The death of a former head of China’s one-child policy has been met not by tributes, but by castigation of the abandoned policy on social media this week.
State media praised Peng Peiyun (彭珮雲), former head of China’s National Family Planning Commission from 1988 to 1998, as “an outstanding leader” in her work related to women and children.
The reaction on Chinese social media to Peng’s death in Beijing on Sunday, just shy of her 96th birthday, was less positive.
Photo: Reuters
“Those children who were lost, naked, are waiting for you over there” in the afterlife, one person posted on China’s Sina Weibo platform.
China’s near-universal mandate of just one child per couple from 1980 through 2015 prompted local officials to compel women to undergo abortions and sterilizations.
Beijing launched the one-child policy because leaders worried about population growth potentially spiraling out of control.
However, China’s population, long the world’s highest, later slowed and last year tumbled for the third year in a row.
“If the one-child policy had been implemented for 10 years less, China’s population would not have plummeted like this!” a Sina Weibo post said.
After falling behind India in 2023, China’s population declined last year to 1.39 billion. Experts warn the downtrend would accelerate in coming years. Data for this year is to be released next month.
As population czar, Peng focused her commission’s work on the countryside.
In rural China, large families were once seen as a goal for couples looking to ensure that they would be taken care of in their old age. Sons who could carry on the family name were also favored, leading to unwanted infant girls and even aborted female fetuses.
“Those children, if they were born, would be almost 40 years old, in the prime of their lives,” one person posted on Sina Weibo.
By the 2010s, Peng had publicly shifted her views, saying that the one-child policy should be eased. Now Beijing is trying to boost the flagging birthrate with childcare subsidies, longer maternity leave and tax benefits.
The shrinking and graying of the population has spurred worries that the world’s second-biggest economy would struggle as the number of workers declines.
Rising costs from elderly care and retirement benefits would also likely create additional budgetary strains for already indebted local governments.
Yemen’s separatist leader has vowed to keep working for an independent state in the country’s south, in his first social media post since he disappeared earlier this month after his group briefly seized swathes of territory. Aidarous al-Zubaidi’s United Arab Emirates (UAE)-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) forces last month captured two Yemeni provinces in an offensive that was rolled back by Saudi strikes and Riyadh’s allied forces on the ground. Al-Zubaidi then disappeared after he failed to board a flight to Riyadh for talks earlier this month, with Saudi Arabia accusing him of fleeing to Abu Dhabi, while supporters insisted he was
‘SHOCK TACTIC’: The dismissal of Yang mirrors past cases such as Jang Song-thaek, Kim’s uncle, who was executed after being accused of plotting to overthrow his nephew North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has fired his vice premier, compared him to a goat and railed against “incompetent” officials, state media reported yesterday, in a rare and very public broadside against apparatchiks at the opening of a critical factory. Vice Premier Yang Sung-ho was sacked “on the spot,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency said, in a speech in which Kim attacked “irresponsible, rude and incompetent leading officials.” “Please, comrade vice premier, resign by yourself when you can do it on your own before it is too late,” Kim reportedly said. “He is ineligible for an important duty. Put simply, it was
The Chinese Embassy in Manila yesterday said it has filed a diplomatic protest against a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman over a social media post that included cartoonish images of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela and an embassy official had been trading barbs since last week over issues concerning the disputed South China Sea. The crucial waterway, which Beijing claims historic rights to despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis, has been the site of repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels. Tarriela’s Facebook post on Wednesday included a photo of him giving a
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Sunday announced a deal with the chief of Kurdish-led forces that includes a ceasefire, after government troops advanced across Kurdish-held areas of the country’s north and east. Syrian Kurdish leader Mazloum Abdi said he had agreed to the deal to avoid a broader war. He made the decision after deadly clashes in the Syrian city of Raqa on Sunday between Kurdish-led forces and local fighters loyal to Damascus, and fighting this month between the Kurds and government forces. The agreement would also see the Kurdish administration and forces integrate into the state after months of stalled negotiations on
RSS