CHINA:China is still enforcing its one-child policy, despite rising infertility and a rapidly ageing population, writes Clifford Coonanin Beijing
Fertility is a highly political issue in the world's most populous country.
On the one hand, pollution, stress, smoking and multiple abortions are contributing to a rise in infertility in China, which may affect up to one-tenth of couples.
On the other hand, the country's ruling Communist Party has just fired a local official for having too many children - with both his wife and a mistress - in violation of the one-child policy.
China still enforces this strict family planning policy, which limits many couples to just one child.
However, the country's population is ageing rapidly. China is already home to more than half of the old people in Asia, and by 2050 the number of those aged over 60 will exceed 400 million, accounting for more than 30 per cent of the population.
According to state media reports, the government is taking seriously a report by Wang Yifei of Shanghai's Jiaotong University which shows that sperm counts have fallen noticeably since the 1970s.
"A certain percentage of the sperm donated by seemingly healthy college boys to our sperm bank in Shanghai is not eligible in terms of sperm count or motility," Wang said. The report said the problem was exacerbated by delaying childbirth until after a woman turned 35, and multiple abortions were often to blame for miscarriages.
Other experts say rising wealth resulting from the country's economic boom over the past few decades has contributed to the problem by helping promote unhealthy lifestyles.
"The problem deserves attention from all walks of life because it threatens the quality and structure of our future population," said Huang Hefeng of Zhejiang University.
The academics also believe that more than 10 million Chinese families are in need of reproductive assistance such as IVF or other fertility treatments.
About 22 million babies are expected to join China's 1.3 billion population in 2007, with the number much higher this year because the Year of the Pig is considered lucky for births.
One rural official who had few fertility issues but fell foul of the one-child policy was Qin Huaiwen, who headed a construction bureau in Yulin in the northwestern province of Shaanxi.
He had three daughters with his wife, and a son and a daughter with his mistress, who is almost 20 years his junior, the Beijing News reported.
To get around the one-child policy, one of Qin's daughters by his wife was registered as being the child of his wife's sister, while the two children he had with his mistress took their mother's surname and lived with their grandparents, the report said.
The truth about the family ties was only revealed after the mistress complained about a lack of child support. As well as being convicted for breaching family planning rules, Qin was charged with adultery, expelled from the party and fired from his job.