ABSTRACT
"The state advocates and encourages family planning." This is not a casual remark made by a Chinese guide to a visiting delegation. The first birth control campaign was initiated in the mid-1950s, when China was intent on fulfilling the economic goals set out in the Soviet-assisted First Five-Year Plan; it was abandoned a few years later during the Mao-inspired Great Leap Forward, late in 1958. China also had to make sure that the health establishment charged with the dissemination of birth control information would have at its disposal a plentiful supply of effective and acceptable contraceptives – a building block not in place until the 1960s. Birth control propaganda makes the most of China's claim that security of the individual no longer depends on having numerous children. The process of establishing an effective program of family planning can be likened to building a foundation by putting together a series of building blocks.
