China's One-Child Problem

BEIJING — When a self-taught lawyer and activist named Chen Guangcheng went public with reports of forced abortions and other abuses by family-planning officials in China's Shandong province, he became a local hero.

He also became a state threat.

Roughly a year later, despite international pressure, widespread support from lawyers and an acknowledgment from national officials that many of his disclosures were accurate, the 35-year-old Chen remains in custody.

His case stands as a warning that being right is not a sure defense in a system wary of any challenge to its authority.

On Monday, the blind activist's wife was interrogated and one of his supporters beaten, the latest in a series of moves apparently designed to intimidate and punish Chen for exposing forced abortions and sterilization under China's one-child campaign, one of his lawyers said.

Chen, villagers and his lawyers say tens of thousands of women and men were subjected to forced abortions and obligatory sterilization in and around Linyi, a municipal area with about 10 million people, in order to meet stringent quotas under the one-child campaign.

National family-planning officials insist most population programs are not coercive and say the one-child effort has helped elevate millions from poverty by ensuring more resources are available for the nation's vast population, currently more than 1.3 billion.

Despite its name, China's one-child system is a patchwork of rules under the umbrella of a national policy. Minority communities receive automatic exemptions. Urban parents who both come from one-child families can have a second offspring, as can farmers whose first child is a girl. Some pay fines to have more children.

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Tags: China | Beijing | Culture