1 . China has announced that couples will be permitted to have up to three children in a major policy shift from the existing two-child limit, after recent data showed a dramatic decline in births in China, the world’s most populated country.
“To actively respond to the ageing of the population…a couple can have three children,” state media Xinhua reported on Monday, citing a committee meeting hosted by President Xi Jinping.
Early this May, China reported the slowest population growth since the early 1960s, despite scrapping its one-child policy in 2015 to encourage more births and avoid a potential population crisis.
A once-a-decade survey showed that the overall population of China grew to 1,41178 billion in the 10 years to 2020, up by 5.38%. The increase reflects an average annual rise of 0.53%, down from 0.57% reported from 2000 to 2010.
The announcement drew a chilly response (遇冷) on Chinese social media, where many people said they could not afford to have even one or two children. “I am willing to have three children if you give me 5 million yuan (£554,350),” one user posted on Weibo. As a matter of fact, experiment of the three-child policy in Heilongjiang province in the last few years also resulted less effectively than expected.
It is not only China that is facing such a population challenge. Across east Asia, governments have, for years, been struggling to persuade couples to have more babies. South Korea and Japan both have used allowance (津贴) to encourage.
The policy change will come with “supportive measures, which will be beneficial to improving our country’s population structure, fulfilling the country’s strategy of actively coping with an ageing population and maintaining the advantage of human resources”, Xinhua said.
1. What can we know about the current population of China?| A．China sees a huge increase in births because of the two-child policy. |
| B．China reported the smallest population since 1960s early this May. |
| C．China is now faced with the problem that its population is ageing. |
| D．China has adopted one-child policy in 2015 to reduce overpopulation. |
| A．Pursuing. | B．Changing. | C．Continuing. | D．Canceling. |
| A．China has a smaller population in 2020 than in 2010. |
| B．Many couples aren’t able to raise more children. |
| C．Hei Longjiang has the smallest population in China. |
| D．Korea and Japan manage to cope with ageing population. |
| A．Specific supportive measures in three-child policy. |
| B．Main reasons why the population is ageing. |
| C．Potential risks that ageing population will bring. |
| D．Various attitudes towards three-child policy. |
2 . The Chinese government ends its one-child policy (政策) and allows families to have three children. The policy is meant to balance population development, stop a falling birth rate (出生率) and strengthen the country’s labor force (劳动力).
China, with the largest population in the world, started the one-child policy in 1980. But the government allowed only a small number of couples to have two children. For example, some families in the countryside could have two children, if the first-born child is a girl. In 2016, the Chinese government gave other couples a chance to have two children if one of them was an only child. Because of aging of population, in 2021, it allowed families to have three children.
To the newest policy, different families have different opinions. “Too many young people in the cities are no longer interested in having two or three children,” an official said. “People in the countryside are more interested.”
At the end of 2021, China had a population of more than 1.4 billion people. A total of 900 million of them have jobs. But the labor market population will drop in 30 years. That is to say, the country will be in great need of labor by the year 2050. With the three-child policy, an increase in births can solve this problem.
Boys and girls, what do you think of the three-child policy? Do you want to have new-born brothers or sisters?
1. Why does the Chinese government end the one-child policy?| A．Because China needs a larger population. |
| B．Because a falling birth rate must be stopped. |
| C．Because most families want to have a second or third child. |
| A．20 years. | B．30 years. | C．more than 40 years. |
| A．They strongly support the policy. |
| B．They don’t think it is good. |
| C．They’re not interested in it any more. |
| A．In 2035. | B．In 2050. | C．In 2070. |
| A．The population development will be balanced. |
| B．The labor market population will drop. |
| C．There will be more old people. |
