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This article was first published on October 29, 2015 by Cary Huang China puts an end to its one-child policy The main-land will abol-ish its dec-ades-old, con-tro-ver-sial one-child policy and allow all couples to have two chil-dren, Com-mun-ist Party lead-ers said on October 29, 2015 after they wrapped up a four-day annual poli-cy-mak-ing meeting. The fifth plenum of the party’s 18th Cent-ral Com-mit-tee also endorsed a new five-year eco-nomic plan, accord-ing to a communique released by Xin-hua. But there was no men-tion of any reshuffle of the power-ful Cent-ral Mil-it-ary Com-mis-sion. Party lead-ers pledged to double the size of the eco-nomy by 2020 from 2010 levels as they approved a guideline for the 13th five-year plan. The plan runs from 2016 to 2020 and is the first since Pres-id-ent Xi Jin-ping and Premier Li Keqi-ang came to office in 2012. The lead-ers also called for the devel-op-ment of a con-sump-tion -driven eco-nomy and to pro-mote tech-no-logy to replace exports and state-led cap-ital invest-ment as sources of growth. It gave no annual growth tar-get for the next five years. But doub-ling the size of the eco-nomy in one dec-ade would require annual growth of between 6.5 per cent and 7 per cent, a goal that could clash with efforts to pur-sue bal-anced and sus-tain-able eco-nomic expan-sion. Ana-lysts have been on the lookout to see if Beijing will value growth over reform. Li told party mem-bers last week that annual growth of at least 6.53 per cent was needed in the next five years to meet the goal of estab-lish-ing a “mod-er-ately pros-per-ous soci-ety”, Bloomberg repor-ted. The gov-ern-ment is strug-gling with con-flict-ing goals of push-ing ahead with pain-ful eco-nomic reforms and pre-vent-ing growth from slid-ing too fast. The eco-nomy grew at just 6.9 per cent in the third quarter, the slow-est rate in six years and lower than the offi-cial 7 per cent tar-get for the year. Tao Wang, chief China eco-nom-ist with UBS Secur-it-ies Asia, said the 13th five-year plan would require an annual aver-age GDP growth tar-get of between 6.5 per cent and 7 per cent to ensure per cap-ita income doubled by 2020 from 2010. The communique said the coun-try would con-tinue to pur-sue sus-tain-able growth through qual-ity and effi-ciency. The decision to remove all remain-ing restric-tions that lim-ited some couples to hav-ing only one child marks the end of a policy rolled out in 1980 and which led to severe gender imbal-ances. It comes two years after the author-it-ies began allow-ing couples in which one par-ent is an only child to have a second child. In European trad-ing, shares in milk powder maker Dan-one rose 3 per cent on the news. But Liang Zhongtang, a demo-grapher from the Shang-hai Academy of Social Sci-ences, said the change in the policy was not pro-gress. “The gov-ern-ment is still try-ing to con-trol what is a basic human right. The decision on the num-ber of chil-dren should be left entirely to couples,” Liang said. The com-mit-tee’s 199 mem-bers and 156 altern-ates examined the plan, which will be put to the legis-lature in March. The plenum also elev-ated three altern-ate com-mit-tee mem-bers to become full mem-bers to fill vacan-cies left by offi-cials who were dis-cip-lined. Other reforms include dereg-u-lat-ing price con-trols, and imple-ment-ing bet-ter envir-on-mental pro-tec-tion policies. China will also extend old-age insur-ance to all of its cit-izens.
