Morning Briefing

"Chinese officials are fiercely attached to the one-child policy. They attribute to it almost every drop in fertility and every averted birth: some 400m more people, they claim, would have been born without it," an Economist editorial states, adding, "This is patent nonsense. Chinese fertility was falling for decades before the one-child policy took effect in 1979." "Demography is like a supertanker; it takes decades to turn around. It will pose some of China's biggest problems. The old leadership is wedded to the one-child policy, but the new leadership, which is due to take over next year, can think afresh. It should end this abomination as soon as it takes power," the Economist writes (7/21).