The Hindu News

China has banned crude and insensitive slogans such as ‘Raise fewer babies but more piggies’ that have stoked rural anger over the country’s strict family planning policy, state media said Sunday.


Slogans such as ‘One more baby means one more tomb’ have been forbidden, and a list of 190 acceptable slogans were issued by the National Population and Family Planning Commission, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

Such slogans are often found painted on roadside buildings in rural areas.

A generation after being imposed, China’s population control policies continue to engender anger and resentment, especially among the largely rural country’s farmers.

Such anger extends beyond the slogans to the sometimes brutal methods used to enforce the policy, such as heavy fines, seizure of property and forced sterilizations or abortions. Local authorities themselves face demotions, criticism oh slogans such as “Houses toppled, cows confiscated, if abortion demand rejected” threatened to undermine China’s efforts to keep the population under control.

It paraphrased the family planning commission as saying such “low-quality slogans” could lead to “public complaint and resentment.”

In May this year, Chinese authorities in the southern Guangxi region detained 28 people after farmers rioted to protest fines levied for having more children than allowed under the national policy.

State media said the protest in Guangxi’s Bobai county was triggered by unhappiness over fines that villagers said were imposed “arbitrarily and brutally” as a way to control population growth in the area.
Bobai public servants had been reportedly ordered to collect fines from family planning violators and if they failed to pay within three days, their homes would be demolished and their belongings seized.

Xinhua said examples of authorized slogans include “Mother earth is too tired to sustain more children,” and “Both boys and girls are parents’ hearts.”

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