A: China is a dense-populated country with limited resources. In order to balance the population growth with economic and social development and limited resources, the Chinese government has family planning as one of its basic policies, whose implementation is based on the guidance of the state and the free will of the masses. It plays a big role in controlling population growth and improving the quality of life of the people.
However, China operates a special family planning policy for Tibetan people, which is worked out by the local government of Tibet in line with the actual situation of the region concerned. At present 88 percent of Tibetan farmers and herdsmen are not subject to the family planning policy, but are encouraged to practice birth control in order to give their children a better quality of life. There are actually very few usable land resources on the vast Tibet Plateau. In 1991 the per capita arable land was only 0.1 hectare in Tibet, while the population continued to swell. In view of this situation, the government of Tibet Autonomous Region has, since 1984, advocated a family planning policy among Tibetan officials, encouraging each couple to have one to two children over several years' span. But there is no restriction on the number of children in Tibetan farming and herdsmen's families. Forced abortion in any form is prohibited in implementing the family planning policy. In addition, birth control propaganda has not even found its way into the sparsely populated frontier regions of Tibet.