Family Planning
When Mei and Guo were asked how many children they are planning to have in the future, their answer was two. Due to their special status in China, ethnic minorities are exempt from the one-child policy, a policy implemented by the Chinese state which is in force since 1979 to reduce Chinas population. The policy was perceived as a soft (huai rou) policy employed by the Chinese state in order to mitigate the fear of minorities to assimilate into Han mainstream by reducing their population. Besides being exempted from the one-child policy, ethnic minorities also enjoy a series of privileges which are not granted to Han.
In the 1980s, the Chinese government has decided that the minorities should also adopt the one-child policy and the minorities have been encouraged to reduce their family size as well. Thus in 1984, an amended policy ruled that the ethnic minorities are also subject to one-child policy but with more relaxed terms. They are allowed to have more than one child but not more than four (Heberer 81).
Chinese state intervention in birth control became a controversial matter as it involves moral issues such as induced abortion, forced sterilization. Some religions carry strict anti-contraceptive belief and birth control issue weighs heavily in some countries. From certain religious point of view, birth control is viewed as a violation of morality.
As far as the Islamic tradition is concerned, there is no indication that Islam would condemn contraception in the context of family planning. On the contrary, as Liu suggested, scholars found reference in the Islamic tradition that few children will bring prosperity, but many are a factor leading to poverty (427). As such, the Islamic tradition favours small size family as well. Moreover, ahong are always regarded as the most powerful members of the Hui community in Ningxia and it is essential to gain support from the Islamic religious leaders if the state wants to implement a policy and to achieve effective results. Therefore, the Chinese state has used mosques and ahongs to propagate the one-child policy and the Islamic community in China did not show any outright opposition to the policy. Hui believe that population control is necessary for Chinas economic reform and are quite supportive to the family planning campaign (Gladney 237, Mackerras 126).
In contrast with the situation in 1950s and 1960s when marriages and families in Ningxia were characterized by early marriage, early childbearing and large family size, nowadays, most of the Hui in the city have only one child even though they are allowed to have two children. However, in the more conservative regions where traditional belief is still very strong, some imams tried to oppose the one-child policy (Mackerras 120).
