Update (April 9): Reuters reports that two top Chinese political officials are lobbying the government on its one-child policy–with two very different aims, “exposing divisions that have impeded progress in a crucial area of reform.”
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Update (Mar. 20): According to new data from the Chinese health ministry, Chinese physicians have performed336 million abortions since the one-child policy was instituted 40 years ago.
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Update (Mar. 12): Following the meeting of the National People’s Congress in Beijing, All Girls Allowed has reported that the Chinese government will maintain its one-child policy in spite of calls for change.
“China will not change its basic state policy on family planning, Wang Feng, deputy head of the State Commission Office for Public Sector Reform, told a press conference in response to a question regarding the possibility of a change in the policy,” Chinese newspaper Xinhua confirms.
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A think tank sponsored by the Chinese government has recommended Beijing phase out its one-child policy that has forced abortion and sterilization upon millions of women.
The Chinese Communist Party recently leaked a report by the China Development Research Foundation, which recommends that China immediately abandon its one-child policy in favor of a two-child model phased in over three years. According to the Washington Times, that model would remain in effect until 2020, at which point all birth restrictions should be lifted.
“We have been discussing the one-child policy since 2000,” said Li Jiamin, a specialist in population studies at Nankai University, and one of the co-authors of the study. “It is just a matter of finding the right solution. Making the jump to two children is only a matter of time now.”
The report leaked 10 days ahead of the 18th Communist Party Congress, when China will announce new leaders for the first time in a decade. In contrast, the one-child policy has been in place since 1979.
But ChinaAid spokesman Mark Shan says the timing of this report is “predictable.”
“We’re not surprised to see such news appear right now … because this is the time we know the central government shift is happening,” Shan told Baptist Press.
Meanwhile, All Girls Allowed (AGA) is reporting continued abuse of the one-child policy through the use of forced abortions. AGA previously reported that an apparent ban on forced late-term abortions in one province signaled the end of all forced abortions–and the one-child policy as a whole.
CT recently covered the late-term forced abortion ban, noting that U.S.-based advocacy groups ChinaAid and Women’s Rights Without Frontiers disagreed with AGA’s assessment of its impact.
