<論文>計画出産の推進・緩和からみる現代中国社会における生政治の実践と変貌 --家族計画の系譜と国際比較を通して--

Abstract

With a declining birthrate, an aging population, and a labor shortage all becoming increasingly serious, China gradually relaxed its “one-child policy” in the 2010s and, in 2016, a “two-child policy” was put in place. Since May 31, 2021, all couples have been allowed to have a third child. Intervention in an individual’s reproduction and control over their own body can be considered an embodiment of Foucault’s concept of “biopolitics”, and China shows an extreme example of this as it has been practicing a long-term birth control and family planning campaign, prescribed by law. Previous studies have examined the concept of biopolitics, but there has been insufficient discussion of how biopolitics is represented in Chinese society. This paper elucidates the characteristics of biopolitics and its transformation in China, comparing family planning in China with other East Asian countries, especially Japan. In Japan, the nationalization of family planning and the legalization of abortion in the 1950s brought about a decline in the overall fertility rate as women were given increased access to family planning and birth control and voluntarily reduced the number of children they had. In the early days of family planning, the state was directly involved but reproduction gradually became a private matter for most people. In other words, the prevalent form of “biopolitics” involved simply acknowledging and accommodating the desires of the majority of people. In addition, the abolition of restrictions regarding reproduction expanded the scope of biopolitics. In China, however, these characteristics of biopolitics only came to the fore after the relaxation of family planning. During the “one-child policy” period, “biopolitics” was characterized less by “at will” desire than by the “disciplinary power” that strongly regulated the reproduction of individuals. The state monitored and controlled the bodies and reproduction of women not only through state centralized policies, but also through the promotion of policies passed down to the grassroots level by local cadres. In this case, individuals were expected to be “submissive subjects” who simply accepted the state policies as they were and regulated their own reproduction accordingly. However, during the “two-child policy” period, policy promotion in local communities shifted from coercive indoctrination by cadres to encouraging residents to comply voluntarily by providing services, information, and organizing games and events that were easy to participate in. Individuals became actors with the freedom to choose whether or not to participate. Also, during this period, there was increased emphasis on influencing people’s reproductive choices indirectly by intervening in the environment around them, such as by constructing public representations of the “happy 4-person family”. In other words, emphasis on the disciplinary power of “biopolitics” is decreasing, with people now being increasingly left to make their own reproductive decisions.