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US accuses China of using UN funds for forced abortions

The US urged the UN population agency to end its family planning program in China until Beijing stops using coercion, forced abortions, and punishment to enforce its one-child policy.

US President George W. Bush's administration has for the last three years barred all US funding for the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), charging that its support for China's population planning programs allows Beijing to implement its policies of coercive abortion.

The fund has repeatedly called the allegations baseless, and uses money from other donors for its program in China. The UN agency has cited a US government report that found no evidence that it "knowingly supported or participated in ... coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization" in China.

But Kelly Ryan, deputy assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, told UNFPA's executive board on Wednesday that its continued funding for China's coercive reproductive health program "gives it a UN `seal of approval"' which is very important to Beijing and which it doesn't deserve.

China's population and family planning law adopted in 2001 and its one-child policies "demonstrate that the birth limitation program clearly has coercive elements in law and in practice," she said.

"If UNFPA would stop giving the `seal of approval,' I think we could move the ball along quite a bit more," Ryan said.

The Bush administration wants China's provinces to abolish regulations that, among other things, punish unplanned births, require couples to use contraception and require pregnancies be terminated if prenatal exams show the fetus to be severely deformed, said Ryan, whose speech included translations of regulations from several provinces.

She also argued that China's policies violate the platform adopted at the 1994 UN population conference in Cairo which says parents have the right to decide the size and spacing of their families.

China's deputy UN ambassador Zhang Yishan countered that China's 1.3 billion people account for one-fifth of the world's population, and its per capita income is only 2.8 percent of the US' so family planning is essential for development.

Without its population policy, he said, China's population over the last 30 years would have grown by more than 300 million additional people, "which equals the entire US population," he said.

Zhang said China was adhering to the 1994 UN platform which gives countries the right to set their own population policy. He stressed that China's population and family planning law stipulates that family planning workers "shall adopt no coercive measures in whatever form."

As a result of China's 26-year cooperation with UNFPA, he said, China has learned "advanced international concepts on population and development and management methods" which have raised the level of reproductive health and family planning services. In 32 counties where pilot programs were conducted, for example, maternal mortality dropped significantly and AIDS awareness increased, he said.

"A grievance mechanism has been established to protect people's legitimate rights and interests, including hot lines at the national, provincial and pilot county levels," Zhang said.
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