About Population Policy

The National Family Planning Program of China 1995-2000

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Updated: 2010-08-20 15:07

II. Primary Tasks, Major Objectives and Working Principles

(3) In line with the overall plan laid down by the Party and Government for China's socialist modernization drive, the primary tasks for China's family planning program in the 1995-2000 period include:

- guided by Deng Xiaoping's theory on building socialism with Chinese characteristics and the Party's basic line, implementing in real earnest the Decision of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on Strengthening the Family Planning Program and Imposing Strict Control on Population Growth issued in 1991;

- giving high priority to family planning and doing thorough job so as to bring new successes to the endeavor and ensuring the fulfillment of the population control objective for the 1995-2000 period;

- improving the health and education standards of the people and striving for a more rational population structure so as to conform with socio-economic development. Likewise it is important to coordinate with environment protection and resource utilization, thus ensuring sustained economic growth and providing a desirable population environment for the socialist modernization drive.

(4) The major objectives for family planning include:

- cutting the natural growth rate to less than ten per thousand by 2000;

- keeping the total population (excluding that of Taiwan Province) under 1.23 billion by 1995 and under 1.3 billion by 2000;

While imposing strict controls over population growth to keep the population to a reasonable size, we should strive for a marked improvement in people's health and education standards and establish, step by step, a population and family planning working mechanism that has Chinese characteristics and meets the needs of a socialist market economy.

(5) To fulfill the above primary tasks and major objectives, we should apply our successful experiences and make constant improvements in our future work by freeing ourselves from obsolete conventions and seeking truth from facts. We should adhere to the following principles in our work:

- Top government officials should be put in charge and held responsible for the whole endeavor of the family planning work. Governments at all levels are committed to fulfilling population plans in their respective areas. They should undertake to coordinate with the departments concerned and various social sectors in joint effort to tackle the population and family planning matters with an integrated and holistic approach so as to create a favorable social environment for implementing the basic national policy of family planning.

- Population and family planning should be incorporated into the overall planning of the national economic and social development so that population growth will be made compatible with socio-economic development. While population growth should be put under strict control, population plans should be feasible and practical.

- The current policies for family planning should be implemented in an all-encompassing way. Efforts should be made to ensure their stability and consistency and bring family planning into the realm of the legal system. While making further improvements to the mechanisms for social restraint, we should make use of economic means and strengthen incentive mechanisms in family planning and help the masses to become better-off earlier with fewer births.

- Family planning should serve and be subordinate to the central task of economic development. It should be integrated with the development of a socialist market economy and a socialist culture and ideology and with the efforts to help the masses to have happy families with modern ethics and culture and better-off living conditions.

- We should adhere to the principle of combining government guidance with people's voluntariness and implement the policy of "three priorities", namely, giving priorities to information, education and communication, to contraception and to regular services in family planning work. We should do our utmost to offer better services to the people by following the mass line, that is, do everything we can to serve the people and rely on them in all our work. We should offer services in a wider sphere and try to accomplish the goal of putting population growth under effective control, while at the same time, maintaining close ties between the government and the people, and between officials and ordinary citizens, so as to contribute to social stability and unity.

- Family planning should rely on the progress of science and technology. Efforts should be made to ensure better use of more advanced science and technology in family planning so as to help control the population size and improve the people's quality of life.

- We should proceed from actual conditions and offer specific guidance that suits different localities. In our work, we should focus on the rural areas, especially in populous provinces and economically underdeveloped regions, while continuing to ensure the success of the family planning endeavor in urban areas.