• Artist Ai Weiwei's answer to 81 days in China prison: Profanity-laced heavy metal

    Slideshow: The artist strikes a nerve

    Sharron Lovell / Polaris

    Ai Weiwei, whose sculpture representing the mythical figures of the Chinese zodiac will be unveiled Monday in New York, has been detained by Chinese authorities and accused of serious crimes. Click to see photos of some of his most influential works.

    Launch slideshow

    By Ed Flanagan, Producer, NBC News

    BEIJING – China’s Ai Weiwei on Wednesday released a profanity-laced heavy-metal single based on the 81 days the firebrand artist and activist spent in detention.

    Written and sung by Ai with music by prominent Chinese rocker Zuoxiao Zuzhou, “Dumbass” is “is a wall-to-wall simulation of the prison cell that Weiwei was detained in,” a spokeswoman for Ai said.

    Lyrics in the song, translated into English, include "**** forgiveness, tolerance be damned, to hell with manners, the low-life’s invincible," and "The field is full of ****ers, dumbasses are everywhere."

    A video to accompany the song is available to watch on YouTube [note: profanity in Chinese].

    Ai’s detention and the hefty $2.4 million tax bill later levied against him led to protests around the world, as well as an upsurge of support in China for the award-winning artist, who was placed under house arrest following his release.

    Ai said that recreating his cell and the traumatic experience of being imprisoned – which Ai claims included 24-hour supervision by two military police sergeants, even as he slept and used the bathroom – was a cathartic experience.   

    The Chinese government has never confirmed the details of Ai’s detention.

    The track, the first single off his new album “The Divine Comedy,” was described in a press release from his studio as “Ai Weiwei’s reflection on the struggle of protecting human rights and the freedom of expression in China.”

    The Divine Comedy is expected to be released fully in June on Ai’s website and on iTunes.

    Ai’s spokeswoman said that the artist was working on a second album that will shift away from the heavy-metal and towards a more romantic tone.

    Related:

     

     

  • China river's dead pig toll passes 13,000 but officials say water quality is 'normal'

    Str / AFP - Getty Images

    A dead pig is seen in a dirty tributary of the Yangtze River, in central China's Hebei province, some 750 miles from the city of Shanghai, in a photo taken on March 12, 2013. The number of dead pigs found in the Huangpu River, which runs through China's commercial hub Shanghai, has reached more than 13,000, state media reported on March 18.

    By Ed Flanagan, Producer, NBC News

    BEIJING – To the chagrin of Shanghai city residents, there’s more “pork chop soup” on the menu for the foreseeable future. 

    More than a week since authorities in Shanghai started pulling thousands of dead pigs from one of the city’s major waterways, the Huangpu River, municipal authorities in that city of 23 million are continuing to pull hundreds of carcasses from its waterways each day, bringing the total since last week to over 13,000. 

    Workers on Sunday pulled nearly 500 pigs from the Huangpu, bringing the total found from that river alone to over 9,500. The Huangpu River supplies over a fifth of Shanghai’s drinking water.

    As the pig tally creeps up, Shanghai government officials have been struggling to put a positive spin on the ghoulish images popping up each day from the city’s waterways. 

    Shanghai is in the process of burning some of the 13,000 pig bodies found in a major waterway. NBCNews.com's Dara Brown reports.

    A report Monday in People’s Daily, the official newspaper of China’s ruling Communist Party, focused on the stepped up food and water quality tests across the city. It also earnestly noted that not only have the numbers of pigs being pulled from the rivers dropped, but the size of them too.

    Citing a report from Shanghai’s city government, the paper stated that two thirds of the most recent carcasses found were piglets, suggesting that the worse may have passed.

    Social media outrage
    Still, the daily sight of carcasses being pulled from the city’s waterways for disposal has angered the public and sparked a spirited discussion on China’s Twitter-like service, Weibo. 

    Reports that many of the pigs found have tested positive for porcine circovirus, a virus that has killed large numbers of pigs in the region in recent months, has also raised suspicions about the safety of Shanghai’s water supply.

    “The water must have been polluted [by these dead pigs],” wrote one user named Lujun, “Authorities are being dishonest and trying to hide something.”

    “The government is as corrupt as these dead pigs,” another user using the name Ziyoudeweini wrote disgustedly. “I feel so cold. Who can we count on?” 

    “Water quality in the Huangpu River has been normal up to now,” one official at the Shanghai Information Office assured NBC News Monday. He also stressed that porcine circovirus cannot be contracted by humans. 

    Where are they coming from?
    Shanghai officials have stepped up surveillance for dead pigs around the Huangpu River and have called upon local government in the nearby city of Jiaxing in Zhejiang Province to step up their own searches. 

    Just northeast of Shanghai, Jiaxing is believed to be the source of many of the dead pigs floating down into Shanghai. Shanghai’s Information Office officials declined to speculate on whether Jiaxing was the sole source of all the pigs, but told NBC News that the prefecture was the focus of a joint Shanghai-Jiaxing investigation.

