(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-09-14 21:27

Chinese government officials and Communist Party members will be barred from promotion if they have more children than the law allows, according to a circular issued on Friday.

"Obeying the family planning policy will be taken as a fundamental standard for the promotion of cadres, the election of deputies to Party congresses, people's congresses, and political advisors at all levels," read the circular, co-issued by the Organization Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and 10 other departments.

It would also be a criterion for the selection of model workers and other exemplary individuals, according to the circular.

"A supervision mechanism will be established to check the family status of officials and Party members," read the circular.

Local personnel departments are required to record the names of Party members and officials who break the law or are allowed to have a second child in accordance with the policy.

A reward system would be established to encourage the public to report law-breaking Party members and officials, the circular said.

Party members who broke the rules would receive disciplinary punishment as well as fines in accordance with relevant regulations.

China's family planning policy, which encourages late marriage and late child-bearing, limits most urban couples to one child and most rural couples to two, has been credited with preventing more than 400 million births since it was introduced in the late 1970s to curb population growth.

The policy was upgraded to the Population and Family Planning Law in December 2001 at the 25th session of the Ninth National People's Congress, the country's top legislature, and the law came into effect in September 2002.

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