The Chinese Communist Party’s top leadership emerged from a four-day-long meeting on Oct. 29, where it was supposed to chart a bold course of vigorous reform for China’s troubled economy, to see it grow through the next five years.
But the highest profile outcome of that meeting, the Communist Party’s Fifth Plenum, was a stated policy change that would take at least 20 years to bear any economic fruit—turning the infamous one-child policy into a two-child policy.
“China to abandon decades long One-Child Policy,” Party news agency Xinhua posted on Twitter (which is banned in China). “All Chinese couples will be allowed to have two children.”
State-run media said that the relaxation of birth control policies will alter China’s imbalanced demographic and improve the jittery economy in the short and long term. State media also defended the Party’s policy of population control.
