Article
Discourse and Justification on the Two-Child Policy in People’s Daily and the Changes of Biopolitics in China
2023 Volume 73 Issue 4 Pages 418-434
Details
2023 Volume 73 Issue 4 Pages 418-434
China has alleviated its one-child policy since 2013, officially discarding it when the government allowed couples to have two children in 2016. To elucidate how the state regulates people’s reproduction and life through biopolitics and what has changed nowadays, this article analyzes the discourse about the number of siblings in the state-controlled newspaper People’s Daily.
During the one-child policy period, those who spontaneously obeyed the policy and had only one child were seen as “models” that people should follow. Their only child was regarded as particularly excellent and given preferential treatments; however, their spontaneity merely meant that the subject should obey the government’s policies without any resistance.
When the one-child policy began to be alleviated in 2013, People’s Daily introduced the necessity of the policy change by emphasizing new population problems, such as the decrease of labor force, aging populations, and its damage to society and economy. It also accentuated that it was desirable for the policy’s target citizens to have two children. After the two-child policy, however, the discourse in People’s Daily focused on individuals’ real opinions and demands. For example, some argued that many practical issues in daily life led to a decline in the fertility rate, even if people had high fertility intentions, and that the state should take specific measures to address these issues.
The change from the emphasis on public interests, such as new population problems, to the respect for the substantive demands of individuals and their reproductive autonomy occurred when People’s Daily justified the two-child policy as less direct coercive intervention in people’s bodies and a reduction of its attempts to construct submissive subjects; instead, it viewed the policy as a mature form of biopolitics that takes care of people’s minds, constructing subjects willing to govern themselves.
