Chinese Law and Politics Blog

The Anger Boils Over

For the past two months, local officials in the southwestern Chinese province of Guangxi have pursued a harsh campaign aimed at enforcing China's population planning laws.

In order to meet targets for allowable births, they forced pregnant women to have abortions. They threatened to demolish homes to make residents cough up fines demanded for excess children.

This month citizen anger boiled over. Thousands of angry rural residents took to the streets, smashing cars and sacking government offices.

The vicious nature of the Guangxi enforcement campaign is all the more striking because it directly conflicts with the orders of China's top leaders.

[click here for the full version of the May 29, 2007 International Herald Tribune editorial]

[click here for Sing Tao's May 30 Chinese translation of the IHT editorial]

Chinese Authorities "No. 1 Document" For 2007 Emphasizes Agricultural Economy

The Chinese Communist Party Central Committee and State Council issued a joint opinion on January 29, identifying improvement of the agricultural economy as their main policy goal for 2007.   

The opinion, titled "Several Opinions Regarding Actively Developing Modern Agriculture and Firmly Advancing the Construction of the New Socialist Countryside" is the "Number One" document for 2007.  Chinese authorities use these "Number One" documents annually as a means to highlight policies for the coming year.  Each "Number One" document issued since 2004 has focused on rural issues.

The opinion heavily emphasizes agricultural economic development.  Reform measures include: increased agricultural investment, improved market access for agricultural products, encouraging rural technical innovation, and strengthening rural infrastructure

In contrast, the opinion only briefly addresses issues of rural governance reform.  It broadly calls on authorities to clean up the problems of local government debts, better address issues of land seizures, reform the system of agricultural credit, and continue experiments with reforming and trimming local government personnel.   

The opinion contains general language calling for strengthening rural institutions to address social instability.

Strengthen and improve rural social management.  With regard to new developments in the rural economy and society, develop new mechanisms of rural social managment to firmly strengthen the work of upholding rural social stability.  Expand channels for the expression of public opinion in rural society.  Construct and perfect mechanisms for the channeling and resolution of disputes.  Comprehensively use multiple measures and methods to appropriately resolve consistent and latent rural social problems.  Deeply expand "peaceful construction," strengthen the construction of rural police forces, carry out well the comprehensive management of public security in rural society, and ensure that  rural areas are peaceful and orderly.  Broadly carry out legal educational propaganda activities in rural areas and increase the masses' legal understanding.  Guide farmers to express their interests and demands in a legal and reasonable manner, and lawfully exercise their rights and  carry out their duties.  Construct management mechanisms to respond to rural emergencies, and improve abilities to respond to crises.

The emphasis of the 2007 opinion differs from the 2006 "No. 1 Document" , the Opinion on Promoting the Construction of a New Socialist Countryside, which emphasized many specific governance reforms, as noted in analysis provided by the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC).  For example, the 2007 opinion contains no explicit call for reforms to the Chinese hukou (household registration) system, nor specific details and timetable for realizing improvements in the provision of rural health and education services, unlike the 2006 opinion. 

The 2007 opinion repeats the emphasis of the 2006 opinion on the need for Party leadership of rural work. The 2007 opinion also strengthens a call made in the 2006 opinion for strengthening professional farmer cooperatives.  Some provincial authorities have experimented with more independent forms of rural professional associations as a means of allowing farmers additional channels to protect their rights, as noted in the CECC analysis.  The 2007 opinion also repeats a call made by central authorities in recent weeks to strengthen the use of financial incentives, as opposed to coercive measures,to ensure citizen compliance with official birth control policies.

The 2007 opinion may reflect a desire to shelve the more difficult issues of rural governance reform in favor of efforts to address technical issues of rural economic reform, particularly in the politically sensitive runup period prior to the 17th Party Congress in the fall.  Chinese authorities themselves have admitted that some official governance reform efforts, such as those aimed at addressing hukou reform, have faltered upon meeting internal bureaucratic opposition.

Central Officials Reaffirm Birth Control Policies, Warn That Gender Imbalance May Lead to Social Instability

The Communist Party Central Committee and State Council issued a joint decision on January 22 reaffirming the importance of China's birth control policies, calling on officials to improve their effectiveness, warning that the imbalanced male-female sex ratio could lead to social instability.

The joint decision states "if the sex imbalance between males and females is too high, and continues for too long, it will certainly lead to social instability."  China had 118 boys born in 2005 for every 100 girls, compared with 110 boys born for every 100 girls in 2000, according to a January 22 Xinhua article.  In some areas, the ratio has reached 130 boys born for every 100 girls.  Average ratios in other countries, both developed and developing, are approximately 105 boys born for every 100 girls.

The decision reaffirms central authorities intent to continue China's birth control policies, with the aim of keeping China's population under 1.36 million by 2010, and under 1.45 million by 2020.  But Zhang Weiqing, director of  the National  Population and Family Planning Commission (NPFPC), suggested some government flexibility in the policy, stating that "with very poor families, we may reduce part of the social compensation fee [the fine for bearing children over the official limit] or waive the fee, depending on the actual situation" according to a subsequent interview quoted in a January 24 Washington Post article.

The decision calls for local authorities to implement a range of social assistance policies aimed at resolving some of the social pressures that lead to sex-selective abortion.  Policies cited in the decision include financial assistance programs for families who abide by the birth control policies, such as aid to families who have a single child who is injured or killed, or one-time cash payments to elderly parents with one child.  The decision also calls for the strict punishment of those who conduct gender determinations of fetuses or carry out sex-selective abortions.

Zhang estimated that China would require 10 to 15 years to return the sex ratio to normal, according to a January 23 interview transcript posted on the Chinese government's website.  Zhao Baige, deputy director of the NPFPC, said that the joint decision represents a shift away from a simple focus on controlling the numerical population growth through administrative controls, to a more comprehensive focus on a broader range of demographic issues, according to a January 23 Beijing  News article. 

The decision also emphasizes the need to both enhance controls over China's migrants in order to assure that they comply with China's birth control policies, and to respond to migrant needs for social services.  This parallels statements made earlier in January by other central Chinese authorities regarding the importance for stronger management of China's migrant population.

The decision also emphasizes reliance on more traditional Chinese governance techniques in addressing population growth.  It calls on local officials to "perfect management of [birth control] target responsibility systems, evaluating the work performance of Party and government leaders, responsibile bureaus, population and family planning bureaus, employing a "unilateral veto" system."  Chinese authorities use set performance targets, such as birth control quotas, to assess the work performance of individual officials.  Failure to meet the designated targets can result in negative career sanctions, while success is rewarded.