The past 30 years since the introduction of the one-child policy have not only witnessed a reduction in China's population growth, but also an increasing difference of opinion between the central government and its local counterparts on whether the policy should be relaxed.
(Ecns.cn)--Guangdong, the most populous province in China, officially asked the central government on July 11 (World Population Day) for permission to relax the application of the country's family-planning policy and allow qualified local couples to have two children.
Zhang Feng, director of the Guangdong Population and Family-planning Commission, said the proposal states that couples in which either the husband or wife is an only-child should be allowed to have a second child; the current policy only gives such a privilege to couples composed of two only-children.
According to official statistics, China's family-planning policy has averted about 400 million births, including 35 million in Guangdong, while the issue of the aging has gradually become a larger burden for society.
Zhang said relaxing the policy will not lead to a quick increase in population, largely because the cost of giving birth to children and raising them has increased in the province.
However, Li Bin, minister of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, said on the same day that China is still the most populous country in the world and that the current policies would remain in place through 2015, despite pledging to "innovate in both population strategy and its implementation" to tackle emerging problems such as urbanization, an aging population and declining fertility rates.
Contradictory messages
The Guangdong application is the latest in a string of actions by local governments to address the tightly controlled family-planning policy – Tianjin municipality established its very own Population and Family Center to offer family-planning guidance for residents last month, while a similar office opened in Shanghai on Saturday.
In addition to institutional reform, Shanghai's Family Planning Commission filed a similar proposal last year volunteering to be a pilot of the "one only-child parent can have two children" project. After it was turned down by the central government, one high-ranking official from the municipal government went to Beijing for further lobbying, demanding that Shanghai be put on the list of the project. The State Family Planning Commission eventually approved the request.
The project – first initiated by the central government in January last year – shows the willingness of the state-level commission to reform or relax the current one-child policy. Nevertheless it was postponed after the sixth national population census last year, said Mu Guangzong, a professor of population research at Peking University.
"It has been four months since the result of the census was published in April," Mu said. "The pilot project remains at a standstill."
