Letters

Population control policy still needed

In his column (''One child' cruel and unnecessary', July 29) Philip Bowring is attacking not only the way China's population-restraining one-child policy is carried out but also the policy itself.

But as a policy there is nothing wrong with it, as is evident even in his 20/20-hindsight analysis. The policy was, and probably still is, necessary in countries like China and India, despite the now projected demographic imbalance, which is already plaguing sensible Japan and Hong Kong.

Even in the 1930s a French sociologist had found China overpopulated with only 400 million.

Bowring is wrong to say that the claims that the policy has brought down population growth are absurd.

What is an effective way to carry out the policy is another matter and depends on factors such as the size and literacy of the population involved, the facilities that are available and the time that is available.

What gave Bowring the weapon with which to write this communist-bashing piece is what he describe as 'lurid stories' of late-pregnancy 'forced abortions'.