For millions of ‘orphaned’ parents the announcement stirs bitterness, and for ‘illegal’ second children uncertainty about eligibility for Chinese citizenship

Liu Guofa lost his only child five years ago. The boy was only 17 when he died, but by then it was too late for his parents to try for another baby. Liu, now 46 and unemployed, is bracing himself for a lonely and impoverished old age, without the support and love his son was expected by society and tradition to provide.

Liu is one of millions of people whose lives were scarred by the Chinese government’s one-child policy. They include “orphaned” parents, who feel abandoned by the state after losing their only offspring, and “illegal” children, born into a life of legal limbo.

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For many of them, the abrupt end to the 35-year-long policy announced by Beijing on Thursday came too late to stir up anything more than bitter memories. “It is too late for us now,” said Liu, who lives in central Henan province. “We can’t have another child. I feel helpless.”

China has always allowed bereaved parents to have a second baby, but many lost their son or daughter at an age when that was no longer possible. Liu and his wife had decided years before their bereavement that having a second baby was too risky in their home area, where family planning officials applied the policy ruthlessly.

“The enforcement was merciless,” he said. “When we were young, we didn’t dare to have a second child. We would have been fired from our jobs and our houses would have been torn down if we had dared to violate the one-child policy.”

Many others in a similar position say they feel forgotten by a state driven more by the economic imperative to tackle the problem of an ageing population than compassion for those whose lives have been ruined by the rules.

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“It is unfair. We obeyed the policy and they didn’t even mention us – the parents who have lost their only children,” said Li Qin, 49, from southern Yunnan province.

“My son died this year when he was 25 years old … What will happen to us? How will we support ourselves in old age?”

The system worked in part because armies of family planning bureaucrats were tasked with maintaining it, levying huge fines and forcing abortions and sterilisations on anyone who flouted the laws.

But it also deterred parents from having a second child by levying a terrible punishment on so-called illegal children. Such offspring are denied a “hukou”, or residence permit, rendering them almost invisible in the eyes of the law and government.

The document is far more important than its English name suggests, and is the basis of official life in China. Citizens need one to access everything from schooling and healthcare to transport, law courts and libraries.

In Beijing, a fine of at least 159,000 yuan (£16,350) for having a second child convinced one Chinese-European couple that their son could not be registered as a citizen of China.

“I think it’s a little bit sad that he could never officially be Chinese. He’s born here, his mother’s Chinese and he speaks Chinese,” said the father, who did not want to named, adding that the family nevertheless felt lucky to have the option of registering their son for a European passport that would give him legal status.

Wealthy Chinese have also been able to partly evade the system by paying for a growing web of private schools and hospitals, but for ordinary people who fall foul of the family planning authorities the consequences can be devastating.

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“For us obviously it’s not a big deal – he might not be able to be Chinese but he has a way of dealing with healthcare and education. It’s a much more huge problem for those that don’t have that safety net,” said the European father.

The group of “illegal” children living in the shadows of Chinese society are vulnerable to many kinds of abuse as a result. According to a 2010 census there are at least 13 million. But experts believe two or three times as many may have gone unregistered, because of fear of government reprisals.

It was not clear from Thursday’s announcement, released after government offices had closed for the day, whether some of that group might be able to retrospectively claim their full rights as Chinese citizens.

But because the government has changed the rules of the family planning system, rather than abolishing it entirely, not all “illegal” children would be eligible and many more children will continue to be born into legal limbo.

Among them will likely be the children of unwed mothers, because the announcement specifically referred to “couples” being allowed more than one child. Also affected will be third, fourth or later babies, although in a country now long used to tiny families they are likely to be few in number.

Luna Lin contributed research