A screenshot of an internal document from a Chinese local government has been circulating online. The document discusses the need for couples to have three children to combat the falling birth rate and calls on members of the Chinese Communist Party to do their patriotic duty.
The policy paper from the city of Quanzhou in Fujian Province states that party members and cadres at all levels, and employees of state-owned businesses, “should take the lead in implementing the three-child policy.”
A new birth registration system and requests for “age-appropriate births, ‘eugenics,’ and postnatal care” are among the nebulous measures proposed in the screenshot, which implies that the conversations are still in their early stages.
Health officials have authenticated the Quanzhou document, which was leaked by “negligent” employees.
For the first time since the Great Famine ended in 1961, China’s population fell in 2022. The fertility rate last year fell to 1.0 from 1.18. This is far lower than the 2.1 births per woman that is required to maintain a population.
The screenshot caused a stir online because some people feared it would lead to the government forcing people to marry and have three children. So far, no explicit plan to forcibly increase the population’s family size has been discussed in China.
In 2015, after decades of human rights violations, including forced late-term abortions and sterilizations and extensive government surveillance of women’s fertility, China lifted its policy restricting most couples to only one child, allowing citizens the freedom to have up to two children. This marked a significant change in the country’s top-down approach to family planning during the previous decade. In order to implement its three-child policy, Beijing made additional amendments to the Population and Family Planning Law in 2021.
Communist Party leader Xi Jinping has claimed that women have an “irreplaceable” role to play in the “rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.” However, the women of China, who bear the brunt of the emotional, physical, and mental burdens associated with childbearing and childcare, have been hesitant to take the initiative to address the issue of population growth.
No change has been seen in China—the legality of having more children and efforts to promote bigger families have failed.