Liang Jianzhang Huang Wenzheng For decades, China's family planning propaganda has been everywhere. In the early years, various slogans were spread all over urban and rural areas, and even junior middle school textbooks on ideology, morality, geography, history and biology all contained words to promote the necessity of family planning. As a result of this strong propaganda, contemporary China has formed the most paranoid population concept in human history, both vertically and horizontally: in China, too many people have become the knowledge of the whole people, and it is an axiom to control the population to benefit the country and the people. Most people don't realize how far this one-sided thinking is from the normal population concept needed to maintain national reproduction. For example, at present, most people will think that it is enough to let go of the second child, while completely letting go or even encouraging childbearing is considered a very radical suggestion. But in fact, encouraging fertility is something that almost every country with a fertility rate below replacement level is doing, even though the fertility rate in many of them is much higher than that in China. For example, France's fertility rate is lower than the replacement level, but much higher than China's, while France has long encouraged fertility. Up to now, it has won gold medals and national family medals for giving birth to eight children, and there are countless actual policies to encourage fertility. In contrast, in China, even if fertility is strongly encouraged, the fertility rate can hardly be maintained above the replacement level. Therefore, encouraging fertility is not a radical suggestion, but something that must be done to maintain national reproduction. The reason why this proposal makes many people feel radical is precisely because China society has deviated too far from the normal concept of population. Population is the foundation of the nation and the most precious resource of the country. Of course, population is a burden, but it is also a contributor. People are consumers of material wealth before adulthood, creators of wealth after work, and consumers after old age. Generally speaking, people's contribution is greater than consumption, otherwise human society cannot progress. In the first few decades, the sustained low fertility rate will reduce the burden of raising children, which will also bring very limited benefits to economic development, but in the long run, it will lead to the extreme aging and rapid shrinkage of the population, thus bringing more serious disasters to the economy, society and culture. The most surprising thing about the debate about China's population problem is that it is not so much a paranoid concept that only looks at the population from a negative perspective, but rather that the evidence and reasons that support these concepts can't stand scrutiny. Many people are ignorant of some basic facts concerning China's population problem, and their judgments are based on unfounded assumptions. In sharp contrast, they are so convinced of population control. In 1971, China began to implement relatively flexible family planning, and then the fertility rate dropped rapidly, reaching the replacement level by the end of 197s. Although the early family planning policy may be reasonable, the harsh family planning policy since 198 is unnecessary. Most of the extreme population concepts prevailing in China today are related to the latter. Why is it that the biggest nation in the world, which is very clever and has a long history, has been so wrong on the fundamental strategic issue of population for so long? There are at least the following reasons behind this. First of all, although the reasons for supporting birth restriction are untenable in the long run and macro, they are intuitive in the short run and micro. In the reform and opening up, China found itself far behind the developed countries in all aspects, especially in the per capita sense. A large number of educated youth returned to the city and caused short-term employment difficulties, so it is easy to partly blame these problems on the large population. Moreover, after the energy crisis in the 197s, the trend of overpopulation was once popular all over the world, and organizations such as the United Nations Population Fund induced and encouraged developing countries to carry out population control in various ways. This ideological trend, combined with the successful experience of family planning before, will naturally make the idea of strict population control find soil in China. This idea not only affects the decision-making level, but also affects intellectuals in different fields. In particular, some scholars with science and engineering backgrounds, with dreams of strengthening the country, enthusiastically devoted themselves to the research related to population policy. Secondly, the changing law of population itself is a mathematical problem, which is difficult for ordinary people to grasp. At the beginning of the reform and opening-up, it became a common practice to advocate science. Some scholars with scientific background used mathematical models and computers to describe and estimate the internal relationship of population variables, which was refreshing. But the rigor of the model itself is not equal to the rationality of its assumptions and the correctness of its inference. After careful reading of the important articles of that year, it is found that the assumptions of these models are outrageous and the hasty inference is unbelievable. More importantly, it is the influence of population size and structure on economic and social development that determines the direction of population policy. How this kind of influence is a very complicated problem, and the uncertainty of its conclusion far exceeds the laws in natural science, which is beyond the grasp of some scholars with scientific background who have not received strict social science training and have not thought deeply for a long time. However, the achievements of these scholars in this field and the mathematicization and computerization of their methods have cast a scientific aura on their extreme conclusions. Third, the consequences of the population policy have lagged for at least several decades. The first few decades of strict family planning were precisely the period when China's economy was booming because of the reform and opening up. Therefore, it is natural for people to attribute part of their economic achievements to the implementation of the birth restriction