Beijing Calls for New Birth Control Efforts : Population Now 1.1 Billion, China Says

China said Friday that its population had reached 1.1 billion, twice as many people as at the time of the 1949 revolution, and warned of national disaster unless fresh efforts are made to enforce birth control.

Government leaders and the state-run media acknowledged that the country’s Draconian policy of one child per family had largely failed and said population could reach an intolerable 2 billion next century if birth control is neglected.

The Communist Party newspaper People’s Daily said China made a grave mistake by rejecting the advice of population experts in the 1950s, but did not name the leader then--Chairman Mao Tse-tung.

Mao in the 1950s called birth control a “bloodless genocide” plotted by enemies of China and attacked economist Ma Yichu for advocating it. Only in the 1970s were widespread population curbs introduced.

The estimate of 1.1 billion on Friday is considered a low one by some Chinese researchers, one of whom said the country probably passed the figure in the latter half of 1988.

Vice Premier Tian Jiyun told a Thursday meeting in the Great Hall of the People that the outlook for economic growth is bleak if current birthrates continue, straining food supplies, health care, transportation, housing and employment.

Tian attacked the “laissez-faire” attitude to birth rules in some rural areas, an apparent jab at local authorities who have relaxed them in the face of peasant hostility.

In a separate report, the State Science and Technology Commission called for increased birth control among China’s 86 million ethnic minority people, most of whom have until now been exempted from the rules applying to couples of the ethnic Han majority.

Failed in Countryside

The one-child policy has been strictly enforced in cities and is credited with preventing 200 million births since the 1970s. But it has failed in the countryside, with some provinces bending to traditional preferences for boys by allowing peasants whose first child is a girl to try again for a boy.

The People’s Daily said China’s population would reach 1.7 billion to 1.8 billion in the middle of next century if present birthrates continue.

“If mistakes are made, population could exceed 2 billion, with disastrous consequences for the entire nation,” it said.