Deng Yanwen: The government is unwilling to abandon the plan and intervention of population and fertility, and use tangible hands to regulate the number of population, which reflects the indifference of fertility.
In view of China, the number of births for two consecutive years has not reached the expected indicators for two consecutive years after the restrictions on the fertility of the second child. Some population scholars have called for and estimated that at the two sessions of this year, the Chinese government will completely cancel the restrictions on family planning and allow citizens to give birth freely.However, Wang Pei'an, executive vice president of the China Family Planning Association and former deputy director of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, asked the reporter at the press conference of the two sessions, and hoped that it would fall out.
Wang Pei'an asked the reporter's intention that the main thing that affected the fertility of the masses was not fertility policies, but economic and social factors. The comprehensive two -child policy had met the needs of most families.It can interpret its meaning from two levels: First, since the main influence of the mass fertility behavior is not the current fertility policy, then from a policy perspective, the current fertility policy is best to remain unchanged; second, the current comprehensive two -child policy is currently a comprehensive two -child policy.Since it can meet the fertility needs of the vast majority of families, there is no need to change to meet the needs of many children in a very small number of families.
China's family planning and population policy has always been criticized and publicly criticized by experts. Although it has been adjusted slightly after entering this century, it was not until 2016 that in order to respond to the fact that the population export rate declined sharply, the government fully let go of the child's two -child child.limit.After that, due to the continued shrinking of population fertility, public opinion is optimistic that in the near future, the government is expected to completely cancel family planning restrictions and return fertility to individuals.However, at the last fertility threshold, the Chinese government's actions were delayed.Wang Pei'an's answer reporter asked that the government could not fully abolish the family planning policy in the past year or two.
This problem can actually be replaced. Why should the Chinese government continue to strictly control the power of the public?
In this regard, I think I can answer from four angles.
First of all, the Chinese government is unwilling to abandon the plan and intervention of population and fertility, and use tangible hands to adjust and even control the number of population.
China is a planned country. The plan is not only reflected in the planning, regulation and intervention of the economy, but also in all areas that can plan and intervene, including the population.Officials believe that the population is like economy or other social problems. It can achieve an optimal or secondary effect through artificial planning, regulation and intervention.After decades of practice and operation, this planning thinking has been deeply fixed in the minds of officials and officials. Everything can be planned. It must be planned. Without plans, production and life, social order will be disorderly and bad.Therefore, China has five years of national economic and social development, and various industries have development plans.Population and fertility are certainly not exceptions.The plan and planning to regulate, control, and intervene in the plan are the tangible hands of the government to control the entire society and the public. They constitute the essential characteristics of the Chinese government.
Secondly, what is related to planning thinking is the lack of understanding of citizens' fertility behavior as basic human rights.
The Chinese government's thinking and decision -making on population and fertility issues is based on treating population and fertility as an economic and social phenomenon. Based on the economic and consumer behavior of economic and social, it has never regarded it as citizensBasic human rights.In fact, most experts and scholars treat China's population policies and population problems in this way. They use it as a labor force to understand and understand their advantages and disadvantages from the level of labor.
Population and fertility are of course an economic problem, but if the colorful people in real life are simplified into a number in statistics, it is only regarded as human resources that will affect economic growth. According to this policy, it will undoubtedly ignore or wipe off killingOther people, especially the behavior and phenomenon of human rights in the process of fertility, have disappeared, causing large -scale humanitarian disasters.This is exactly the objective facts of China's family planning policy in the past few decades.
The reason why the government generally lacks human rights in the population and fertility and has historical and practical factors. The official view that officials regard the development as the maximum human rights must be the main cause.Because human rights issues must be resolved through development, naturally do not pay attention to human rights disasters during the family planning process, and also make plans for people itself a tool for serving economic development.
Third, the Chinese government believes that there are still too many population now, and excessive population can cause instinctual fear of poverty.
For a long time, the Chinese government believes that liberalization of fertility will cause resource tension and environmental damage. To become rich, it will reduce the population. This is the original intention of China to implement family planning.For example, the Chinese government, especially the family planning department, often attributed China's poverty reduction achievements in the process of reform and opening up.Due to the fear of poverty, the official is unwilling to have too much population in China. It believes that China is now close to 1.4 billion people, and there are enough. No matter how many resources in China can't bear it.Wang Peian's answer reporter asked this logic.
In his words, the large population has always been a basic national conditions in China. The total population of nearly 1.4 billion is still too huge for the underlying economic and social operation foundation and limited resource and environmental burden.With less, the per capita resource share will be more abundant, and the per capita environment will be more loose.He also said that although China's working age population has continued to decrease, the total amount is still huge, and the human resources foundation is still strong.Based on international caliber, there are still 990 million in the labor age of 15 to 64 years. By 2030, there will be 950 million, and there are 820 million in 2050.
Naturally, the total population is not as good as possible, but in the context of the continuous decline of the birth population in China, Wang Peian believes that the total population of China is too much, which typically reflects China's official view of population issues.It is this cognitive model more than that of people and more people than people.In this model, in the words of the people, they are afraid.The Chinese government is not afraid of the poor, but the legitimacy caused by the poverty.
Finally, it is also because the Chinese government believes that the decline in population growth after the second child is fully liberalized is a normal phenomenon.
China ’s fulfillment of the second child control policy was in 2016.From the perspective of the birth data of the population in 2017 and 2018, although there is no comprehensive rebound that the family planning department is worried about, from the perspective of the national statistical department, although the 2018 2018 has less than 2 million more than the previous year, the 15.23 million population was born in that year.The quantity is still in normal category.There is a question of how to count the population and how to view population statistics.The population statistics of the National Family Planning and Statistics Department are very different from the data calculated by some population scholars, and the latter is often much lower than the former.But even if the data of government departments, the views of the two are different, and the conclusions of the population scholars are much more pessimistic than the official.Officials, as Wang Peian said at the press conference, even after three or fifty years, the number of Chinese laborers is still relatively abundant, and the total amount is excessive.Naturally, there is no need to adjust.
Population issues are highly related to individuals and national interests.To completely abandon the control of fertility policies, it is not to remove the state responsibility of the government's fertility.But first of all, fertility is the natural rights of citizens. There are more life and less, and it should be determined by individuals, rather than the government forced decision -making.Secondly, since the official himself also believes that the main thing that affects the fertility of the masses is not fertility policies, but economic and social factors. So, is the government continued to control citizens' fertility. Is it more than this?
(Note: The author is an independent scholar, a researcher at China Strategic Analysis Think Tank. This article only represents the author's personal point of view.
