Chinese women have taken to social media platform Weibo to air their grievances against the Chinese government for “using female bodies” to advance population control measures, alleging that the female body has become a “tool” for the government, reported news agency ANI on Monday. 

China did away with the repressive ‘one child policy’ in 2015 and replaced it with the ‘two child policy’, which was then replaced with the controversial ‘three child policy’ in 2021, after census data showed China’s population growth slipping to its slowest rate since the 1950s. The ruling Communist Party of China heralded the 2021 relaxation as a major milestone but women were wary it would only exacerbate the existing inequalities.

Chinese citizens took to Weibo a day after this policy change was announced on May 31, complaining of rising education expenses, long work hours, lack of access to proper child care services, and sky high real estate prices. The Chinese government promised to help families with child care and education costs but so far little has been done in this regard.

“Our government is very good at empty talk,” Lu Pin, a Chinese feminist activist told the New York Times after the three child policy was released, adding that “It’s meaningless to just look at a few things they said.”

The Chinese President Xi Jinping has however tried to make good of his party’s promise by dealing a lethal blow to the Chinese online tutoring industry by imposing a ban on for-profit tutoring, in a bid to reduce education cost for parents who spend their last penny into getting their children ready for highly competitive Chinese universities.

CCP has also initiated bans on online gaming and restricted the amount of time children can spend playing video games to three hours, and banned online celebrity fan clubs. All these moves, critics opine, belong to the ‘Xi Jinping school of thought’ which aims to impose stricter control on Chinese social life.