China’s ‘awkward silence’ as lack of family planning slogans from 70th anniversary parade could signal policy shift

Beijing dropped family planning slogans and delegates from its National Day parade in a move that could signal a change to its controversial policy

China abandoned its one-child policy in 2016 to allow couples to have two children, as its birth rate slows and population ages

3-MIN READ3-MIN

China abandoned its one-child policy in 2016 to allow couples to have two children as its birth rate slows and population ages. Photo: Xinhua

Published: 3:11pm, 2 Oct 2019Updated: 9:30am, 10 Oct 2019

Mention of China's controversial family planning policy was conspicuously absent from National Day celebrations in Beijing on Tuesday, sending a clear signal that the country’s decades-long policy of birth restrictions could be scrapped altogether, analysts said.

China abandoned its one-child policy in 2016 to allow couples to have two children as its birth rate slows and population ages, although it has so far proved unsuccessful in boosting births.

Analysts said the lack of slogans or delegates related to the policy was a signal China could be about to lift restrictions entirely in a bid to encourage births.

“Family planning was an achievement for the People’s Republic at its 60th anniversary, there was an awkward silence at the 70th anniversary,” said Yi Fuxian, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a long-standing critic of China’s birth restrictions.

Previous National Day parades have featured slogans extolling the virtues of the policy and featured representatives tasked with implementing the programme.

The policy’s absence from festivities marks a major change from only six years ago, when China’s then family planning agency spokesman bragged to state media that the policy had reduced China’s population by “more than 400 million” and “has greatly reduced pressure on resources and the environment from excessive population growth”.

China, the world’s most populous country, had a population of nearly 1.4 billion people as the end of 2018. But it is greying at an alarming pace thanks to Beijing’s rigid birth control programme, which was enforced through a system of hefty fines and forced abortions.

“China’s fertility rate is already very low, and the population size will start to shrink very soon. It’s ridiculous to restrict births in China,” said demographic researcher Huang Wenzheng, from the Beijing-based Centre for China and Globalisation think tank.

Richard Koo, the chief economist for investment bank Nomura, wrote in a note last month that China’s entire population will start to decline in 2032.