Monks without a temple

摘要

For more than three decades the bureaucrats who enforce China's one-child policy have been among the most ubiquitous, and the most despised, in the country. They are now to lose much of their power, after a government reshuffle announced on March 10th. The question is whether this is the beginning of the end of the one-child policy itself. The news came at a session of the National People's Congress, the nation's legislature, which is due to end on March 17th, and was used by the government to announce other ministerial mergers. The Ministry of Railways, which builds and regulates the country's railways, is being divided, and some of its powers folded into a larger Ministry of Transport.