    An official at the Jiaxing Environmental Protection Agency declined to comment on the progress of the investigation late Monday.

    But steps were being taken in Jiaxing to curb the continued dumping of pigs into the region’s waterways. The city’s local newspaper, Jiaxing Daily, reported that leaflets had been passed out to farmers in the region, urging them to properly dispose of dead pigs with local authorities rather than quietly dumping them into the river.

    Jiaxing is likely not the only community to be dumping dead pigs into its waterways, as reports indicate that porcine circovirus has spiked across farming communities this winter, killing more pigs than usual. Many have speculated that farmers have been attempting to discretely dispose of the sick pigs rather than reporting them to authorities and risk investigation.

    NBC News’ Danny Zhang contributed to this report.

    Related links

    More than 2,800 dead pigs found in Chinese river

    Click here for more Behind the Wall posts 

     

  • Study: Chinese parents bigger fibbers than American ones

    Alexander F. Yuan / AP, file

    A parent takes photos of her daughter playing the drums at a children's play area in a shopping mall in Beijing on Jan. 10.

    By Ed Flanagan, Producer, NBC News

    BEIJING -- Parents throughout the world have been known to tell a white lie to cajole dinner into a fussy child or explain the pile of gifts that appears under the Christmas tree as if by magic. 

    According to a new study, Chinese parents rank among the biggest fibbers. 

    The study in the International Journal of Psychology titled “Instrumental lying by parents in the US and China” found that most respondents -- 84 percent of Americans and 98 percent of Chinese -- admitted that they lied to their children. Chinese parents, however, were far more likely to lie to force changes in behavior, it found.

    “A larger proportion of the parents in China reported that they employed instrumental lietelling [sic] to promote behavioral compliance, and a larger proportion approved of this practice, as compared to the parents in the U.S.,” the authors said in the report.

    The researchers from the University of San Diego, the University of Toronto and Zhejiang Normal University interviewed 114 American and 85 Chinese parents who had at least one child aged 3 years or older.

    The participants were given a list of fibs and asked to report which ones they had told their children.

    For example, 68 percent of Chinese respondents reported telling their children, “If you don’t follow me, a kidnapper will come to kidnap you while I’m gone.” Only 18 percent of American respondents made similar claims.

    Sixty-one percent of the Chinese parents said they would tell their children, “Finish all your food or you’ll grow up to be short.” Just 10 percent of American parents utilized that particular little white lie.

    According to the study, Chinese parents surveyed told 15 out of the 16 “specific instrumental lies” at higher rates than American parents.

    More news from China in NBC's Behind the Wall

    The only exception was a false claim that there is no more candy in the house, which was reported by 57.5 percent of parents in the United States as compared with 42.9 percent of Chinese parents.

    American parents reported using more of what the study calls comparison lies -- untrue statements intended to generate positive feeling or to promote fantasy characters.

    Sixty percent of Americans said they would use the line, “That was beautiful piano playing,” even if they thought it sounded terrible. In contrast, 44 percent of Chinese declared they would lie in those circumstances.

    The results could be interpreted to mean that Chinese parents are more comfortable lying in general, but the study’s authors said that Chinese parents “made more negative evaluations of children’s lies,” and expressed more negative views than their American counterparts on fibs about fantasy characters like Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. Indeed, 88 percent of American respondents said they had used the lie, “Santa Claus will come to deliver your present on Christmas Eve.”

    The study suggested that the wide acceptance of parental lying among Chinese adults could be driven by a strong desire for social cohesiveness and an emphasis on respect and obedience, according to the authors.

    In other words, lying can be an effective tool in socializing children.

    Or as one Chinese parent put it, “When teaching children, it is okay to use well-intentioned lies. It can promote positive development and prevent your child from going astray.”

  • 'Worst' smog ever hitting Beijing, environmentalists say

    In Beijing, the smog is hazardous. ITV's Angus Walker reports.

    By David Stanway, Reuters

    BEIJING — Air quality in Beijing was the "worst on record" on Saturday and Sunday, according to environmentalists, with pollution 30-45 times above the recommended safety levels.

    With a thick smog wrapping the Chinese capital since Friday, the city's pollution monitoring center warned the city's 20 million residents to stay indoors.

    Data posted on Sunday by the monitoring center showed particulate matter measuring less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter (PM2.5) had reached more than 600 micrograms per square metre at some monitoring stations in Beijing, and was as high as 900 on Saturday evening.

    The recommended daily level for PM2.5 is 20, according to the World Health Organisation. Such pollution has been identified as a major cause of asthma and respiratory diseases.

    "This is really the worst on record not only from the official data but also from the monitoring data from the U.S. embassy — some areas in (neighboring) Hebei province are even worst than Beijing," said Zhou Rong, climate and energy campaigner at Greenpeace.

    The Beijing Municipal Environmental Monitoring Center said heavy pollution had been trapped by an area of low pressure, making it harder to disperse, and the conditions were likely to last another two days.

