China greets newborn as 1.3 billionth citizen in campaign to promote controversial birth limits

BEIJING - Greeted by national television coverage of his first bath, a boy born Thursday was declared China's 1.3 billionth citizen in a blaze of publicity to promote the government's controversial "one child" birth limits.

The eight-pound infant was presented with a certificate of his status following his birth at 12:02 a.m. at Beijing Maternity Hospital. State TV's evening news showed his mother, Lan Hui, a 31-year-old employee of Shell China, receiving a bouquet of flowers and the newborn getting a bath and a massage.

"I am the happiest guy in the world, and my boy will be blessed all his life," the father, Zhang Tong, 37, who works for Air China, told the official Xinhua news agency.

Xinhua didn't say whether the parents had picked a name for the baby, who became the star of a campaign touting what the communist government says are the successes of its decades-old policy limiting most urban couples to one child.

"The family planning policy of the past 30 years has effectively controlled the over-rapid increase of China's population," the official China Daily newspaper said.

The government says that without the policy, China would have at least 200 million more mouths to feed, straining farm, water and other resources. But critics say the plan has led to forced abortions and other abuses.

Foreign experts say China's true population could be hundreds of millions above 1.3 billion because many rural families have unreported children. The one-child limit is also frequently ignored by urban couples who can afford the fines or are desperate for a son to carry on the family name and care for them in old age.

Couples who have unsanctioned children can face heavy fines, the loss of jobs and forced sterilization. But government spokesman deny that women are coerced into having abortions, saying forced abortions aren't sanctioned and officials who carry them out can be punished.