Less is not necessarily more

On Thursday evening, I was spending some quality time with a few friends at a bar near the China Daily office. Just as my drink arrived, I got a call asking me to rush back to the office and write a story about the central government announcing a new family planning policy.

I quickly proposed a toast to celebrate the overdue change that had made my generation the first to be born under the policy and, probably, the first to have children under its successor.

Nearly 40 years ago, as China embraced the milestone economic reform and opening-up policy, the family planning rules to restrict most couples to just one child was introduced to curb rapid population growth.