China Reform Monitor: No. 1070

November 16 :

In a major change to the “One Child Policy,” China has lifted the ban on a second child if either parent is an only child; currently couples can have a second child only if both parents are only children. This change will affect few Chinese, however, according to Wang Pei’an, deputy director of the National Health and Family Planning Commission. In comments carried by the official Xinhua news agency Wang said that “the number of couples covered by the new policy is not very large across the country” and that “the basic state policy of family planning will be adhered to over a long period of time.” The new policy also has no implementation timetable, retains “birth intervals” between children (which means that if a woman gets pregnant before the interval has ended she may be subjected to fines or abortion) and makes no mention of ending the policy’s coercive enforcement.

[Editor’s Note: Instituting a two-child policy will not end gendercide. According to the 2009 British Medical Journal study of data from the 2005 national census, in nine provinces, for “second order births” where the first child is a girl, 160 boys were born for every 100 girls. In two provinces, Jiangsu and Anhui, for the second child, there were 190 boys for every hundred girls born, The National Review reports. This study stated, “sex selective abortion accounts for almost all the excess males.”]

November 18:

A subsidiary of China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), Trans-Asia Gas Pipeline Company Ltd (Trans-Asia Gas), is expected to launch a joint venture in Tajikistan for construction of gas pipelines linking Xinjiang with Turkmenistan’s southern Galkynysh gas field through Afghanistan and Tajikistan, reports Asia-Plus. The Central Asia-China gas pipeline, also built by Trans-Asia Gas, runs from Turkmenistan’s Bagtyyarlyk gas fields through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan to Xinjiang. After its completion in 2016 the new pipeline may become one of branches of the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline (aka Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India Pipeline, or TAPI), which will transport Caspian Sea natural gas from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan into Pakistan and then to India starting in 2017.

China Harbor Engineering Co. (CHEC) has agreed to invest $500 million to build two hotels, a golf course, and tax-free shopping complex in Mattala, Sri Lanka. Earlier this year a $209 million international airport funded by the Chinese government and built by CHEC was opened. Sri Lanka hopes to convert the town into a tourist hotspot, India’s Economic Times reports.

November 20:

The military build up along the China-India border continues despite last month’s border agreement. “Against the backdrop of the major military infrastructure modernization on the Chinese side,” the Indian army is raising an additional 50,000 troops to be based in Panagarh, West Bengal with responsibility for the China-India border, Rediff reports. The Indian Air Force will also station six mid air refueling tankers and six C-130J Super Hercules special operations aircraft in Panagarh. An unknown number of armored and artillery divisions will also be deployed in Bihar and Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and other parts of India’s northeast. As part of the plan, ultra-light howitzers, light tanks, and helicopters will strengthen Indian positions along the LAC. Helipads and airfields are being overhauled to allow Indian forces greater access to the rugged region and in time the military plans to position ballistic and cruise missile units there as well.

China’s military academies and universities are reforming curriculums “to boost real combat abilities,” The People’s Daily reports. "Concrete efforts should be made to cultivate high-quality military talents that are capable of participating in and winning a war," a statement from the training department under the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) headquarters of general staff. According to the statement, in an effort to “strength[en] the army and [boost] students' ideological and political quality,” the PLA will “adopt a combat-oriented educational system.” The reforms will unify teaching materials, develop new teaching methods for combat command, and introduce “a performance-based reward and penalty mechanism.”