China Launches Big Birth Control Scheme

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28260, 24 April 1957, Page 11

China Launches Big Birth Control Scheme

(From a Reuter Correspondent)

PEKING. ) A countrywide campaign to en- 1 courage birth control and family ] planning has been launched in J China. 1 It is being conducted with typical Communist thoroughness ] and determination and with the full support of Mr Mao Tse-tung ' who has suggested that $ special 1 organisation be set up to deal 1 with it. The Government has now admitted openly that the population is increasing too rapidly and ' beginning to present a problem. According to Chinese figures, food 1 production is increasing at- a 1 greater rate than the population, but the Government has said that too many people will mean a slowing down in the all-round improvement in standards of living. There are now about 630 million Chinese and the total is increasing at the rate of about 15 million a year. The birth rate is rising and the death rate is falling and, with improved health and sanitation measures and more and better medicines, the natural increase will inevitably rise sharply in the next decade unless some check is applied. About 75 per cent, of the population lives in an area roughly equivalent to 15 per cent, of the whole of China. The Communists hope to populate and develop the border lands to the west and north and already large scale migrations are taking place to Heilungkiang, in the north-east, and Sinkiang and Kansu, in.- the north-west. But among many of China’s neighbouring Asians, there is always the fear that “one day the jJot may boil over.” At the recent meeting of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference it was revealed that the population problem has been worrying the authorities for some time. As long ago as December, 1954, it was stated, Mr Liu Shao-chi, generally considered second only to Mr Mao in China, had called a conference on birth control. Until quite recently, however, . remarks on birth control have ; been publicly linked only with ; the health of women and “the l people’s demand.”

Swallowing Tadpoles At every meeting of the National People’s Congress (Parliament), birth control has been urged by Mr Shao Li-tse, former Kuomintang Governor of Shensi Province. He was generally regarded as a “crank,” and was nicknamed “the Dr. Marie Stopes of China.” He even suggested at the congress meeting last June that research should be made into the traditional Chinese means of preventing conception by swallowing tadpoles. During the last few months, however, there have been more frequent mentions of the subject in articles, letters and, more recently, leading articles in the newspapers. A birth control exhibition has been opened in Peking and is packed every day with curious people. Teams are being trained to give advice and education in contraception in the countryside and smaller towns and the work of hospitals and clinics in this field is to be improved. But, however hard they push the campaign, which, they insist must be voluntary and based on education and persuasion, the Chinese leaders have two stumbling blocks to overcome: (1) There is the fact that Marxism, with its condemnation of the theories of Malthus, preaches that the more people there are the better. The Chinese Communist Party has until recently denied that there was any population problem and in the past, in fact, has encouraged people to have more babies. But the Chinese Communists have always shown flexibility and are prepared, as they have done so often in the past, to suit Marx to Chinese needs. (2) The second, and more serious, stumbling block is Chinese tradition, which is opposed to

birth control. Every speech and article has stressed that, apart from making contraceptives cheaper and more easily obtainable, what is needed above everything else is a much more intensive propaganda campaign, especially in the countryside where superstitions, doubts and fears persist. To most Chinese, and this still applies even to some

of the better educated ones, to indulge in birth control would be tampering with fate which, they believe, decrees the number of children they should have. Added to this is the still strong family tradition which persists and the desire for descendants, particularly sons. Apparently, the men are much

more conservative in this respect than the women, with their comparatively recently won freedom. So the campaign is being directed mainly against the males. The Minister of Health, Mrs T.i Teh-chuan, has announced that ‘‘with great reluctance” the Government was relaxing the regulations on abortion and sterilisation as supplements to contraception. It is difficult to find out exactly what the regulations have been concerning this. But it seems that anyone with more than five children, or who was in really desperate economic straits, or had some medical reason, could go to a hospital and have an abortion or be sterilised. More Abortions The regulations have been relaxed over the last six months, and in Peking alone there has been a considerable increase in the number of abortions. Nevertheless, the Health Minister’s announcement has met with such a barrage of criticism that observers believe that the Government may well drop the whole idea and tighten up the regulations again. The day after Mrs Li made her announcement, another women’s health official said that she disagreed fundamentally on the ground that abortion and sterilisation were harmful to health. In this, she was supported by a group of both western-style and traditional Chinese doctors, who declared that such operations . should only be performed when j absolutely necessary from a medii cal point of view. As a further step towards reducing the rate of increase in . population, people are being urged ; not to marry so young. It has [ been suggested that the legal age . for marriage which, under the ’ 1950 Marriage Law, is 20 for a boy and 18 for a girl, should be ’ raised. These limits are certainly high by Asian standards, and 1 even by European, but it is ad- ’ mitted that the law is not being 1 strictly observed since many, by calculating on the Chinese cal- ’ endar, have been able to add to J their age.