The cycle is changing in China. In a complex context where its once powerful demographic engine is being seized and relations with the West are not going through a very good period, Beijing has decided to suspend its adoption program. It will not allow foreign families to adopt children from the country. The only exception will be for certain relatives. With the announcement, the Xi Jinping government is putting a historic program, which has involved tens of thousands of families from different countries and is closely linked to the already abandoned one-child policy, but has been ineffective in practice since the pandemic.

There are already those who say “it’s the end of an era.”

One decision, many questionsThe person responsible for announcing the measure was Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning: China will no longer allow international adoption of its children. There is only one exception, which applies to foreigners who want to adopt stepchildren or children of blood relatives. The Xinping Government has not yet provided any further details, at least not yet, about the reasons behind its decision, nor, most importantly, how it will be implemented and how it will affect ongoing adoptions.

Guard He assures that Beijing has limited itself to declaring that it will “not continue to process cases at any stage” other than those that have already been authorized. The US State Department said, “We are aware of hundreds of families who have not yet completed their adoptions, and we share their situation.” China would report that the processing of cases related to the travel permits issued to it has been completed, but New York Times He spoke to affected families who did not know how the measure would affect them.

What is the reason? Mao Ning did not go into details. He simply expressed China’s “gratitude” to foreign governments and families for their “love and kindness” and said that Beijing’s current decision was consistent with the philosophy of international conventions. Nothing more. But the suspension of foreign adoptions comes at a particularly sensitive time both at home and abroad.

The flow of international adoptions has been largely suspended since the COVID-19 pandemic, diplomatic relations between Beijing and the West are not at their best, and after years of growth, the Asian giant is facing a complex demographic scenario: the country will lose population by 2023, which is also the second year in a row with data showing a sharp decline in birth rates and an acceleration in population loss.

A reality in numbers. As always, numbers help to better understand the facts. And this is no exception. China has carried out tens of thousands of international adoptions since it gave the green light to raising children abroad in 1992. New York Times It speaks of just over 160,000 children since the early 90s, making it one of the main countries of origin for this type of procedure, at least until before the health crisis.

According to figures compiled by Newcastle University professor Peter Selman, more than 89,000 cases of child abduction were recorded in two dozen different countries between 2004 and 2022 alone. The US stands out as a clear frontrunner among host countries, with families adopting more than 82,600 children from China. The peak was reached in 2005 with almost 8,000.

The overall flow of adoptions in China has slowed in the past few years as the birth rate has slowed and the country has strengthened its disability protection system. TNY says that, based on Chinese authorities’ own data, about 15,000 children were registered for adoption in 2018, a far cry from 44,000 in 2009.

One child policy. Analysts trying to explain Beijing’s latest move are already considering another measure that is equally or even more important: the easing of the one-child policy. The two are closely linked. Beijing adopted the guidelines in the late 1970s amid concerns about demographic growth at the time, which had pushed it close to the one billion population mark and raised doubts about its potential economic impact.

In the 1990s, Beijing went further, tightening rules that had previously allowed parents with more than one child to make arrangements with relatives or other families to “evade” the restrictions. This, they recall, led to: Wall Street JournalThere is more activity in orphanages.

Change of scene. The situation is very different today. In 2023, China recorded about 2.1 million deaths and 9.02 million births, the lowest number since records began. Last year’s balance is also negative because it shows that the demographic “puncture” is accelerating: between 2022 and 2023, the country lost people for the first time since the 1960s, albeit to a lesser extent.

Statista tables also show a significant decrease in the number of orphans in the country: from 570,000 in 2012 to 158,000 two years ago. The new demographic scenario had led Chinese authorities to rethink the one-child policy years ago. Moreover, in 2021, Xi Jinping’s government announced that every couple in the country would be allowed to have a maximum of three children.

The shadow of the epidemic. There is another very important factor. During the pandemic, China suspended international adoptions. Procedures were reopened for cases that were granted travel permission before 2020, but the flow of adoptions was largely suspended after the crisis. The WSJ notes that only 16 Chinese children were adopted in the US last year.

For reference, the State Department said that between October 2022 and September 2023, an American consultant issued only 16 visas for adoption from China, the first time in several years. The system is not without controversy, such as the one that emerged years ago when the existence of a ring that sold babies to six orphanages in Hunan Province was revealed. China tightened its rules in 2007. In Europe, Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands have backed down on adopting children abroad.

“The end of an era”This statement comes from Wang Feng, a sociology professor at the University of California, Irvine, who assured TNYT yesterday that Beijing’s decision was of fundamental importance. “It’s kind of the end of an era and the closure of one of the most shameful chapters of the thirty-five-year social engineering known as the one-child policy,” the expert said. “The Chinese government, there was a problem and then they couldn’t cope with the financial constraints, so they allowed adoption by foreigners as a last resort.”

Images | TE3JMAN (Flickr), Our World in Data

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