Chinese Officials Expel 500 Communist Party Members For Violating One-Child Policy

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Article Date: 10 Jan 2008 - 8:00 PDT

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Officials in China's central Hubei province have expelled 500 people from the Communist Party for violating the country's one-child-per-family policy, state media reported Monday, the Washington Post reports. Seven national or local legislators and policy advisers also were stripped of their political status, and an additional 395 officials lost their jobs.

The one-child policy allows city residents to have one child and rural residents to have two. If both parents are only children or are members of ethnic minorities, they are granted exceptions to the law, the Post reports (Fan, Washington Post, 1/8). According to Hubei officials, 1,678 of the 93,084 people who had more than one child last year were officials or party members, the Wall Street Journal reports (Zamiska, Wall Street Journal, 1/8). Hubei family planning officials have implemented a policy that prohibits for three years residents who violate the policy from government employment, holding elective office or being political advisers, Xinhua/China Daily reports.

"More party members celebrities, and well-off people are violating the policies in recent years, which has undermined social equality," Yang Youwang, director of the province's family planning commission, said (Xinhua/China Daily, 1/7). According to the Journal, expulsion from the party can make it "difficult or impossible" for officials or executives at government companies to receive promotions or stay employed, the Journal reports (Wall Street Journal, 1/8). Wang Yukai, a professor with China's National School of Administration, said gradual changes to family planning policies will "take a long time" (Washington Post, 1/8).

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