Official hints China may relax one-child policy in future

Since 1979, an estimated 400 million births have been stopped in China due to the state's one-child policy. As a result, the country is growing and looking older with every day that passes.

Xie Lingli, the Shanghai family planning official, hinted the policy controlling China's population could be abandoned in the near future. Lingli was quoted as saying, "young couples should have more babies because the city was growing old," the Times online reports. The official's statement caused a fury of comments and people are now asking whether this means the government is rethinking the policy. Lingli, however, retaliated saying he had not deviated from the party line. China's population has reached 1.3 billion and is expected to continuously increase for years to come. However, according to Barbara Pillsbury, an expert on population control, she expects India to have a population of 1.5 billion people compared to China's 1.42 billion by 2040.