CHINA has bumped their two-child policy to a three-child policy in response to new census data, which showed a population slowdown in the face of an aging population.
China’s National Bureau of Statistics reported the country recorded 12 million births in 2020, which was the lowest number reported since the 1960s.
This figure was below replacement-level rates.
The official state-run Xinhua News Agency said the Central Government’s decision was based solely on economic growth, national security, and social stability.
Child policy robs couples of human dignity
The Church has voiced opposition to China’s birth control practices for decades.
Pope Paul VI condemned China’s one-child policy in 1967, saying it robbed married couples of their “human dignity”.
Authorities had enforced the policy through fines, forced abortions and steralisations.
When China relaxed the one-child policy to the two-child policy in 2015, Pope Francis said leaving children with the burden of their parents was “not the natural way”.
“The problem for China of not having children must be very painful, because the pyramid is then inverted and a child has to bear the burden of his father, mother, grandfather and grandmother,” he said in an interview with Asia Times.
Experts concerned with eugenics in China
While the change was welcome news for some families, it was an expansion of control for others.
The Chinese Communist Party outlined in its 2021-2025 five-year plan it wanted to “optimise its birth policy” and “improve the quality of the population”.
A Columbian expert claimed the CCP intends to only allow certain women to reproduce, signaling a eugenics program.
“I am actually very worried,” Columbia professor Leta Hong Fincher told a panel of China experts via video link at a virtual event by the Center for International and Strategic Studies last year.
“What caught my eye was that they actually use specific language saying that China needs to ‘upgrade population quality’.
“They need to ‘optimize their birth policy’.
“They even use a term … which is effectively emphasising the role of eugenics in population planning in China.”
