The crackdown on population growth is part of Beijing’s five-year economic and social development plan.

Beijing aims to reduce the population in Xicheng, Dongcheng, Chaoyang, Fengtai, Haidian and Shijingshan by 15 percent below 2014 levels, which is about 1.92 million fewer residents.

Beijing-based factories, markets, education and medical institutions have already been pushed out of the downtown core through the use of economic and administrative measures, with a notable example being Beijing’s own municipal government.

Beijing authorities are also capping a number of other areas, including limiting urban construction to no more than 2,800 square kilometers, limiting yearly water consumption to 4.3 billion cubic meters and ensuring the city’s annual energy consumption meets national standards.

Beside overpopulation, Beijing suffers from other urban problems such as traffic congestion, rising property prices and the deterioration of the natural environment.

Lu Yan, director of the Beijing Municipal Development and Reform Commission, already has a solution to the first problem. Lu said Beijing will build a 900 kilometer-long metro system with stations that commuters can access with just a 750 meter walk from anywhere in the downtown core.

After having quadrupled in size in ten years, Beijing will continue to expand in a future amalgamation that will see it combine with Tianjin and parts of Hebei to become a megacity of 130 million residents. Estimated to cost some 42 trillion yuan, infrastructure for the new megacity have already begun in the form of a new airport.

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According to data released by the Beijing Municipal Commission of Health and Family Planning last week, only 10 percent of eligible couples are actually interested in giving their kid a brother or sister.

According to the data, 55,851 of qualified Beijing couples applied to have a second child as of October this year, accounting for just one-tenth of the estimated 550,000 eligible couples. In the country as a whole, 1.45 million couples applied to have a second baby by May of this year, accounting for just 13 percent of all eligible couples, according to the National Health and Family Planning Commission.

At the end of 2013 China introduced a policy allowing couples to have a second child if one of the parents is an only child. A previous version required both parents to be the only children in their families.

However, China’s new, much more expansive, two child policy has not led to a surge in interest for second children. A recent CCTV poll found that 30 percent of parents said they are not willing to have a second child because they don’t have enough money.

Credit Suisse economist, Dong Tao, estimates that the cost of raising a child until adulthood in China is 499,200 yuan, or around 27,700 yuan a year, which doesn’t account for education expenses. “The high cost of raising a child is probably China’s new birth control,” said Dong.

Announced October 29, the end of the one child policy has yet to be ratified by the National People’s Congress, and remains law until such time.

According to Wang Peian, an official with the National Health and Family Planning Commission, China’s government estimates that with 90 million couples eligible to have two children, births will increase over the next few years, eventually peaking at over 20 million newborns a year.

Related:

• Guangdong’s New “Two-Child Policy” Off to a Rocky Start
• Shenzhen Documentary “Come On, Baby” Criticized for its “Painful” Childbirth

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Xinhua cites a Chinese Communist report that says all couples throughout the country are allowed to have two children.

The one-child policy was introduced in 1979 as a way for China to rein in its massive population boom.

This breaking news was been foreshadowed on Monday when China Daily ran a story saying 100 million couples could conceivably become eligible under a “universal” two-child policy. The report did not say when such a thing would happen, only suggesting that it may “happen soon”.

China introduced a two-child policy in late 2013 in which couples were eligible to apply to have a second child so long as one of the parents is an only child themselves. However, despite many Chinese eager to have a second child, others are deciding to have only one child due to financial restraints.

China is expected to experience a decline in its labor pool as soon as 2021. This is also the time when a gender imbalance that has traditionally favored boys will result in the creation of 30 million single men, or ten percent of the male Chinese population, who are not expected to marry.

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Mayor of Beijing Wang Anshu said aggressive action will be taken to ensure Beijing will keep its population under 21.8 million residents this year to avoid “big city disease”.

Beijing’s fast growing population is putting pressure on the city’s resources and environment, causing water shortages, air pollution, and traffic congestion.

Beijing had 21.5 million permanent residents last year, but leaders don’t want to let that number grow beyond 23 million by 2020. Not only that, the plans also call for the capital’s urban population to be 15 percent lower than levels recorded in 2014.

Wang revealed the first step in a number of “innovative measures” to ensure this policy comes to fruition. “The municipal government and all the districts and counties of Beijing have signed the letter of responsibility to fulfill the goal,” said Wang.

Earlier rumors that the government would force residents to relocate had been so persistent in the Chinese community that an official statement was released denying any such move. But talks of relocation persist, such as the Beijing municipal government mulling over a plan to move its offices outside Beijing jurisdiction. Meanwhile, speculation in real estate markets in neighboring Tianjin and Hebei Province has caused some prices to rise.

Related:

• New Beijing Airport to Open in 2019
• 60% of netizens support Shenzhen, Huizhou and Dongguan merging
• China Has the Worst Traffic in the World
• Beijing Says Tap Water is Safe, but Chinese Scientists Disagree
• “Air Canopy” High-Tech Anti-Smog Bubbles to be Rolled Out in Hazy Beijing

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Here’s what he had to say:

In establishing a top-tier, internationalized livable and harmonious city, Beijing is currently establishing a system of standards, something that is very important. At the present time however, Beijing is not a livable city.

 

There was no shortage of days in 2014 where the PM 2.5 reading, which measures particulate matter in the air, was above 200, considered hazardous. Wang blamed the city’s pollution problem to a massive influx of vehicles and an uneven distribution of industrial factories. Currently, 71.8 percent of all factories in Beijing are concentrated in just six of the city’s districts.

To address these concerns, Beijing got rid of 476,000 vehicles last year that failed to meet emission standards. The city also dismantled 36 trading centers and closed 392 factories.

Yet, as bad as the city’s air quality has become, smog is not the Mayor’s top priority. He’s more concerned with over population:

Seeing that there is a mad rush of people flocking to the city, population control remains Beijing’s number one problem.

And so while the mayor’s speech included buzzwords like “living standards” and “greenification”, overpopulation sits at the top of the list. At 21.5 million residents, Beijing continues to grow at a feverish pace. There were 368,000 new arrivals to the city last year, and despite the poor air quality, the city is projecting similar numbers for 2015. The city has become so dense that its western area is packed with 25,700 people per square kilometer.

Wang continues to promise change, arguing his mandate is the people’s mandate:

As the economy achieves a new state of being, so does society. The government should not be afraid of being critical as this reflects the will of the people.

Photo: People’s Daily Online

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