Not a day passes when Zhang Hua doesn't think of his son. He dreams of bringing him to school, of playing football with him in the park and of growing old secure in the knowledge that there is someone to carry on the family name. But Zhang Hua never got to meet his son. And his son never got the chance to draw his first breath.
Two years ago, Zhang's wife, Yang, discovered she was pregnant. The couple, in their mid-30s, already had a 13-year-old daughter. Had the pregnancy continued, they would have breached China's controversial one-child policy.
The couple had an ultrasound test and discovered the baby was a boy. They weighed up the risk of breaking the rules and having their second child against the penalties they would face. The law won: 14 weeks into the pregnancy, Yang had an abortion.
Zhang's eyes fill with tears as he relates the story. "It was a great tragedy in our family. We told our daughter, and she was very sad that she could not have a little brother."
Despite the deep sorrow evident two years later, Zhang is philosophical about what happened. "If we had gone ahead and had the baby, our daughter would have suffered. We would not have been entitled to certain grants for her education. She would have been victimised. Because we only have one child to support, we will be able to give her a better life. For example, we hope she goes abroad to university some day. That would not be possible if we had two children."
Like everybody else in China you talk to, Zhang and his wife accept the one-child policy. "It is not like Ireland. We need to control our huge population. That is the way it is, and for our country it is best," says Zhang. But it does not stop him from dreaming of what might have been.
After the establishment of the People's Republic in 1949, China experienced one of the most dramatic population increases in history. Between 1952 and 1975, the population nearly doubled, to 934 million. The increase was a result of Mao Zedong's wanting mothers to produce more soldiers for the nation. He was also obsessed with the notion of harnessing the power of an enormous population to achieve social and economic transformation.
It wasn't until the 1970s that concern developed about the population explosion. The average number of children per woman was then six. China's leaders decided the population had to be controlled. In 1979, to coincide with Deng Xiaoping's economic-reform package, the government introduced its policy of one child per family.
The State Family Planning Commission oversees the policy, its tentacles reaching into every town and village across this vast country. According to Chen Shengli, the director-general of the commission's information, education and communication department, every province is responsible for implementing the policy, although rules vary, depending on where you live.
In some areas, they are still very strict. Many provinces still have people who, in effect, operate as "womb police" who chart a woman's menstrual cycle on public bulletin boards. Before conceiving, she has to apply for a birth permit.
A month after the birth, the mother is fitted with an intra-uterine device to prevent further pregnancies. Any woman who dares to have an "out-of-plan" second child is sterilised.
Those who breach the rule face heavy fines. There have been reports of officials tearing down the homes of some families. Some people have even lost their lives.
Shengli confirms a case that Amnesty International highlighted last month in a report on human-rights abuses. A 30-yearold farm worker from Yunnan province died after being hung upside down, whipped, burned and sexually mutilated because he would not reveal the whereabouts of his wife, whom the authorities suspected of being pregnant without permission.
Shengli says the commission condemns this severe - and, he says, rare - punishment. "The deputy director of the county in question was jailed for 10 years. The dean of the county was jailed for seven years, and the deputy dean was jailed for three years. This is not a regular happening."
THE single-child policy strikes hardest in the countryside, preventing parents from having a son to carry on the family name and work the land. Peasants also feel more secure with several children. But many ignore the policy. The result is thousands of peasant children who don't officially exist.
Last December, local press reported that farmers in a village in the southern province of Guangdong attacked local government offices, destroying furniture and tearing up birth-control records to protest at the one-child policy.
One of the worst consequences of China's approach to population control is the lesser value it puts on girls compared with boys, especially in rural areas. There have been reports of mothers forced to abort babies, and even of some who have had their children killed in front of them. A frightening number of baby girls are simply "lost", and thousands have ended up in orphanages all over the country.
The image of a new-born girl lying dead in the gutter of a rural town in Hunan province, in east central China, in
February, sparked an international storm. A series of photographs published in the British press told the horrific story. The lifeless infant was left for almost four hours in broad daylight while passers-by ignored her on their way to work.
The pictures showed one man repairing his bicycle three feet from where the baby lay. Another person stood over the body and rested his walking stick on it before shuffling past.
Shengli says he has heard of the says. But he does not accept it is a consequence of the one-child policy. "This has nothing to do with family planning," he insists.
He acknowledges it is extremely important for Chinese families, especially in rural areas, to have a boy. "If they don't, it is a terrible disaster for them."
The priority to have boys was reflected in figures released this month by China's National Bureau of Statistics. They showed that for every 117 boys born in China in 1999, only 100 girls were born. The 1990 figures showed that for every 113 boys born in China, 100 females were born.
Zhu Zhixin, the bureau's director, says the ratio could be due in part to illegal "sex selection", when couples have scans to determine the sex of their babies. If they are girls, the women have abortions and hope then to conceive boys.
The success of the one-child policy in restricting the population has created room for flexibility on the rules in some provinces. Without the policy, it is thought China would have added another 300 million to its population. Fertility rates have dropped from the 1970 average of almost six children per woman to about two. Based on current trends, demographers predict China's population will start to drop in about 2040.