Opinion | China must take stock of its birth-planning policies and learn from the past

China says its strict birth restrictions helped prevent a ‘population explosion’, but at what cost?

A comprehensive assessment could seek to redress those wronged by brutal family-planning measures

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Beijing’s strict birth restrictions of the past kept the national population from surpassing a level that some say would not have allowed China to achieve its current level of prosperity. Photo: AFP

Published: 7:30pm, 7 Jun 2021Updated: 10:24pm, 7 Jun 2021

With “birth planning” fading from Beijing’s vocabulary as couples are now allowed to have three children, it is time for Chinese authorities to conduct a thorough review.

One perspective among analysts is that China’s family-planning policy – in reality, its stringent birth restrictions – helped facilitate the country’s economic rise by staving off a “population explosion”.

The restrictions are said to have reduced births by 400 million and kept China’s population from surpassing 1.7 billion people – a level that some say would not have allowed China to achieve its current level of prosperity.

Thus, China’s family planning was seemingly necessary, and it was the right policy to deliver its intended results. But times and circumstances have changed dramatically.

There have been various assessments of the policy, known as the biggest demographic experiment in human history.

Critics argue that a mandatory one-child limit was implemented using the wrong demographic perceptions. Its implementation was about persuasion and incentives, such as subsidies for one-child families, but it also involved punishments such as hefty fines for violators and, in extreme cases, forced abortions and sterilisation.

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