China will eventually scrap family planning restrictions, a senior official said on Tuesday, days after the government announced it will allow millions of families to have two children. China, with nearly 1.4 billion people, is the world's most populous country. The government says the policy of limiting families to one child, which covers 63 per cent of the population, has averted 400 million births since 1980.
But the policy is increasingly seen as harmful to the economy. The easing of the family planning policy, announced as part of a package of reforms on the weekend, would not take long and would be implemented by the provinces, said Mao Qun'an, spokesman for the National Health and Family Planning Commission. He did not give a time-frame. Provincial legislatures would have to first write the measures into law.
Mao said China would further loosen family planning policy but signalled that the government would not abandon it in the near term. "The situation that you mentioned will be realised one day," Mao said when asked whether China could see a day when there would be no family planning restrictions.
He said he could not say when and how the policy would change. "We can say that China, through its family planning policy, has controlled its rapid population growth and eased the pressures that population imposes on the natural environment ... But we are also very clear that, in order to obtain these achievements, the country's people have made a great sacrifice. "We do not deny that there is a contradiction between the state's implementation of the family planning policy and the desire of every individual and every family to give birth."
Mao said China would take into account the economic, social and demographic situation before it made further adjustments. A growing number of scholars has urged the government to reform the one-child policy, introduced in the late 1970s to prevent population spiralling out of control, but now regarded by many experts as outdated and harmful to the economy. Although it is known internationally as the one-child policy, China's rules governing family planning are more complicated. There are numerous exceptions governing the policy.
"As for the policy of family planning, (we) must adhere to it for a fairly long period of time," Mao said. "Because our country's demographic situation still needs it." The Health Ministry's deputy director, Wang Peian, said on Saturday that China was not considering a broad relaxation of its one-child policy.