    Related: Beijing's pollution could cut 5 years off life span

    Pollution has been identified as one of the biggest challenges facing China's leaders, with outgoing president Hu Jintao saying during his address to the Communist Party Congress last November that the country needed to "reverse the trend of ecological deterioration and build a beautiful China."

    China said at the end of last year that it would begin releasing hourly pollution data for its biggest cities.

    Beijing has already committed to a timetable to improve air quality in the city, and has relocated most of its heavy industry, but surrounding regions have not made the same commitments, said Zhou.

    "For Beijing, cleaning up will take a whole generation but other regions don't even have any targets to cut coal burning. I bet the pollution here is mainly from those surrounding regions." 

     

  • Expired milk and a piece of bread: School lunch scandal sparks outrage in China

    Weibo.com / kayaliang

    A picture circulated on Weibo of a carton of milk and piece of bread that make up a free school lunch for students at the Suode primary school in Fenghuang, central Hunan province in China.

    By Ed Flanagan, NBC News

    BEIJING -- Five local Chinese education officials were sacked this week amid rampant speculation that they were stealing from a national lunch program, prompting a nationwide online debate over how this nation of 1.3 billion is feeding its more than 194 million K-12 students.

    The five officials were dismissed from the Fenghuang school district in the central Hunan province after it was revealed they were serving substandard meals to the children, sparking outrage and raising questions about whether they were pocketing the money instead.

    The terrible meals at Suode Primary were first exposed last month when a volunteer teacher at the school, Liang Xuyue, took a photo of the "healthy" lunch and posted it on China's Twitter-like service, Weibo.

    The meal, a 20-gram piece of bread and a 200-ml carton of milk, was a far cry from the ministry of education's recommendation that free school meals for poor students should consist of meat, eggs and milk.

    Liang noted that the school had also been supplied with seven cases of expired milk.

    Influence of social media
    The scope of China's national lunch program is daunting. The government allocated 16 billion yuan ($2.5 billion) in 2012 to be used to provide free lunches for approximately 26 million poor rural students. That means just 3 yuan (48 cents) is available per student.

    By contrast, the National School Lunch program run by the USDA in the United States budgeted $11.1 billion in 2011 and served 31.8 million students. Taking into account students who pay within the plan for subsidized meals, the American program was able to budget $2.86 for free meals per student.

    More than 880,000 comments were posted on Weibo about the scandal, many suspecting like Liang that school officials were lining their pockets with lunch money.

    Two Chinese families linked by a kidnapping

    "I've said it before, when it comes to money it is impossible for us to believe these officials without supervision!" wrote one Weibo user. "We should send these Ministry of Education officials to the forests to experience starvation!" declared another. "Let them suffer!"

    Some Weibo users pointedly posted pictures of American school lunches side-by-side with the Suode lunch for comparison.

    Hunan province education officials were forced to respond quickly to the outrage, reflecting social media's growing power in influencing how justice is served in China. The school's headmaster, two deputy headmasters and two Fenghuang County education officials were all summarily removed from their jobs.

    'Kids need hot meals'
    But the scandal has evolved beyond a simple case of naked graft and the mistreatment of these children. Many in China are now asking serious questions about the lunch program – not just about the pitiful amount spent per child, but the very makeup of a school lunch.

    "In China the quality of life differs in various areas, so there is no unified national standard for what lunch should be like," Deng Fei, a former journalist for China's Phoenix Weekly news magazine, told NBC News.

    Read more stories from China on NBC's Behind The Wall

    Deng started a free lunch program after a reporting trip last year to rural schools in the relatively poor province of Guizhou. The concept was simple: private donations would be used to construct kitchens in poor schools so that children could have what is often their only hot meal of the day.

    In mid-2011 as part of an Education Nation series, NBC News visited Baiyun Middle School, a rural school in Hunan that had recently opened one of Deng's kitchens. The students were poor – sons and daughters of migrant workers who make on average less than $40 a week.


    As the noon time bell rang, 212 students dashed out from classrooms, steel bowls and chopsticks clanking as they lined up to receive a simple meal cooked by staff in the newly built kitchen: a generous square of rice, some stir-fried vegetables and tofu.

    The meal was hearty, tasty and perhaps most importantly, cheap.

    For Deng the meal summed up what he and many netizens believe is the biggest problem with the government's school meal plan: an over-emphasis on staples like milk and bread instead of Chinese options that are cheaper, nutritious and more filling.

    "I understand the difficulty of some rural places, but after almost one year we should have made some progress," Deng said. "Enough of the milk and bread; these kids need hot meals."

    Several teachers and program directors at Baiyun confirmed what a recent Stanford University study in China had discovered and published last year: a healthy, balanced lunch led to improved academic gains and more animated students.

    Millions of parents no doubt agree – as does a ruling Communist Party that has emphasized education as a way to elevate socio-economic conditions for its people and maintain social stability.

    NBC News' Yanzhou Liu contributed to this report.

    More world stories from NBC News:

    Follow World News from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook


  • Luxury cars sold for a song after bubble bursts in 'China's Dubai'

    David Gray / Reuters

    Two men walk down a deserted street in front of the unopened Ordos Museum on May 11, 2011. In the wake of a coal boom, Ordos was built to house up to 1 million people but only 30,000 live there today.

