One-Child Policy in China


  Arthur E. Dewey, Assistant Secretary for Population, Refugees and Migration
  Testimony before the House International Relations Committee
  Washington, DC
  December 14, 2004

  Thank you Chairman Smith and Members of the Committee for providing us with an
  opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the one-child policy in
  China.

  The Bush Administration is deeply committed to advancing human rights issues,
  in China and around the globe. The Administration is also deeply committed to
  upholding liberty and the dignity of human life, and we strongly and absolutely
  oppose the practice of coercive abortions and sterilizations wherever they
  occur.

  I'm here today to tell you how we are ground-truthing population matters in
  China, and recount what we've done to advance respect for the value of human
  life in that country. In my testimony, I will describe our findings and the
  challenges that remain ahead.

  When I came to this post 3 years ago, I had conflicting reports concerning
  China's population practices. Some said that there was no coercion that would
  trigger the Kemp-Kasten prohibition of U.S. funding to the UN Population Fund,
  UNFPA. Others said that there was. So the State Department dispatched a Blue
  Ribbon Team in May 2002 to get the facts.

  On its return from a week in China, the team recommended continuation of
  funding of UNFPA. But it also suggested doing what it lacked time to do during
  its brief mission, that is to translate the legislation governing birth
  planning policies in the counties where UNFPA worked, and also to find out how
  these policies were implemented and enforced.

  The evidence drawn from these follow-on steps clearly showed us that the large
  fees and penalties for out-of-plan births assessed in implementing China's
  regulations are tantamount to coercion that leads to abortion. UNFPA support
  of, and participation in, China's population-planning activities allows the
  Chinese government to implement more effectively its program of coercive
  abortion, thus triggering the Kemp-Kasten prohibition on support to any
  organization that supports or participates in the management of a program of
  coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.

  These findings were based on an application of the law to the facts on the
  ground, leading the Secretary of State to determine that Kemp-Kasten applies,
  and as a result we have been prohibited from funding UNFPA during the past 3
  years.

  In 2002, I began a dialogue with China regarding its birth planning law. We
  have had six rounds of discussions on this important issue, the most recent in
  early November when I traveled to Beijing to meet with senior Chinese officials
  to press for reforms. In all of our conversations with our Chinese
  counterparts, we laid out our understanding, based on the Universal Declaration
  of Human Rights, as well as the 1994 Cairo Declaration on Population and
  Development, that there should be no coercion, in any form, in any nation's
  population policies.

  We made measurable progress in these negotiations, but fell short in getting
  the coercive measures lifted, which would have permitted resumption of UNFPA
  funding. We believe China's population policies, including the so-called
  "one-child" policy, are undergoing an assessment and evaluation with the
  Chinese leadership. The Chinese Government, in our view, may be beginning to
  understand that its coercive birth planning regime has had extremely negative
  social, economic, and human rights consequences for the nation.

  In our 2 years of negotiations, we have seen encouraging movement in China's
  approach to population issues, and the reduction of coercion in birth planning
  programs. For example, provincial legislation in 25 of China's 31 provinces,
  municipalities, and autonomous regions, has been amended to eliminate the
  requirement that married couples must obtain government permission ("birth
  permits") before the woman becomes pregnant.

  This may prove to be an important change. Without birth permits there may be no
  effective overall mechanism for systematically enforcing birth targets and
  quotas in each county. We hope that the elimination of this repressive
  mechanism of control and interference in family life will be extended
  throughout all of China, and, as I have said, we will be monitoring this issue
  very closely.

  The Chinese Government has also started a new government public information
  pilot project to highlight the status of the girl child. This could be an
  important step for human rights in eliminating discrimination against women and
  girls in China. Such an effort responds to the continuing reports of sex
  selective abortions in China and abandonment of girl babies, horrific behaviors
  that result from the devastating combination of the one-child policy and
  traditional son preference. Respect for the inherent worth and human dignity of
  the girl child, from conception through adulthood, is an essential element of a
  just society. This initiative is only a small step forward, but it does
  indicate some acknowledgement that the birth planning regime has resulted in
  very negative outcomes.

  The one-child policy has certainly contributed to the stark gender imbalance in
  China, which, according to the 2000 census, was about 117 males to 100 females.
  For second births, the national ratio was about 152 to 100. Moreover, China's
  aging population and rising ratio of dependent to wage-earning adults pose
  tremendous challenges for the country. The lack of effective pension and social
  welfare systems for senior citizens results in a growing burden on China's
  working age population. Many Chinese "one-child" couples, lacking siblings, are
  hard-pressed to support two sets of aging parents.

