China's One-child Policy to Stay ... for Now

China's top family planning official drew a line under debate over its one-child policy in an interview published today, insisting that it will not change substantially over the next decade.

Zhang Weiqing, the minister of the state population and family planning commission (SPFPC), said altering course now would cause more problems than it would solve because the country is entering a birth peak. Almost 200m women will reach the age of fertility in the next 10 years.

But he added: "After the new birth peak ends, we may adjust the policy if there is a need."

Discussions over the policy became public two weeks ago, when the SPFPC vice-minister Zhao Baige said officials were carrying out detailed studies into the environmental, social and other repercussions of changing the law.

Asked if there were plans to scrap the policy, she told reporters that it had become "a big issue among decision makers", although she stressed that there was no set timescale for resolving the issue.

A slew of confusing statements from officials on the policy followed. Experts believe that the authorities have been reconsidering the rules for some time, but that internal disputes persist.

The current rules, which in fact allow many rural couples to have two children but restrict most urban families to one, have slowed the growth of China's 1.3bn-strong population and reduced the strain on the country's resources.

But critics warn that it has also produced a sizable gender imbalance and accelerated the aging of Chinese society. Experts warn of the "4-2-1" problem, in which one grandchild faces having to support two parents and four grandparents.

"Given such a large population base, there would be major fluctuations in population growth if we abandoned the one-child rule now," Zhang said.

"It would cause serious problems and add extra pressure on social and economic development.

"The current family planning policy, formed as a result of gradual changes in the past two decades, has proved compatible with national conditions."

He did not appear to rule out small-scale relaxations of the rule. As his remarks suggest, that has already happened in several cases, such as when divorcees enter second marriages.

Experts say that the rules are largely self-enforced these days, but that people who infringe them can face punitive fines. A number of cases of forced abortions and sterilizations have also been reported in recent years, despite the overall shift away from coercive measures to a system which creates incentives to reduce family size and educates families about birth control.