ABSTRACT
Ruist populism and the demographic ideology, standardized later under its influence – that more children equal better fortune and men are superior to women – are the soul and theme of population policies of all Ruist feudal dynasties. All policies that were either directly or indirectly targeted at the population followed this theme.
The Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the CCCPC, like a thunder that forecasts the coming spring, restored the Party’s guiding principles to respecting the truth, which brought all sciences, including demography, to a new stage of development. The development must first acknowledge the points in Ma Yinchu’s new demographic theory, without which the shackles that had confined people’s minds would not be broken, the nature of China’s population problems would not be confronted, objective conclusions of empirical demographic studies would not be obtained, and correcting the mistakes in demographic theories would be unsuccessful.
In 1980, the Secretariat of the CCCPC commissioned the General Office to hold meetings on population issues. I participated in these meetings and assumed the role to draft the Report to the Secretariat, in which I expounded as scientifically as possible at the time the necessity of advocating for one child per couple, potential problems of the policy, and countermeasures. It was explained that one child per couple would not be taken as a temporary or permanent policy, but as a special one that was to target the control of the fertility rate of one generation, i.e., for 25 years, at the most 30. The population pattern would change after one generation and a new fertility policy should follow the change.
When it was nearly 30 years after the policy had been implemented, I published “A Look Back at the Population Policies of the New China and Future Prospects” in People’s Daily as well as the book Sixty Years of China’s Population Policies, in which I proposed three suggestions: two children for couples who are both single children, two children for couples with one party being an only child, and two children allowed for all with restriction to three. I called for delivery of the promise in 1980 and for timely adjustment to the population policy to accommodate to the new time.
In 2013, the Decision by the CCCPC on Several Major Issues about Comprehensively Deepening the Reform was published, which started a new policy that allowed two children for couples with one party being an only child. In 2015, the Suggestion by the CCCPC on the 13th Five-Year Planning of the National Economic and Social Development proposed to persist with the basic state policy of family planning, perfect the strategy of population development, implement the policy of two children for all couples, improve public services in reproductive health, women’s and children’s health, and infant daycare, offer help to families with particular difficulty in family planning, and foster family development. The curtain was thus drawn of comprehensive adjustment to the population policy, starting a new chapter of the society’s population reproduction.