  Also of note, under the national birth planning law, Chinese citizens -- in
  theory -- have the ability under the Administrative Procedures Law to sue
  officials who violate their "family planning rights." The government has
  established a "hotline" for citizens to report abusive family planning
  practices to the federal authorities. We are gathering information on use of
  this hotline, and its effectiveness in dealing with alleged abuses. I want to
  emphasize that it is the practical implementation of these measures that
  matters, not public pronouncements.

  In addition, the Chinese authorities I met with last month emphatically
  declared the end of any health and education penalties for "out-of-plan"
  children, such as higher school tuition fees. These children are no longer to
  be treated as second-class citizens. We will be watching closely to see if this
  is implemented, and to the extent that it is, this would be a very welcome
  development indeed.

  Yet, let me be clear. China's birth planning law and policies retain harshly
  coercive elements in law and practice. Forced abortion and sterilization are
  egregious violations of human rights, and should be of concern to the global
  human rights community, as well as to the Chinese themselves. Unfortunately, we
  have not seen willingness in other parts of the international community to
  stand with us on these human rights issues.

  In our discussions with the Chinese Government, we have urged them to implement
  fully the principle recognized in the Program of Action of the International
  Conference on Population and Development, the ICPD, that couples, not
  governments, should decide the number and spacing of their children. On many
  occasions, the Chinese authorities have professed great commitment to the ICPD.
  Such statements, no matter how fervent or how frequent, will ring hollow and
  will be little more than empty rhetoric until that day when Chinese birth
  planning programs become Chinese family planning programs, fully voluntary and
  free of all forms of coercion.

  A national Law on Population and Birth Planning went into effect on September
  1, 2002. The law provides that the state shall employ measures to place
  population growth under control, improve the quality of the population, and
  conduct birth planning. The law requires married couples to employ birth
  control measures. While provinces have some latitude in how they implement
  certain aspects of the law, it also requires counties to use specific measures
  to limit the total number of births in each county.

  The law grants married couples the right to have a single child and allows
  eligible couples to apply for permission to have a second child if they meet
  conditions stipulated in local and provincial regulations. Many provincial
  regulations require women to wait four years or more after their first birth
  before making such an application. These regulations also prohibit single women
  who become pregnant from giving birth, but enforcement of this prohibition
  reportedly varies widely throughout China.

  The law specifies a number of birth limitation measures by the government that
  amount to coercion. Party members and civil servants who parent an
  "out-of-plan" child are very likely to face administrative sanction, including
  job loss or demotion. Couples who give birth to an unapproved child are likely
  to be assessed a social compensation fee, which can range from one-half the
  local average annual household income to as much as ten times that level.

  As social compensation fee policies are set at the provincial level, and
  implemented locally, we understand enforcement varies greatly, with some areas
  waiving or greatly reducing the fees, and others imposing them at a high level.
  The Chinese have changed the national law so that any fees collected now go to
  national, not local authorities. We are told that this step has been taken to
  reduce the extensive corruption that had been associated with the collection of
  these fees. Some Chinese authorities would like to see an end to the social
  compensation fees, recognizing their coercive nature, and witnessing that they
  are especially burdensome on the poor, while more affluent citizens simply pay
  the fee and have additional children.

  Nonetheless, as we have noted in our Human Rights Report, the social
  compensation fees remain a harsh and effective enforcement tool. During
  "unauthorized pregnancies," women are sometimes visited by birth planning
  workers who use the threat of the social compensation fees to pressure women to
  terminate their pregnancies. In many cases, these penalties and the level of
  harassment from officials leave women little practical alternative but to
  undergo abortion and therefore these fees, and related punitive measures,
  amount to a program of coercive abortion.

  And in circumstances when social compensation fees and intense psychological
  and social pressure are not sufficient to compel women to have an abortion,
  there are reports, albeit declining, of instances where the authorities have
  physically forced a woman to terminate a pregnancy.

  Finally, I would also like to raise the problem of forced and coerced
  sterilization. Forced sterilizations continue to occur, most frequently when
  couples have more children than the allowable number. Women may be allowed to
  carry the "excess" child to term, but then one member of a couple is strongly
  pressured to be sterilized. In some cases, they may be asked to go to a
  hospital under other pretenses, or sterilized without consent. Additionally, if
  doctors find that a couple is at risk of transmitting disabling congenital
  defects to their children, the couple may marry only if they agree to use birth
  control or undergo sterilization.

  I want to assure Members that we will continue to seek engagement with the
  Chinese authorities on these difficult and important issues. Our embassy in
  Beijing and our consulates throughout China track developments in this area
  very closely. We will continue to urge China to move to a human rights based
  approach to population issues.

  Thank you, and I would be happy to answer any questions that Committee members
  may have.

  [End]


  Released on December 16, 2004

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