No change to population policy

In an online interview in 2007, Yu Xuejun, spokesman for the National Population and Family Planning Commission, stressed that the family planning policy did not simply translate into a "one-child policy", it made a distinction between urban and rural areas and also between different regions. People who were eligible to have two children or more comprised nearly 11 percent of the total population.

He said the implementation of the rule that couples who themselves are the only children, can have two children, didn't imply a change in the family planning policy. The Population and Family Planning Law of the People's Republic of China encourages every couple to have only one child but the emergence of a generation of one-child couples made the debate about a second child more relevant.

Three decades into its practice, the family planning policy has prevented an estimated 400 million births, according to the National Population and Family Planning Commission. It has reduced population pressure on natural resources and the environment, and effectively promoted economic development and social progress. China is expected to add between 8 and 10 million people every year in the next decade. It will stick to the family planning policy and keep its population within 1.36 billion by the end of 2010.