policy, although their contribution is negligible from the perspective of normative empirical research. In fact, an objective evaluation of the policy effect requires very standardized academic research, but the role of China academic circles in this respect is very limited. There may be many reasons for this. First, family planning, as a basic national policy, may objectively reduce the discussion space of different viewpoints; Second, there is a lack of effective mechanism within the academic community to make different independent research a scientific basis for decision-making; Third, China's social science research is relatively backward, especially in the early stage, it lacks the ability to conduct in-depth analysis of related issues. Fourthly, China is a country with strong internal homogeneity. Once an idea is formed, it will have great inertia, because when everyone around it believes so much, few people will doubt its rationality. Moreover, China is such a huge country with a long history that people have natural trust in the decision-making at the national level. In the discussion of population issues, many people's first reaction is that there are so many research institutions in China that they must have thoroughly studied the basic national policies. How can they make mistakes? At the beginning of our in-depth study of the population problem, we once had this idea. It was not until I carefully read almost all the important articles before the strict implementation of family planning that I realized that my original ideas were just unfounded. But if you think about it carefully, this phenomenon is not surprising. Because the larger the organization, the greater the challenge the internal information transmission and feedback mechanism faces. When everyone is convinced of something, in the end, it may be just unreasonable, because most of the reasons for believing in it are just that others believe so. Finally, almost all the reasons supporting strict family planning are untenable, even if some arguments are reasonable, they will only be established in the short term. However, when something is too wrong, it is even harder for people to believe that it is wrong. This is because admitting its mistakes means bearing greater intellectual and emotional costs. As for the strict family planning policy, almost all advocates, makers and executors put the interests of the country and the nation first, and sincerely believe that this policy will make a prosperous and powerful China. Behind the implementation of this policy is the great sacrifice of the whole nation, so it is even more difficult for people to accept it emotionally. Such a huge price will eventually bring a declining China. Strict family planning policy has been implemented for more than 3 years, and many people have long forgotten how this policy was initially demonstrated, let alone how rough and absurd the research on which it was based. A high-sounding reason for continuing the birth restriction is that if it is stopped now, the previous efforts will be wasted. In other words, the mistake of strict family planning itself has formed a huge inertia, which is constantly maintaining and strengthening its own existence. In China, when it comes to the formulation of population policy, many people think that it is the responsibility of demographers and the Family Planning Commission, but this is a misunderstanding. Strictly speaking, demography studies the law of population change, that is, the influence of population itself and other variables on population. However, population policy is concerned with the opposite problem, that is, the influence of population on economy, society, national defense, environment and the rise and fall of civilization. These problems are not demography, but the research objects of economics, sociology, national defense strategy, environmental science and history. Population prediction is concerned with population, so it is a typical demographic problem; However, the variables concerned in studying the influence of population size and structure on economic development are economic development, so it is a macroeconomic problem, and population is only a factor here. Therefore, the orientation of population policy is not a question that demographers should or can answer. However, in China, some demographers are entrusted with the responsibility of providing suggestions for the direction of population policy decision-making, which is completely beyond their knowledge and professional scope. In addition, the Family Planning Commission is the functional department to implement the population policy, which can provide reference opinions, but its interests are directly affected by the population policy, so it should be avoided in the decision-making process of the core population policy. The best population policy is to let the decision-making power of childbearing completely belong to the family, provided, of course, that parents know the consequences of their decisions and are willing to bear the consequences. In this regard, China people can be said to belong to the most responsible nation in the world. As for the formulation of macro-population policy in a specific period, we should listen to the opinions of economists, sociologists, historians and social security, national defense, civil affairs and environmental protection departments, not just demographers and family planning commissions. More importantly, although many people of insight in demography and Family Planning Commission have already realized the seriousness of China's population problem and done a lot of useful research work for it, as a whole, they are burdened with heavy historical burdens, which has become the biggest resistance to the rational return of China's population policy. As Demeny of the American Population Council said, once a family planning organization is established, its managers and professionals will form a natural group with a strong will to defend the existence of family planning. Arousing the public's interest in reducing the fertility rate, not just providing services, can be the key reason for its existence for a long time. (Note: This article only represents the author's point of view. Liang Jianzhang is the founder of Ctrip. com, holds a doctorate in economics from Stanford University, and is now a visiting professor at Guanghua School of Management, Peking University. Huang Wenzheng holds a doctorate in biostatistics from Johns Hopkins University, and is now a partner and managing director of a financial company in Beijing. )