    By Johanna Armstrong, NBC News

    BEIJING -- With miles of freshly paved roads, little traffic and some seriously avant-garde architecture, the Chinese city of Ordos provides a driving environment most car enthusiasts can only dream of.

    Yet rich Chinese who have invested in the resource-rich city are now frantically rushing to sell off their new luxury toys to stem the excessive bleeding that has come with a steep decline in coal prices.

    As the boom turns to bust, some luxury car owners are said to be asking for as little as 10 percent of the typical asking price.

    Ordos, which sprung up from the deserts of  Inner Mongolia, sits on a massive coal reserve. It supplies about 17 percent of China’s needs.

    When coal was discovered there in the early 1990s, farmers cashed in, selling their land at sky-high prices to private coal mining companies.

    The boom sent hundreds of thousands of migrant workers flocking to Ordos.

    However, the bubble burst in July. Coal prices dropped for 11 straight weeks, leading to rampant lay-offs and little or no profit for local coal companies.

    Full China coverage on NBC News' Behind the Wall blog

    One report suggested that 300,000 migrant workers who had traveled to Ordos to live and work had since left.

    “Now that the economy is bad, many migrants have left,” lamented Li Rui, a cab driver in Ordos. “It’s still busy downtown, but it’s nothing like Beijing.”

    'Anxious to sell'
    But those gaping numbers are not the ones that Chinese netizens are breathlessly talking about.

    Fueled by a recent report in the Economic Observer, the Internet exploded with rumors that some car owners in Ordos were liquidating their assets for as much as 90 percent off the going rate.


    On a popular Ordos-based car sales website, one seller listed a 2009 Porsche Cayman for $79,032. Another owner had listed a Hummer for $80,600 with the plea, “anxious to sell.” In Beijing, a similar model Cayman would usually sell for $110,000, the Hummer for $121,000.

    Zhou Hai, the manager of an Ordos-based dealership called Haohai Used Car Company, told NBC News that while prices have plummeted, it is not to the extent that people had claimed.

    “The Internet is saying that my prices are 90 percent off, but in fact it’s only 50 percent,” he said.

    Chinese paper falls for Onion 'sexiest man alive' spoof

    Zhou noted that he had a used 2010 Range Rover selling for $160,000, compared to the average price of $207,000 in other parts of China.

    Cars imported to China typically are taxed extensively, sometimes raising the retail price to as much as three times the usual U.S. price.

    'Nail house' holds up traffic as homeowners fight local government

    Ordos was supposed to be China’s Dubai, but the city built for 1 million people today has only 30,000 residents.

    Investors across China have snatched up real estate – often with no intention to move in or rent out – in remote places like Ordos as a safe place to keep and grow their money.

    China’s stock market is too unpredictable, bank interest rates in China are too low and strict government-mandated limitations on how Chinese can invest their money have encouraged many people to put their money into real estate.

    'Ghost cities'
    This phenomenon has contributed to what many experts believe to be a serious housing bubble and the rise of an increasing number of what have become known in China as “ghost cities.”

    Speaking to NBC News earlier this year, Gillem Tulloch, managing director of research firm Forensic Asia described the confluence of these economic events for ghost cities like Ordos as being: “Empty roads, empty buildings, empty neighborhoods, empty cities -- all over China.”

    The ghosts that haunt China's economic landscape

    Meamwhile, a report from Ordos’ municipal government noted that at the end of April only 40 percent of Ordos' 324 residential construction projects were still under way. Of the 49 new projects, only seven were said to still be in progress.

    According to Zhang Xiaofei of Ruili Real Estate in Ordos, 20 percent more people each month are trying to sell their homes in the city, and prices are as low as $320 per square meter, compared to the average suburban price of $800 per square meter.

    NBC News’ Yanzhou Liu contributed to this report.

    More world stories from NBC News:

    Follow World News from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook

  • China launches once-a-decade changing of the guard

    Delegates are meeting in Beijing to begins the once-in-a-decade power transfer for a change in Chinas leadership. President Hu Jintao, Premier Wen Jiabao and other long-standing leaders will give up their main party posts, making way for new President Xi Jinping and new premier Li Keqiang. ITV's Angus Walker reports.  

    By Eric Baculinao, NBC News

    Updated at 11:11 a.m. ET: BEIJING — While Americans celebrate the power of the ballot with the re-election of President Barack Obama, China's ruling Communist Party on Thursday launched a tightly orchestrated gathering in Beijing for a transition of power to a new generation of leaders amid tough challenges.


    To the applause of some 2,000 party officials from across the country, outgoing Party leader President Hu Jintao, 70, reaffirmed in a lengthy speech the party's right to govern, with a ringing endorsement of the achievements during his 10 years in office.

    In that span of time, China's economy quadrupled in size, leapfrogging to No. 2 from No. 5 in global economic ranking, and amassing the strategic global clout that the country wields today.

