China's one-child policy's human cost fuels calls for reform

Thirty years after it was introduced, the 'transitional policy' endures despite warnings of its punitive effects on China's development To all intents and purposes, Li Xue does not exist. True, she is standing in her parents' one-room home in Beijing, in a Spongebob Squarepants T-shirt and cropped trousers. But with no ID card or household registration, there is no official acknowledgement of her life - apart from a hospital form recording her birth and the fine hanging over her family. "I have ...