SW News: In what is seen as a sharp departure from national policy, the Chinese government has announced a three-child policy. The Communist government was forced to alter its stand and allow couples to have up to three children amid a sharp fall in the birth rate.

The policy shift was announced on May 31 following a Politbureau meeting chaired by President Xi Jinping. According to state-controlled news agency Xinhua, the government took this decision to ensure sustained economic growth, national security and social stability.

Earlier in May, the National Bureau of Statistics had said there were 12 million births in 2020, the lowest figure since the 1960s. From 1980 to 2016, the government had brutally enforced a one-child policy through forced sterilizations, abortions and hefty fines.

The Catholic Church has always opposed such steps and Pope Paul VI had spoken out against it in his 1967 encyclical Populorum Progressio. The Holy Father had then said that when the inalienable right of marriage and procreation is taken away, human dignity vanishes.

When there were concerns that the population of the country was ageing rapidly, China replaced its one-child policy with a two-child policy, triggering a brief baby boom. However, it failed to achieve the desired results causing a dip in birth rates.