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
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.
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.