Chinese Police Sent in as Birth Control Officials, Residents Clash

HONG KONG (September 7, 1997 02:15 a.m. EDT) - Clashes have erupted between residents and birth control officials in the southern Chinese city of Gaozhou over fines imposed for breaking the country's draconian one-child policy, a report here said Sunday.

About 1,000 police and paramilitary officers were rushed to the city to quell the clashes which left one official with internal bleeding, the report in the independent Ming Pao daily said quoting sources.

The trouble flared in a swoop on the city's Zhaojiang county to check for families with more than one child and to ensure women had been sterilised or fitted with intra-uterine contraceptive devices (IUDs), the paper said.

Three men were arrested when they tried to warn residents of the officials' arrival.

China's one-child policy, brought in in the late 1970s, is strictly enforced with penalties of heavy fines. Chinese authorities argued tough compulsory birth control was the only effective way to curb excessive population growth.

Many residents in Gaozhou were also angry at the death of a 26-year-old woman after she was forced to have an IUD fitted, the report added.

Another woman, aged 40, had to pay 10 yuan ($1.20) for a medical examination to check whether she had either been sterilized or had an IUD fited, it said.

Some 1,000 police, including members of the paramilitary People's Armed Police, were despatched to restore order, the report said, adding the situation remained tense though residents had been calmed when all the fines were refunded.

Birth control officials were prevented from leaving the area by residents at one stage, it said.

The report did not say when the clashes broke out or give further details.

The penalties for those deliberately or accidentally flouting the policy range from psychological pressure to heavy fines, which can be as high as 50, 000 yuan ($6,024) -- which represents 13 times the average per capita income.

Official figures released in April this year showed the population of China stood at 1.23 billion, or a fifth of the world's population.

Continued enforcement of birth control should allow the population to level out at around 1.6 billion by the middle of next century, according to Chinese estimates.

Under the policy, the age of marriage as well as the timing and number of children for every couple is strictly controlled, with rural couples normally allowed two children and urban couples allowed one.

Amnesty International has said previously that "it is concerned at reports that forced abortion or sterilization have been carried out ... against women who are detained, restricted or forcibly taken from their homes to have the operation."

"Such actions amount to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees or restricted persons by government officials," it said in a report.

While Beijing concedes that forced abortions and sterilizations are sometimes performed, it insists this is not policy but the work of overzealous officials.

It did admit however in an August 1995 White Paper to specific problems such as a "high sex ratio" -- having more boys to girls.

In 1990 there were 113.8 male births for every 100 females, higher than the natural ratio of 106 to 100.

In 1995 a retired doctor was sentenced to four years in prison for helping pregnant women identify female foetuses. Eight of the 10 women he provided ultra-sound tests for, aborted when being told they were carrying girls, according to a Chinese media report.