For over three decades, Chinese couples have had to endure a strict and unreasonable one-child policy - facing the risk of huge fines and capricious levels of harassment from authorities if they violate this rule.
It was in 1980 that China's Communist Party's leaders enacted this policy into law to address the issue of overpopulation. Since its authorization, this experiment of a government attempting to control its demographics and limit population growth has been widely debated.
This law has undeniably changed Chinese society. Birthrates have sunk from an average 4.77 children per woman in the early 1970s to 1.64 in 2011, according to the United Nations.
The regulation also resulted in China having the world's most unbalanced sex ratio; the amount of boys far exceeds the amount of girls, according to The Washington Post.
But last Friday, China made an announcement. Now, couples can have a second child if one of the parents is an only child.
It's about time that China eases this draconian policy that has long been a harsh violation of human rights and a brutal form of repressing its people. But it must be noted that this is still not enough.
In our view, a one-child policy is not an effective or sustainable way to address the issue of overpopulation in China. Certain municipalities there are, without question, congested, but being the second largest country by land area in the world means that the country itself has enough space for its people.
A more effective and reasonable approach to overpopulation would be to increase commercial development in provinces and cities throughout the country - creating an influx of more jobs outside of places like Shanghai, Beijing and Tianjin.
This strategy would attract residents of China's larger cities to move to other places. It would enable the country's citizenship to be widely dispersed and address overpopulation and congestion without imposing a preposterous regulation on human reproduction.
The law has resulted in decades of forced abortions and infanticide, and many childless parents have sunken into despair.
China's announcement marks an important first step toward improving the status of its human rights, but it can't be ignored that this move is still not sufficient. Aside from easing the one-child restriction, much of the initial policy will stay in place - including forcing a family-planning bureaucracy in every city, town and village in the country.
The move Chinese leaders are making is less likely in the interest of human rights as it is anticipating the effects of an aging population and potential shortage of labor workers in the future.
Another big change China announced is that it is abolishing labor camps pervasive throughout the country. This has been one of the country's most damning moral failures as this system, which was set up in 1957, essentially imprisons tens of thousands of citizens without trial.
Since the inception of this program, petty offenders such as prostitutes, thieves and drug dealers are sentenced to these labor camps for up to four years without ever facing a judiciary.
In 2009, a report filed to the United Nations states that there are roughly 320 labor camp facilities throughout China holding over 190,000 people. There is no justification for this kind of regime that does not honor the universal principles of due process.
If these most recent announcements are followed through, however imperfect these policy shifts are, they are at least a positive step and could substantially improve the conditions of living in China.
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