    Over 2,000 journalists were invited to the 18th Communist Party Congress inside the cavernous Great Hall of the People near Tiananmen Square.

    Diego Azubel / EPA

    The portrait of late leader Chairman Mao Zedong hangs at the Gate of Heavenly Peace as members of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) salute China's national flag during a ceremony Wednesday on Tiananmen Square as a press conference is held inside the Great Hall of the People on the eve of the 18th Communist Party Congress (CPC) in Beijing, China.

    The week-long event is expected to culminate in the election of Xi Jinping, 59, as China's next top party leader. And when China's parliament convenes early next year, Xi is expected to be named China's president, acquiring by then the full authority with which he will co-manage with Obama the delicate course of Chinese-American relation.

    A reforming party
    The striking contrast between the Chinese and American models of governance, which were playing out at the same time, was certainly not lost to the media handlers of the Chinese party congress.

    Embassy ballots give Chinese a glimpse of democracy ahead of power transfer

    In a pre-congress media event, NBC News posed the issue of whether China will eventually adopt democratic reform and popular elections.

    ''The leading position of the Chinese Communist Party is a historic choice, a people's choice,'' responded Cai Mingzhao, the congress spokesman, dismissing any prospect of multiparty politics.

    Hu's swan song Thursday reinforced China's path of gradual reform, which prizes harmony and stability in times of rapid change. Still, China observers concede that a smooth party congress will mark only the second peaceful transfer of power in Communist China's otherwise tumultuous history.

    Revelations of vast fortune held by Chinese leader's family may hurt Communist Party image

    Before the 2002 change of leadership from then-president Jiang Zemin to Hu Jintao, all succession plans involving the designated heirs of Chairman Mao and even Deng Xiaoping ended up in bloody and tragic power struggles.

    China's leadership transition is also seen as a vindication of China's reform that sets an age limit on top leaders, a practice not yet adopted by other modern nations, according to scholars.

    The Hu-Wen legacy
    Despite China's enormous gains in the past 10 years, the jury is out on the legacy of Hu and his close political partner, Premier Wen Jiabao.

    ''They have laid the foundations of a meaningful social safety net, in terms of health insurance, retirement pensions, unemployment benefits, and more recently subsidized housing while keeping a rather high economic growth rate,'' said Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a professor of government and prominent China scholar at the Hong Kong Baptist University.

    ''But 'lay the foundations' is important because a lot remains to be done in terms of reimbursements and coverage,'' Cabestan told NBC News.

    ''Hu has introduced a series of very important concepts such as scientific concept of development, harmonious society, and pro-people approach but has yet to implement them,'' said Bo Zhiyue, expert on China's elite politics at the National University of Singapore.

    Chinese say one child is enough as Beijing weighs end of policy

    Premier Wen represents the ''human face'' of the Chinese communist leadership, according to Li Cheng, a top China scholar of the Brookings Institution.

    ''Some critics may doubt the sincerity of Wen's human face, but it was effective among a vast number of farmers and migrant workers in the country, especially for groups like AIDS orphans, coal-miners and families of earthquake victims,'' Cheng said in an earlier email interview.

    CNBC's Michelle Caruso-Cabrera reports on China's selection of new leaders to meet public calls for better government and give the economy a boost.

    ''Liberal intellectuals in the country consider Wen as the most important political ally, especially for Wen's long-standing argument for universal values of democracy,'' he added.

    However, recent reports of corruption involving family members and a protege seem to have tarnished both Wen and Hu, with Wen reportedly urging an investigation into alleged hidden family fortunes to clear his name.

    The challenges of Xi Jinping
    China's new leadership to be announced next week promises to be ''the most diversified generation of leaders,'' Cheng said.

    ''This diversity can be found in the leader's educational backgrounds, in their career paths, in their policies and world views,'' he further said.

    Read more China coverage on NBC's Behind The Wall

    And for Xi Jinping, who will head this leadership, maintaining ''delicate balance on several fronts'' will be the key challenge.

    ''How to crack down on the vested interest groups of state-owned companies but not undermine the national competitiveness and lose the support of this key power base of the party? How to be seen as the top leader who places China's national interests above anything else but at the same time maintain a good personal relationship with the United States? How to satisfy the bureaucratic interests of the military but avoid a military conflict in South China Sea, East China Sea or elsewhere? How to pursue some bold political reforms but not lose control?'' are the tough choices, according to Cheng.

    ''Anti-corruption, clarifying the division of labor between the party and the government, and establishing the rule of law'' are the top challenges, according to Zhiyue.

    Read more World news on NBCNews.com

    Cabestan however cited ''regime legitimacy after the avalanche of corruption scandals'' as a major issue.

    Xi has to deal with a ''plutocratic bureaucratic elite increasingly entrenched in its vested interests.''

    ''He will need to reform in order to consolidate and save the regime but at the same time he will have to overcome huge obstacles and hurdles to succeed. A kind of mission impossible,'' Cabestan warned.

    NBC Researchers Johanna Armstrong and Liu Yanzhou contributed to this report. 

