STORY BY KARA SPAK | Daily Herald Staff Writer
PHOTOS BY PATRICK KUNZER | Daily Herald Photographer

This flier on reproductive health was available at a Beijing community center that also doubles as a public library.

BEIJING - In the Donghuaumen Avenue hutong near the Forbidden City's ancient imperial palaces, neighbors can swing by the community center to borrow a Chinese-translated copy of James Joyce's "Ulysses" or pick up a free box of condoms.

The members of the neighborhood committee, a typical fixture of Chinese urban life, help deliver heavy gas canisters for senior citizens' stoves, help settle neighborhood disputes and organize cultural activities like day trips and tai chi.

The committees also are on the front lines of population control, a controversial 27-year-old policy which limits most Chinese families to one child.

"The committee helps the government do investigating for family planning, enforcing the one-child policy," said Chen Dachun, head of the Donghuaumen Avenue group. "We pay attention. The regulation is very strict to control."

The rule, dubbed the "one-child policy," started in 1979 as a temporary move to help control China's exploding population. It remains in effect.

Introduced by Chinese Communist Party leader Deng Xiaoping, it was a radical departure from the philosophy of his predecessor, Mao Zedong, and centuries of tradition.

Mao believed China's massive population was the best defense against what was believed to be an inevitable third world war. Traditionally, more children also meant more hands around the house and more happiness.

China currently is the world's most populous country, with more than 1.3 billion residents.

The policy has prevented as many as 300 million births, noted a 2005 study of the population control method in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The central government set the standard for the number of children allowed - one in urban areas, unless the first child is disabled, two in rural areas. No restrictions are imposed upon ethnic minorities like Tibetans or Mongolians.

Couples who have more than one child without authorization are fined about $1,000 - a steep price given the average annual income in China is $1,290, according to the World Bank.

Critics of the policy say it encourages forced abortion and sterilization, infanticide, an unbalanced ratio of boys to girls and the creation of a nation of only children who are spoiled rotten, dubbed "little emperors."

It also has spurred more adoptions. The United States issued more than 7,900 visas to Chinese babies adopted by Americans in 2005, according to the State Department. Nearly 25 percent of all foreign babies adopted in the United States are Chinese.

Nearly all the adopted Chinese babies are girls, the result, critics say, of a cultural preference mixed with a restrictive policy that compels many parents to abandon girls.

At the community center, half the space is used as a library, offering Chinese tomes like "The Renaissance," and "The Age of Napoleon." The other half is used as the family planning clinic, decorated with a clock of a man and woman holding hands that reads "Love" and a cartoon of Chinese men admiring a selection of prophylactics. From 8:30 to 11:30 a.m. and from 2 to 4 p.m. five days a week, the clinic is staffed with a nurse.

No one is embarrassed or shy at the clinic, said Chen, head of the local group. But if you are timid, the nurse will deliver birth control to you.

Enforcing the one-child policy is simple, Chen said. When couples marry, they must register with the government. If they want to have a child, this also must be registered.

Once a pregnancy occurs, the couple visits the community center and receives a certificate, which they take to the police station with the newborn baby. There, they trade it in for a birth certificate.

There are never accidents or unplanned pregnancies, Chen said. Or, at least he never learns of them.

"You go to a clinic or a hospital" for an abortion, he said of accidental pregnancy. "If you get pregnant, the second child never happens."

The strict rule of law isn't the only thing keeping family size in check, Chen said.

Higher standards of living and increased economic opportunities are causing couples to become DINKs, or Double Income, No Kids.

"The young people (in their 20s) don't care about children," Chen said. "They care about their life since they have good salaries."

No changes are on the horizon. Though the policy was supposed to be temporary, China has included it in its most recent five-year plan, which extends to 2010.

Continue:
• Family first
• Pressure fierce on China's children
• In China, more than one child isn't a choice
• China: Soup to nuts