After nearly 30 years of efforts, China has successfully found its own way to have an integrated approach to the population issue with its own national characteristics. A system of regulating and adjusting the population growth with a proper family planning program management has gradually come into being. This is a system in keeping with market economy. China's population and development program has achieved universally acknowledged success. The citizens' rights to subsistence and development and their rights in the socio-economic and cultural fields have been notably improved. //

The excessive population growth has been brought under effective control. The birth rate and natural growth rate decreased from 33.43‰ and 25.83‰ in 1970 to 15.23‰ and 8.77‰ in 1999 respectively. The total fertility rate of Chinese women went below the replacement level, making China one of the countries with a low fertility level in the world. //

When economically still underdeveloped, China has accomplished a historic transition in population reproduction pattern from one featuring high birth rate, low death rate and high growth rate to one featuring low birth rate, low death rate and low growth rate in a relatively short period of time, a change that took decades or even up to a hundred years for developed countries to realize in the past.

Great achievements have been made in various social undertakings such as education and public health. By the end of 2000, a nine-year compulsory education has been made universal by and large, and illiteracy among young and middle-aged people has been basically eliminated. On the average, the number of college students for every 10,000 people increased from 8.9 in 1978 to 32.8 in 1999. //

On the whole everybody has access to primary health care service. The maternal mortality rate has plummeted from 94.7 per 100,000 in 1990 to 56.2 per 100,000 in 1998. The hospitalized delivery rate reached over 66.8% in 1999. The average life expectancy increased to 71 years, the same as in medium-level developed countries. //