BEIJING (AP) - China's leaders announced on Friday the first significant easing of the country's one-child policy in nearly 30 years and moved to abolish an often-abused labor camp system, while vowing some of the most ambitious economic reforms in recent Chinese history.
The long-debated changes to the family planning rules and labor camp system address deeply unpopular programs at a time when the Communist Party feels increasingly alienated from the public.
The extent of the changes surprised some analysts. They were contained in a policy document issued after a four-day meeting of party leaders in Beijing one year after Xi Jinping took the country's helm.
The leaders pledged to open state-owned industries to more competition, improve anti-corruption efforts and make the legal system more fair, while signaling their firm intention to keep the country's one-party system intact.
"It shows the extent to which Xi is leading the agenda, it shows this generation of leaders is able to make decisions," said University of Chicago China expert Dali Yang. "This is someone who's much more decisive, who has the power, and who has been able to maneuver to make the decisions."
Far from sweeping away all family planning rules, the party is now providing a new, limited exemption: It said families in which at least one parent was an only child would be allowed to have a second child. Previously, both parents had to be an only child to qualify for this exemption. Rural couples also are allowed two children if their first-born child is a girl, an exemption allowed in 1984 as part of the last substantive changes to the policy.
Demographers have argued that the population policy has created a looming aging crisis for China by limiting the size of the young labor pool that must support the large baby boom generation as it retires.
"It's great, finally the Chinese government is officially acknowledging the demographic challenges it is facing," said Cai Yong, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
"Although this is, relatively speaking, a small step, I think it's a positive step in the right direction and hope that this will be a transition to a more relaxed policy and eventual return of reproductive freedom to the Chinese people," Cai said.
The Chinese government credits the one-child policy introduced in 1980 with preventing hundreds of millions of births and helping lift countless families out of poverty. But the strict limits have led to forced abortions and sterilizations by local officials, even though such measures are illegal. Couples who flout the rules face hefty fines, seizure of their property and loss of their jobs.
The update on birth limits was one sentence long, with details on implementation left to the country's family planning commission. It was unclear what might happen to children born in violation of rules, whose existence have been concealed and thus lack access to services.
Cai said some experts estimate that the policy change might result in 1 million to 2 million extra births in the first few years. But he said the figure might be significantly lower because of growing acceptance of small families.
Last year, a government think tank urged China's leaders to start phasing out the policy and allow two children for every family by 2015, saying the country had paid a "huge political and social cost."