China’s leaders want more babies, but officials resist
Facing a future demographic crisis and aging society, China’s leaders are desperately seeking to persuade couples to have more children. But bureaucrats don’t seem to have gotten the message, fining a couple in a recent widely publicised case for having a third child against the strict letter of the law.
The move has sparked public outrage as people vent their anger at population control officials hungry for revenue and have long persecuted couples for violating the now-scrapped “one-child policy”. “The country is doing all it can to encourage childbirth but the local governments need money, so we end with this sort of madness,” a columnist and political commentator who writes under the name Lianpeng said on China’s Weibo microblogging service.
“The low birthrate has everyone on edge, yet the local governments care only about collecting fees,” journalist Jin Wei wrote on her verified Weibo account. “I don’t know of any other nation pulls up its people like this.” The Wangs, the couple at the heart of the recent controversy, were ordered by local authorities in Shandong to pay a fine known as a “social maintenance fee” of 64,626 yuan ($9,500) immediately after the birth of their third child in January 2017. After various deadlines came and went, the family’s bank savings of 22,957 yuan ($3,400) were frozen last month, with the balance still due. “I just don’t know what I’m going to do,” the husband, Wang Baohua, said.
The situation the couple faces has its roots in decadesold fears China’s population would outstrip its resources, along with the ruling Communist Party’s all-consuming fervour to control people’s personal decisions. Family planning regulations emerged in the 1970s, and in 1980 the notorious “one-child policy” came into effect, mandating often brutal punishments for violators ranging from forced abortions and sterilisations to fines and workplace demotions. Fast-forward 35 years, and a radical change of course was ordered after leaders realised an aging population and declining workforce threatened to hamstring the country’s future development. In 2016, the one-child policy was officially replaced with a two-child poli-