Zhang Yimou Investigation Sparks One-Child Debate
   张艺谋因超生受调查 网民热议一胎政策

Chinese family planning officials revealed on Thursday that they are looking into whether celebrated film director Zhang Yimou violated the country's one-child rule, prompting a froth of conflicted commentary online as Internet users struggled to balance frustrations with population control against disdain for the privileges enjoyed by the wealthy.

Mr. Zhang, celebrated internationally for films like 1991's 'Raise the Red Lantern' and 1994's 'To Live, ' is being investigated by the family planning committee in the city of Wuxi, in eastern China's Jiangsu province, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Thursday. Wuxi is where Mr. Zhang's current wife lives, according to Xinhua.

The brief Xinhua article followed local media reports, which China Real Time has been unable to confirm, quoting Wuxi officials as saying the 61-year-old director may have as many as seven children and could face fines as high as 160 million yuan ($26 million).

An official with the Jiangsu provincial family planning commission confirmed that Mr. Zhang was under investigation and said it was ongoing but gave no other details. 'We don't know yet how we will deal with it, if it turns out to be true, ' said the official, who gave only his surname, Li.

Calls to Mr. Zhang's assistant rang unanswered on Thursday.

News of the investigation comes at awkward time for the China's family planning authorities. Beijing officially continues to defend the one-child policy, saying it has prevented 400 million births and helped lift the country out of poverty. But public anger over forced late-term abortions, anxiety over gender imbalances and shifting demographics have prompted increasing calls for the policy to be scrapped, or at least relaxed.

Shifting attitudes toward the one-child rule were evident online Thursday, as a number of Internet users rushed to defend Mr. Zhang.

'I applaud Zhang Yimou for having more than one child, ' wrote one user of the Twitter-like Sina Weibo microblogging service. 'Having children is a right bestowed on man by Heaven.'

'So quick to investigate this kind of thing -- why don't you jump to investigate all those other problems?' wrote another.

Yet for critics of China's family planning policy, Mr. Zhang is not exactly an ideal champion. Though once admired in art circles as a defiant figure unafraid of irritating censors, he has since moved into the mainstream -- so much so that he was tapped to direct the opening ceremonies for the 2008 Olympics -- and is now widely considered to be a part of the establishment elite.

The wealthy and powerful in China often find it easy to skirt the one-child rule by simply paying fines -- a phenomenon that has been cause for widespread resentment and calls for the rule to be more rigidly enforced.

'Rich people can have as many kids as they want? Having more than one is illegal, but pay a fine and suddenly it's legal, ' poet Chen Xuelin wrote on Sina Weibo. 'Rich people's money is their own, but social resources belong to the masses. Who gave rich people the right to dominate public resources?'

Mixed reactions to news of the investigation to a large extent mirror mixed signals from the government on the future of the one-child policy. In March, Beijing stripped power from the National Population and Family Planning Commission and folded it into the Ministry of Health -- a move that suggested reforms were in the offing. Yet the central government has continued to insist that the policy will remain in place.

Reform advocates remain optimistic that major change is coming, arguing that the government needs time to overcome resistance from bureaucrats with a vested interest in maintaining the family planning machinery.

In a certain sense, the brouhaha over Mr. Zhang may help their cause by highlighting the political costs of maintaining a policy that seems to lead to frustration all around.

'Surprising that some people are praising the investigation. You curse family planning, then turn around and say others should be fined -- isn't that an inherent contradiction?' wrote newspaper commentator Zhao Jicheng. 'You've been a eunuch so long, you can't stand virility?'