China’s One Child Left Behind

Then there are the celebrities and the superrich who arrange to have their extra births in foreign countries like Canada. A more popular (and less expensive) tactic among the well-to-do is to deliver in Hong Kong, as Xiao plans to do, since kids born there don't violate the mainland law. To discourage the cross-border baby boom, Hong Kong authorities now require mainlanders to prebook hospital beds and pay in advance. But couples like the Xiaos happily shoulder the expense, which in their case totaled more than $4,000. He claims he and his wife never felt much pressure to conform to the law.

What makes all this awkward for the regime is the link between extra kids, rich, crooked cadres, and concubines. Last year, a study by Chinese prosecutors concluded 95 percent of corrupt officials had mistresses; one of the most senior was National Statistics Bureau head Qiu Xiaohua, who reportedly bankrolled a mistress and an illegitimate daughter using money from the Shanghai pension fund. The case fueled public perceptions that having extra kids has become a new form of corruption. Resentment has been further inflamed by the fact that, while urban enforcement is increasingly lax, many rural Chinese still complain of harsh and extra-legal sanctions. To compensate, authorities have warned that entertainers who break family planning rules may be publicly "outed"—or even barred from winning awards. And regional officials are upping the ante; in Hunan, for example, the provincial parliament is considering raising the fine to as much as eight times the average per capita income, or roughly $12,000. Authorities in Henan and Zhejiang provinces are also discussing harsher punishments.

Yet authorities need to move delicately. Though ordinary citizens resent the privileged few who can enjoy extra children, they're quick to take to the streets if the rules are enforced too strictly among their own ranks. In the 1980s, Beijing was heavily criticized at home and abroad for using forced abortions—sometimes in the last trimester—to enforce family planning laws. While that practice has diminished (though not disappeared), other heavy-handed tactics remain in use in the hinterland. Last May, riots exploded in rural Guangxi province after local officials began forcibly confiscating the property of families who had borne extra children. And in one Hunan county, cadres abducted a dozen unregistered children (some of them adopted) and demanded that their parents pay "fees"—more like ransoms—for their release. Among such families, gossip about Zhang Bin is likely to stir up volatile emotions. Neither he nor his wife nor his alleged mistress has commented on the rumored pregnancies, but the larger issue won't go away. Signs are that as more Chinese grow rich enough to violate the one-child rule, more of them will.

With Jonathan Ansfield in Beijing and bureau reports

© 2008