China’s One Child Left Behind

It wasn't just the sex. On Dec. 28, at a gala launch of china's state-run TV Olympics coverage, celebrity sportscaster Zhang Bin was confronted by his distraught wife, Hu Ziwei, another well-known newscaster. Before a stunned audience, Hu grabbed the mike and denounced Zhang for having an affair. A short clip soon showed up on YouTube, and Chinese Web sites exploded with gossip, including unconfirmed charges that he'd impregnated both his wife and mistress. Such allegations are doubly controversial in China, for they would make Zhang both an adulterer and the latest in a string of wealthy Chinese officials, entrepreneurs and celebrities to flout the country's famous one-child policy—a wave of resistance that has Beijing anxiously searching for means to bring things back under control.

For 30 years, China has banned most urban couples from having more than one kid. But though the penalties for breaking the rule can be steep—including fines of up to six times a couple's annual income—more and more Chinese are starting to ignore them, because they have either the money or the connections to do so. In Hunan province alone, 1,968 government workers violated the family-planning law between 2000 and 2005, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency.

This phenomenon is yet another sign of China's growing riches. But it's also threatening the viability of the one-child policy and enraging ordinary Chinese, who see it as yet another difference between the haves and have-nots. It's impossible to pinpoint the number of "extra births" which are, after all, clandestine. They may not be statistically significant in such a huge country. "The number of violations [by] the rich and famous is not a lot," says Zhang Weiqiang, a top family-planning official. "But it has a very bad social influence." Liu Dalin—a scholar and curator at a Suzhou museum devoted to the history and sociology of sex in China—says, "This is not just an individual matter; it has created problems for society."

The one-child rule was enacted in 1980 by Paramount Leader Deng Xiaoping as part of his campaign to slow population growth and reduce poverty. Exemptions, some added over the years, include cases of divorce, adoption, marriages between single children (since their progeny will likely have to support four grandparents), and rural citizens, who still comprise more than 60 percent of the population and are allowed a second child if their first is a girl.

With the explosive growth of the private sector and increasing population mobility, compelling couples to limit family size has become harder. Xiao, a successful Beijing real-estate broker who asked not to use his full name to avoid legal repercussions, says enforcement among city-dwellers is now "only really strict for government employees" who risk losing their jobs. Xiao himself already has a daughter but is preparing for the arrival of lao er—"number two"—in April. He says his daughter is always asking 'When will you make me a brother or sister?'"

Urban yuppies like Xiao resort to numerous tactics to skirt the law. Some simply pay the penalty, which can be as high as $130,000. In Shenyang, meanwhile, one entrepreneur paid nearly $20,000 to a surrogate mother to bear him an additional child. Another businessman had children with several wives whom he divorced in turn. And in 2006, one crooked minister in Hainan, Deng Shanhong, was found to have six mistresses—and a child with each.