Hong Kong reverts to Chinese rule but won't introduce China's strict birth-control policies.

When Hong Kong reverted to Chinese rule July 1, women living in the former British colony continued to decide for themselves how many children they will have. In mainland China, meanwhile, the government continued to decide for them. These different approaches to birth control, which are to be enshrined under China’s “one-country, two-systems” policy, reflect the different economic and cultural influences that have shaped the world’s most populous country and its tiny capitalist powerhouse. Hong Kong already has one of the lowest birth rates in the world — 11.9:1000 — without any state intervention. China, which limits urban couples to 1 child, has a birth rate of 12.9:1000, down from 33.4:1000 in 1970. Forty years ago big families were common in Hong Kong, but the size has shrunk as the territory’s economy soared. A “Two is Enough” campaign initiated in 1975 urged residents to practise family planning. “The changes in the demographic picture are in line with Hong Kong moving from an early fishing village to industrialization to a cosmopolitan city,” said Dr. Susan Fan, executive director of Hong Kong’s Family Planning Association. In Hong Kong, condoms are on display by the 7-Eleven cash registers and birth-control pills are sold over-the-counter in pharmacies. The population problems of the colossus to the north are of a different magnitude. China must feed 22% of the world’s population on just 7% of the world’s arable land. Its population has more than doubled since 1953 and hit 1.2 billion in 1995, a target the government had hoped to delay until 2000. With the population increasing by 14 million annually, Chinese officials have set a new goal of holding the population to 1.3 billion by 2000, and 1.4 billion by 2010. China introduced its tough family-planning policy in the late 1970s as its population raced toward 1 billion after 2 decades of promotion of big families.