NOVEMBER 4, 2015 4:45 PM November 4, 2015 4:45 pm
Fuxian Yi, a medical researcher and father of three who now lives in the United States, said the publication of his book on the mainland was a proud moment.Credit Courtesy of Fuxian Yi
In just six years, Fuxian Yi’s book pleading for an end to the “one child” policy went from banned to promoted by the Chinese government.
The book, “Big Country With an Empty Nest,” a critical look at China’s family-planning policy, was published in Hong Kong in 2007 and promptly banned on the Chinese mainland. But in 2013, a new edition was released by China Development Press, a publisher under the Development Research Center of the Chinese State Council.
Publication of his book on the mainland was a proud moment for Dr. Yi, 46, a medical researcher and father of three who now lives in the United States and says of himself: “I grew up in a big family of seven in the countryside of western Hunan Province. I like big families.”
For years, Dr. Yi said, he has received desperate messages, often on his Weibo account, from women who were unlawfully pregnant, asking what they should do. He said he usually advised them to have the child, despite the potentially severe consequences, like being fired from a state job, as happened to a police officer in Yunnan Province in September. He and his wife, who was eight months pregnant when the family-planning authorities warned them of the penalties they faced, had the child. Private companies stepped in to offer the man a new job.
The shifting fortunes of Dr. Yi’s book have tracked the evolution of China’s family-planning policy, which for decades has been administered, sometimes harshly, by the National Family Planning Commission, now part of the National Health and Family Planning Commission. Its eventual release in the Chinese mainland, by a high-level state publisher, came the same year that China relaxed the restrictions on births, allowing couples where one partner was an only child to have two children.
Still, it remains controversial, reflecting swirling interests in China’s enormous bureaucracy that compete to shape policy.
An edition of “Big Country With an Empty Nest” that has not yet been released.Credit
China Development Press had planned to publish an illustrated “coffee table” version of the book in August, Dr. Yi said, to reach a wider audience, as the state now enters unfamiliar territory — encouraging people to have more children. The larger volume would be “easy to read and easy to understand,” he said in an interview.
But publication has been delayed.
“The National Health and Family Planning Commission wrote a letter of protest to the State Council Development Research Center saying it was a bad book and told them off them for publishing it,” Dr. Yi said.
“But the Development Research Center did not ban my book, just asked me to wait for a while,” he said. “I have been waiting for three months. I think my book can be published soon.”
China Development Press confirmed that publication had been delayed since August.
“We had planned to publish an illustrated version of the book ‘Empty Nest’ this August but decided to delay the plan because the publishing house wanted to further refine it and Mr. Yi also wanted to update relevant content after the two-child policy was announced,” said a spokesman, who declined to give his name. “The publishing house has not pinned down a schedule for publication of the illustrated edition.”
The spokesman did not answer a question as to whether the publisher had come under pressure not to publish the book.
The National Health and Family Planning Commission did not respond to a request for comment.
The book examines “the historical background of China’s family-planning policy; its serious consequences such as the pension crisis, bachelor crisis, human-rights catastrophe; and present prosperity and future economic downturn,” Dr. Yi said.