    More world stories from NBC News:

    Follow World News from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook

  • Chinese say one child is enough as Beijing weighs end of policy

    By Ed Flanagan, NBC News

    BEIJING – Liu Jie remembers clearly when her mother violated China's one-child policy and gave birth to her little brother. The family was living in Hunan province, where her mother worked as a teacher, and the illegal addition to the family cost her mother the job.

    Now 23 and working as a secretary in Beijing, Liu fully supports doing away with the country's controversial one-child policy – an argument that has been gaining ground thanks to China's increasingly grim population trends.

    In a report released this week, the China Development Research Foundation, a high-level government think tank, recommended that a two-child policy be instituted in some provinces this year and a nationwide two-child policy be made law in 2015, with all birth limits eliminated by 2020.

    Chinese government think tank urges end to unpopular one-child policy

    "It's a great idea," Liu said. "It will help to solve some social problems, cultivate children's character and improve the treatment of the elderly."

    But when asked if she would want to have more than one child, Liu quickly responded, "Oh no, I will only have one baby!"

    "Raising children isn't easy and I don't think I'll have enough money for two children… if I have two, my quality of life would be worse," Liu said.


    Hers is a dilemma confronting many Chinese: even if the government repeals the unpopular policy in order to address an approaching demographic time bomb, there are serious questions about whether Chinese families would even be willing to have more than one child in today's economic and social climate.

    The one-child policy has been credited with reducing China's population from anywhere between 100 to 400 million people since its passing in 1979 under then-leader Deng Xiaoping.

    At the same time, a gradual increase in life expectancy on the mainland has created a significant age imbalance waiting to play out: China's population over the age of 60 is expected to more than double from 185 million today to 487 million in 2053, or 35 percent of the population.

    Meanwhile, the 52 percent of the population that will be of working age by then will be expected to support this swollen elderly group as well as the 16 percent of the population that will be children, raising serious questions on how the country will be able to sustain growth.

    Gruesome photos put spotlight on China's one-child policy

    These issues are unlike anything China has faced its thousands of years of history, said Gu Baochang, a professor at Beijing's Renmin University.

    "China has no experience, no understanding, and no preparation for dealing with the new challenges posed by extremely low fertility, serious aging, speeding urbanization and wide spread of population," Gu warned.

    Thinking twice
    Amongst China's young population – the group that will be expected to carry this tremendous financial burden – there is general support for the elimination of the draconian policy they grew up with. But it doesn't mean that they are any more willing to have more children.

    With soaring inflation on everyday goods and astronomical home prices in many of China's cities, everyday Chinese are taking a closer look at the daunting costs of child-rearing and other modern societal pressures and are thinking twice about having another child.

    For Gong Leilei, a 32-year-old from Zhejiang, it's simply a question of money. Gong and his wife want a little sister for their six-year old son but have been reluctant to try.

    "I wanted to have a daughter, but my wife does not want her now," Gong said. "She thinks we should wait until we have more money."

    Joyce Li, a 38-year old program director at Beijing University, agreed that it's time for the one-child policy to go. "Right now the one-child policy has a lot of problems like the issue of taking care of the elderly… so it's necessary to change the one-child policy," Li said.

    Read more China coverage on NBC's Behind The Wall

    Still, when asked whether she would have two children, she balked. "Right now raising a child in China is very expensive, so I don't think I have enough money for many children," she said.

    "There are also other problems, like the issue of education," Li continued, "Right now it is very hard to get children into school."

    The growing number of migrants moving into China's cities concerns some. Chen Chi, a 22-year old university student in Beijing, said he actually supported the one-child policy and worried about the burdens of a growing population.

    "No, it's not a good idea to remove the one-child policy," Chen told NBC News. "The population is too high and more and more people will move to urban areas to have children, making the urban-rural population balance even worse."

    As for children: "I will only have one baby," he said. "It is an economic decision."

    New leadership, new policy?
    Despite all the hubbub about the report calling for the end of the one-child policy, the odds are deeply stacked against any rapid movement in the direction of an easing of the law. China's ruling Communist Party today is heavily consensus-driven and the report released this week will likely be mediated on for some time before the Party's legislative gears begin moving.

    That the report was issued and publicized in local Chinese media at all, however, suggests that Beijing is receptive to the idea of discussing the policy's abolition. Ultimately, if party leaders believe that removing the one-child policy is in the best interest of maintaining social stability, then change will likely be seen under the new leadership of Xi Jinping, the man expected to take power in China next week.

    Read more World news on NBCNews.com

    But in an email interview with NBC News, Mayling Birney, a scholar at the London School of Economics, warned that while a two-child policy may align now with party priorities, that doesn't mean that there won't be complications that give leaders pause.

    "People may be relieved that the government is relaxing its invasive family planning policy; they may be less likely to encounter tragic stories of coerced abortions; and the worrisome gender imbalance should improve," Birney said.

    "At the same time, more births would create new demands and strain on the education and health systems, well before the new generation could make its contributions to future economic growth," she warned.

