China has denied reports circulated last week in the Western media (Reuters and the Guardian, among others) that China is considering scrapping the one-child policy, according to a domestic newspaper. Beijing News has reported that "[n]ews of abandoning the one-child policy is inconsistent with the facts", quoting the National Population and Family Planning Commission describing the reports as “incorrect”. Beijing News, and the Yangcheng Evening News, another state-run newspaper, said that "China will continue to pursue even better its population and family planning policy." [Reuters, 2 March] SPUC warned last week that Western media outlets had misinterpreted misleading comments by Zhao Baige, China's minister in charge of the policy. [SPUC, 28 February] Anthony Ozimic, SPUC political secretary, comments: "The Chinese Communist regime has played its old trick of soft-talking to the Western media, whilst tough-talking to its oppressed citizens, and yet again the Western media fell for it. Journalists should question the words of a regime that has ordered the killing of millions of unborn children and the torture of their mothers."
