Horn
27th December 2015, 10:53 AM
It's official. From January 1, 2016 China will allow two children for every couple.
Chinese lawmakers rubber-stamped the new legislation Sunday during a session of the National People's Congress Standing Committee, which governs the country's laws,the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
"The state advocates that one couple shall be allowed to have two children," according to the newly revised Law on Population and Family Planning.
This effectively dismantles the remnants of the country's infamous one-child policy that had been eased in recent years.
When news of the planned change to the law broke in October, the ruling Communist Party issued the following statement: "To promote a balanced growth of population, China will continue to uphold the basic national policy of population control and improve its strategy on population development.
"China will fully implement the policy of 'one couple, two children' in a proactive response to the issue of an aging population."
100 million couples
According to Lu Jiehua, a sociologist at Peking University, the policy will affect 100 million couples.
China, now a nation of more than 1.3 billion people, instituted a policy of one child per couple to control population growth in the 1970s.
Why the policy update is no silver bullet for economy
When its propaganda didn't work, local officials resorted to abortions, heavy fines and forced sterilization.
The decision to end the restriction followed a four-day strategy meeting of senior Communist Party officials at a Beijing hotel earlier this year, CNN's former China correspondent David McKenzie said.
He has said the move was foreshadowed by a change in the propaganda: While old advertisements depicted parents doting on one child, he said, a recent commercial showed a boy begrudgingly sharing a toy with his younger sister.
'Not enough'
Human rights group Amnesty International issued a statement warning that the change in policy was "not enough."
"Couples that have two children could still be subjected to coercive and intrusive forms of contraception, and even forced abortions -- which amount to torture," China researcher William Nee said.
"The state has no business regulating how many children people have," he said.
Is China's policy update too little, too late?
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/12/27/asia/china-two-child-policy/index.html
Chinese lawmakers rubber-stamped the new legislation Sunday during a session of the National People's Congress Standing Committee, which governs the country's laws,the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
"The state advocates that one couple shall be allowed to have two children," according to the newly revised Law on Population and Family Planning.
This effectively dismantles the remnants of the country's infamous one-child policy that had been eased in recent years.
When news of the planned change to the law broke in October, the ruling Communist Party issued the following statement: "To promote a balanced growth of population, China will continue to uphold the basic national policy of population control and improve its strategy on population development.
"China will fully implement the policy of 'one couple, two children' in a proactive response to the issue of an aging population."
100 million couples
According to Lu Jiehua, a sociologist at Peking University, the policy will affect 100 million couples.
China, now a nation of more than 1.3 billion people, instituted a policy of one child per couple to control population growth in the 1970s.
Why the policy update is no silver bullet for economy
When its propaganda didn't work, local officials resorted to abortions, heavy fines and forced sterilization.
The decision to end the restriction followed a four-day strategy meeting of senior Communist Party officials at a Beijing hotel earlier this year, CNN's former China correspondent David McKenzie said.
He has said the move was foreshadowed by a change in the propaganda: While old advertisements depicted parents doting on one child, he said, a recent commercial showed a boy begrudgingly sharing a toy with his younger sister.
'Not enough'
Human rights group Amnesty International issued a statement warning that the change in policy was "not enough."
"Couples that have two children could still be subjected to coercive and intrusive forms of contraception, and even forced abortions -- which amount to torture," China researcher William Nee said.
"The state has no business regulating how many children people have," he said.
Is China's policy update too little, too late?
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/12/27/asia/china-two-child-policy/index.html