    NBC News Le Li, Johanna Armstrong, Yanzhou Liu and Eric Baculinao contributed to this report.

    More world stories from NBC News:

    Follow World News from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook


  • Chinese government think tank urges end to unpopular one-child policy

    Andy Wong / AP

    Chinese families bring their babies to the Ritan Park in Beijing Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2012. A government think tank says China should start phasing out its one-child policy immediately and allow two children for every family by 2015. It remains unclear whether Chinese leaders are ready to take that step.

    By NBC News staff and wire reports

    BEIJING -- A Chinese government think tank is urging the country's leaders to start phasing out its unpopular one-child policy immediately and allow two children for every family in the country by 2015.

    Some demographers saw the timeline put forward by the China Development Research Foundation, which is close to the central leadership, as a bold move. Others warned that the gradual approach, if implemented, would be insufficient to help correct the problems that China's strict birth limits have created.

    Xie Meng, a press officer with the foundation, said the final version of its report would be released "in a week or two," but Chinese state media were given advance copies.

    The official Xinhua News Agency said the foundation was recommending a two-child policy in some provinces from this year and a nationwide two-child policy by 2015. It also proposed all birth limits be dropped by 2020.

    "China has paid a huge political and social cost for the policy, as it has resulted in social conflict, high administrative costs and led indirectly to a long-term gender imbalance at birth," Xinhua said, citing the report.

    The foundation's press officer told NBC News that the report was "the result of two years of effort." 

    "China's demographic changes were analyzed in connection with seven areas," she said, citing the challenges of aging, unemployment, child and women's welfare, urbanization, education, health and family planning.

    But it remains unclear whether Chinese leaders are ready to take up the recommendations. China's National Population and Family Planning Commission had no immediate comment on the report Wednesday.

    'Change is inevitable'
    While they are known to many as the one-child policy, the actual rules are more complicated. The government limits most urban couples to one child, and allows two children for rural families if their first-born is a girl. There are numerous other exceptions as well, including looser rules for minority families and a two-child limit for parents who are themselves both singletons.

    Cai Yong, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, said the report carries extra weight because the think tank is under the State Council, China's Cabinet. He said he found it remarkable that state-backed demographers were willing to publicly propose such a detailed schedule and plan on how to get rid of China's birth limits.

    Gruesome photos put spotlight on China's one-child policy

    "That tells us at least that policy change is inevitable, it's coming," said Cai, who was not involved in the drafting of the report, but knows many of the experts who were. Cai is currently a visiting scholar at Fudan University in Shanghai. "It's coming, but we cannot predict when exactly it will come."


    Adding to the uncertainty is a once-in-a-decade leadership transition that kicks off Nov. 8 that will see a new slate of top leaders installed by next spring.

    Cai said the transition could keep population reform on the back burner or changes might be rushed through to help burnish the reputations of President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao on their way out.

    There has been growing speculation among Chinese media, experts and ordinary people about whether the government will relax the one-child policy — introduced in 1980 as a temporary measure to curb surging population growth — and allow more people to have two children.

    Though the government credits the policy with preventing hundreds of millions of births and helping lift countless families out of poverty, it is reviled by many ordinary people. The strict limits have led to forced abortions and sterilizations, even though such measures are illegal. Couples who flout the rules face hefty fines, seizure of their property and loss of their jobs.

    Read more international stories on NBCNews.com

    Many demographers argue that the policy has worsened the country's aging crisis by limiting the size of the young labor pool that must support the large baby boom generation as it retires. They also say it has contributed to the imbalanced sex ratio as some families abort baby girls, preferring to try for a male heir.

    The government has recognized those problems and has tried to address them by boosting social services for the elderly. It has also banned sex-selective abortion and rewarded rural families whose only child is a girl.

    Outdated or engine of growth?
    Many today also see the birth limits as outdated, a relic of the era when housing, jobs and food were provided by the state.

    "It has been 30 years since our planned economy was liberalized," commented Wang Yi, the owner of a shop that sells textiles online, under a news report about the foundation's proposal. "So why do we still have to plan our population?"

    Ren Hao, a Chinese journalist who recently married, told NBC that he welcomed the proposed policy change but suggested that it be accompanied by new measures in education, health care and economy in order to succeed.

    Read more China coverage on NBC's Behind The Wall

    "Raising a child is quite a burden nowadays so, in the end, it's up to the couples to decide whether they want to have one child or more based on their conditions," he said.

    Ji Jianming, a Beijing construction project manager, argued in favor of the policy. "The one-child policy was good," he said. "It allowed China to develop rapidly and improve people's lives faster."

    Though open debate about the policy has flourished in state media and on the Internet, leaders have so far expressed a desire to maintain the status quo.

    President Hu said last year that China would keep its strict family planning policy to keep the birth rate low and other officials have said that no changes are expected until at least 2015.

    Wang Feng, director of the Brookings-Tsinghua Center for Public Policy and an expert on China's demographics, contributed research material to the foundation's report, but has yet to see the full text. He said he welcomed the gist of the document that he's seen in state media.

