, and it is not proceeding from the private interest of some individuals. This is wholly justifiable and entirely consistent with the moral concepts of Chinese society. To talk about citizens' rights and duties out of reality in an abstract and absolute way does not hold water either in China or in any other country. In a heavily populated developing country like China, if the reproductive freedom of couples and individuals are unduly emphasized at the expense of their responsibilities to their families, children and societal interests in matters of child bearing, indiscriminate reproduction and unlimited population growth will inevitably ensue. The interests of the majority of the people, including those of new-born infants, will be seriously harmed. ChapterⅤ Conclusion Clearly, China‘s one child policy has its advantages and disadwantages.So we,citizens should regard it correctly.On one hand, we should accept and obey it since it is a kind of law.On the other hand,we should not exaggerate it . Bibliography 1.Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific report "Status of Population and Family Planning Programme in China by Province". 2.Hu Huiting (18 October 2002). "Family Planning Law and China's Birth Control Situation". China Daily. Retrieved 2 March 2009. 3.PBS (14 February 1984). "Family Planning Law and China's Birth Control Situation". NOVA. Retrieved 13 October 2009. 4.Summary of Family Planning notice on how FP fines are collected 5.Chen Youhua, 6/1999 issue of Population Research [Renkou Yanjiu] "Research on Adjustment of Family Planning Policy" 6."Regulations on Family Planning of Henan Province". Henan Daily. 5 April 2000. Retrieved 29 October 2008. Article 13. 7.Scheuer, James (4 January 1987). "America, the U.N. and China's Family Planning (Opinion)". The New York Times. Retrieved 27 October 2008. 8.Sichuan, for example, has allowed exemptions for couples of certain backgrounds; see Articles 11-13, "Revised at the 29th session of the standing committee of the 8th People's Congress of Sichuan Province". United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific. 17 October 1997. Retrieved 31 October 2008. 9.One-Child Policy Lifted for Quake Victims‘ Parents, by Andrew Jacobs. New York Times, 27 May 2008. Retrieved May 28, 2008. 10.Baby offer for earthquake parents BBC. Retrieved on 31 October 2008. 11.China Amends Child Policy for Some Quake Victims 12.Yardley, Jim (11 May 2008). "China Sticking With One-Child Policy". The New York Times. Retrieved 20 November 2008. 13."New rich challenge family planning policy." Xinhua. 14."China's One-Child Policy". TIME. July 27, 2009. Retrieved June 11, 2010. 15."First systematic study of China‘s one-child policy reveals complexity, effectiveness of fertility regulation". Today@UCI (University of California Irvine). April 18, 2007. Retrieved 2007-04-19. 16.People's Daily Online - Wuhan sees negative population growth 17.John Taylor (2005-02-08). "China - One Child Policy". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 2008-07-01. 18.Barry Naughton, The Chinese Economy: Transitions and Growth, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2007. 19.Tain Z (March 1983). "[Studying Marxist theory on population and initiating a new situation in demographic research]" (in Chinese). Renkou Yanjiu (2): 13–4. 20.Wen TZ (July 1981). "[Comrade Mao Ze-dong's contribution to Marxist theory on population--in commemoration, of the 60th anniversary of the birth of the Chinese Communist Party]" (in Chinese). Renkou Yanjiu (3): 8–11. 21.Susan Greenhalgh. 2003. "Science, Modernity, and the Making of China's One-Child Policy", Population and Development Review 29 (June): 163-196. 22.U.S. Embassy Beijing June 1988 report PRC Family Planning: The Market Weakens Controls But Encourages Voluntary Limits. 23.PRC journal Social Sciences in China [Zhongguo Shehui Kexue, January 1988]. 24.Therese Hasketh, Li Lu, and Zhu Wei Xing. 2005. "The effects of China's One-Child Family Policy after 25 Years", New England Journal of Medicine, 353, No. 11 (September 15): 1171-1176.