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Wall Street Journal reports on the use of family planning methods in China. Since 1980 China has 'encouraged' families to one child, "but left the implementation up to local officials-who often abused their power by carrying out directives with brute force." But after the country paid for Ms. Liu to observe family-planning tactics in Thailand in 1996- change has been occurring in China. Ms. Liu and her colleagues have changed family-planning offices where male officials simply sat behind desks to "wide-open service stations that encourage drop-in visitors". They have thrown out "dense, text-heavy pamphlets on family-planning policy" and replaced them with cartoon characters explaining subjects easier to women with little education. In addition, the article reports on the importance of more than one child to Chinese farmers. While there are still heavy fines for having more than one child, farming communities like Yicheng "have been permitted since 1985 to have two children as long as they space them five years apart." The article continues to report on China's new family-planning reforms.

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