ABSTRACT
Of all the policy arenas under consideration in this volume, it is arguably China's population policy—specifically, the "one-child-percouple" campaign—that has garnered the most attention in the West, Much of this attention has been owing to some disturbing and tragic, albeit unintended, consequences of this campaign, such as forced abortion and female infanticide. But China's attempt to hold its population to 1.2 billion by the year 2000 merits particular study by students of Chinese politics because it reveals the complexities of policy implementation. First, by disclosing the substantial differences between urban and rural implementation, it provides further confirmation of the dangers of overgeneralization in policy analysis. The "one child" policy has proved very successful in the cities, but policy success remains impossible without an improvement in rural implementation. The 1982 census revealed that 77.6 percent of the population lives in the countryside, but in 1981 over 90 percent of the 20.7 million infants born were from rural areas. Records over the years show that the birthrate and the rate of third and greater births in the rural areas are 50 percent higher than comparable rates in the cities. 1
