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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 February 2009
This is a report on some aspects of the publicity activities of the “planned fertility” (chi-hua sheng-yu) campaign in parts of Kwangtung Province. I shall make special reference to three rural communes, namely, Huan-ch'eng (population: 59,000) of Hsin-hui Hsien, Ta-li (population: 68,000) of Nan-hai Hsien, and Ch'ang-sha (population: 59,500) of K'ai-p'ing Hsien, each of which I visited in December 1976 as a member of the research team of the Social Research Centre of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Based on personal observations and conversation with various individuals during that trip, including officials and ordinary peasants, I propose to describe in some detail the ways in which the principles of planned fertility are transmitted to the masses.
1. The Social Research Centre is undertaking a project, started in 1976, to study the role of the people's communes in the social and economic development of China. It is supported by a special grant from the Trustees of Lingnan University. Professor C. K. Yang of the Sociology Department of Pittsburgh University has rendered valuable intellectual guidance and various supportive efforts to the research team at the Social Research Centre of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. In 1976–77 the project was conducted under the leadership and co-ordination of Mr S. L. Wong, senior lecturer in sociology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong until 1977, without whose encouragement, experience, and commitment the field trip in December 1976 and the many tasks in implementing the project would not have been accomplished. Apart from the three communes, the research team also visited the following cities: K'ai-p'ing, Hsin-hui, Chiang-men, Fo-shan and Kwangchow.
2. Hsiang-yang, Han, Chi-hua sheng-yü chih-shih wen-ta (Questions and Answers Concerning Knowledge of Planned Fertility) (Peking: Jen-min wei-sheng ch'u-pan she. Second edit. 1974), pp. 1–2Google Scholar.
3. For a recent account of women's role in “supporting half of heaven” in China, see Burchett, Wilfred with Alley, Rewi, China: The Quality of Life (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1976)Google Scholar, Ch. 5.
4. For a description of planned fertility committees at various regional levels, see Chen, Pi-chao, Population and Health Policy in the People's Republic of China (Washington, D.C.: Interdisciplinary Communications Program, Smithsonian Institution, 1976), pp. 85–87Google Scholar.
5. No figures of birth targets were mentioned or obtainable in this particular field trip. In Chen's report, it is indicated that the target birth rate typically aimed at by a commune is something like 22 per thousand, which would serve as a non-binding guideline. See Chen, Pi-chao, Population and Health, p. 95Google Scholar.