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Beijing professor Yang Zhizhu fired for having second baby

A prominent university professor in Beijing has been fired because he and his wife had a second child in defiance of China's infamous one-child policy, says Chinese Human Rights Defenders, reports Patrick B. Craine, LifeSiteNews.com.

Law professor Yang Zhizhu was notified by officials from the China Youth University for Political Sciences on March 26 that he was being fired because he had violated Beijing's family planning regulations.

Yang's wife gave birth to their second child on December 21, 2009. On the same day, university officials promulgated guidelines that outlined punishments for employees who violated the city's family planning regulations, which included such sanctions as a three-year ban on promotions and a one-year suspension.

Yang has been a vocal opponent of China's population control regime, challenging the city's laws and the school's guidelines in articles and a blog.

"Prof Yang is only the latest of many Chinese government employees who have been fired for breaking the one-child policy,” commented Stephen Mosher of the U.S.-based Population Research Institute, who has done extensive on-the-ground research into China's population control policies.

"While the government now claims that the policy is enforced only by fines, the reality is that the population control police remain on the lookout for illegal children,” Mosher continued. “In the countryside village sweeps remain common, with women pregnant outside the state plan arrested and aborted.”

“In the cities both the husband and the wife can be fined, demoted, transferred, and fired for having a second child,” he added.

Because of the hefty fines levied for additional children, which amount to several years' worth of income, Mosher explained “now without employment, Prof. Zhou will still have to mortgage his family's future in order to scrape together enough money to pay this fine.”

The one-child policy, originally instituted in the 1970s, has resulted in a rapidly aging population, raising fears among some of an impending economic decline.

Realizing the demographic issues associated with the one-child policy, the city of Shanghai began encouraging married couples to have a second child last summer. Reports have indicated that their efforts are failing, however.

According to Mosher, "China's population is falling over a demographic cliff.”

“It is aging rapidly - more rapidly than any human population has ever aged - and the worker-to-retiree ratio will soon be unsustainable,” he said. “All this calls into question whether China will be able to sustain its phenomenal economic growth over the long run."

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TAGS: China Yang Zhizhu Beijing professor one-child policy China's population

[04/08/2010]

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