The communist regime of China, the world’s most populous country of 1.4 billion people, announced on May 31 that it will allow married couples to have up to three children.
The decision came from the Politburo, the highest policy-making body of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), chaired by President Xi Jinping. It signals a major shift in demographic policy of a country where everything from life to death is strictly controlled by the state.
The state-run Xinhua News Agency reported that the government seeks “to ensure continued economic growth, national security and social stability” with the policy.
However, the main driving force behind the change is a worrying decline in the birth rate that poses serious threats to China’s economy from an aging population.
Data from China’s National Bureau of Statistics released in May showed the country recorded 12 million births in 2020, the lowest number since the 1960s. It was a significant decrease from 18 million births in 2016.
China now has a below-replacement-level fertility rate of 1.3 children per woman, way down from the replacement level of 2.1. China is on a par with aging societies in Japan and Italy.
That is evident in China’s genocidal treatment of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, where many men and women are subject to forced sterilizations and forced abortions, resulting in a significant fall in birth rates. On the flipside, the authorities are encouraging educated Han Chinese women to have more babies.
China’s so-called “inclusive family planning policy” is no guarantee of basic human rights such as sexual and reproductive rights for all citizens and is just a flimsy attempt to cover up rising economic shortfalls that pose a serious threat to the communists’ grip on power in the long run.