    It says the government "should return the rights of reproduction to the people," he said. "That's very bold."

    But Gu Baochang, a professor of demography at Beijing's Renmin University and a vocal advocate of reform, said the proposed timeline wasn't aggressive enough.

    "They should have reformed this policy ages ago," he said. "It just keeps getting held up, delayed."

    NBC News' Eric Baculinao and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

    More world stories from NBC News:

    Follow World News from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook

     

  • Mystery absence of China's heir-apparent, Xi Jinping, sparks rumors

    Where is China's Vice President? That's the question that can't be answered in Beijing. Even searching for the name of China's Vice President on Chinese social media has been blocked amid increasing rumors about his whereabouts. Xi Jinping has been missing from the public eye for more than week. ITV's Angus Walker reports.  

    By Ed Flanagan, NBC News

    BEIJING -- Weeks before a once-in-a-decade political transition in China, the presumed future leader of China has fallen off the radar -- sparking wild rumors on micro-blogging sites about his health and whereabouts.

    Xi Jinping, the man many assume will become the future president of China and chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, has not been seen in public now for more than a week. The 59-year-old was last seen on Sept. 1 while giving a speech at the Central Party School in Beijing.

    Since then, Xi has cancelled a series of meetings with senior foreign leaders including Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

    After Xi’s meeting with Clinton was cancelled late on the night of Sept. 4, rumors began to swirl around the U.S. press corps travelling with the Secretary that Xi had injured his back.

    The Chinese government has since declined to give any updates on Xi’s health and present whereabouts. At yesterday’s regularly scheduled Chinese Foreign Ministry press conference, ministry spokesman, Hong Lei, was asked a series of questions about Xi to which he simply responded, "We have told everyone everything."

    China Daily via Reuters

    Xi Jinping (right) pictured in Beijing with South Korea's ambassador to China, Lee Kyu-hyung on August 31 - the day before his most recent public appearance.

    According to a Reuters reporter who went to the regular Chinese Foreign Ministry press conference Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei was asked if he could confirm that Xi was alive. His response: "I hope you can ask a serious question."

    China's president-in-waiting Xi Jinping returns to Iowa

    The reticence of Chinese government officials and state media to comment has merely served as grist to the rumor mill, which has had ample material following an unusually eventful year of political intrigue on the mainland.

    The very high profile fall of former Chongqing Party boss, Bo Xilai, ripped aside the political curtains and gave the Chinese public a peek at the country’s usually opaque process of governance. Besides systemic corruption and serious political abuses, Bo's downfall also exposed divisive political rivalries at the highest levels of the ruling Communist Party at a time when it was in the thick of choosing its future leadership.

    The Three Gorges Hotel and a passenger terminal come crashing down in China to make room for a transportation hub and business center. NBCNews.com's Dara Brown reports.

    Now, with a new generation of Chinese leaders led by Xi poised to take over when the Communist Party’s 18th Congress meets later this year -- rumored sometime in mid-October -- Chinese regulators are especially cautious about news on their leaders-in-waiting.

    News of Xi Jinping has been absent in recent days in Chinese state media and discussion on his whereabouts and condition have been silenced on microblogs like Weibo after Xi's name was blocked by censors. Some articles printed in online sections of foreign news websites were also apparently blocked.

    In this news vacuum, rumors have begun to swirl around online about the fate of Xi. Most of the speculation focuses on the belief that Xi has some sort of back problem, with the reason for it ranging from a morning swimming session at Beijing leadership’s center, Zhongnanhai, to an ill-fated soccer game there too.    

    With wife's conviction, what is next for China's Bo Xilai?

    The rumors have also been more nefarious in nature. Boxun.com, a U.S.-based website dealing in Chinese news and political gossip, posted a wild, unconfirmed story that Xi had been injured in a car accident in which his vehicle had been struck by another car driven by military officers loyal to the disgraced Bo Xilai.

    Boxun later retracted the story, but it has it not stopped similar unsubstantiated rumors from spreading online, forcing government censors to ceaselessly monitor China’s websphere for content that they characterize as harmful to national stability.

    The wife of a disgraced Chinese politician has been given a suspended death sentence for her role in the death of British businessman, Neil Heywood.  ITV's Angus Walker reports.

    It is not unusual that Chinese leaders would not show up in public for a few days or a week at a time and, of course, Xi could simply appear in public and quickly quash speculation about his health. After all, late last year former Chinese President Jiang Zemin made a rare appearance in public after Hong Kong media speculated that he had died.

    More China coverage from NBCNews.com's Behind The Wall

    However, Jiang, while still extremely influential in the Party leadership, is not a part of the formal government. As the long-established heir-apparent to Hu Jintao for the Chinese Presidency, Xi is the future.

    Whatever the true nature of Xi’s public absence, China’s leadership faces an enormous challenge in reconciling its proclivity for opaqueness with the demands of an increasingly plugged-in society at home and a global audience abroad.

    More world stories from NBC News:

    Follow World News from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook