These difficulties led people from the 1960's on to identify China's level of population as a problem, directly contradicting Mao Zedong's earlier view of Chinese fertility rates. "Mao Zedong is blamed for opposing family planning and birth limitation until the population problem grew very severe"(White, 250). Accordingly, China adopted a series of state policies aimed at limiting population so that a better balance could be established between population and capital, and more human capital could be invested in each member of the Chinese labor force. "The PRC is now attempting both to continue to limit population quantity and to further improve population quality" (Winkler, 381).
China's SDI policies are very diverse, ranging from the non-invasive government propaganda and the free distribution of contraceptives in the 1970s to coerced abortions and sterilizations adopted in the 1990s (Winkler). The PRC has tried virtually everything to bring its population under control, often causing concern in the international community through its difficult methods. Many condemn China's later policies for being "inhumane" (Yuan Tie et all, 12), and some question whether China's attempt at birth control has worked at all, or whether China's "population problem" is as large as ever.
Although many aspects of China's SDI are controversial, it is undeniable that the programs were hugely effective in limiting China's population growth. "During the 1990's China achieved a below-replacement fertility rate...in 1992 China's total fertility rate has been about 1.8" (Winkler, 383). Having dropped from a national average fertility rate of over nearly 8 children-per-woman in 1965 (Smil, 20), the decline in fertility has transformed the country. However, as in any country, China's population will need constant supervision for as long as the country exists. Populations are not a set resource: they constantly change. As both China's fertility rate and its need for labor resources constantly adjust, it will have to carefully modify its birth planning policies, year by year. "The first two parts [of the 2001 law] assert the need to continue to limit population growth" (Winckler, 90). China has brought its population under control with unprecedented success and speed, but no country can ever completely or permanently solve its "population problems".
A less easily answered question is that of whether or not China's policy of forced birth control was necessary. Many economists argue that China's population declined naturally as its economy transformed into a more industrialized, urban-centered model in the later 1900s (Maurer-Fazio, lecture, 10/21/03). China's less-invasive 1970's policies were also greatly effective in limiting births, without the use of controversial procedures like forced abortions or sterilizations.
Be Sure to Continue to Page 3 of "The Economics of Chinese Birth Planning ".
