HONG KONG: China will no longer send children overseas for adoption, the government said, overturning a more than three-decade rule that was rooted in its once strict one-child policy.
More than 160,000 Chinese children have been adopted by families across the world since 1992, when China first opened its doors to international adoption.
Around 82,000 of these children, mostly girls, have been adopted in the United States, according to China’s Children International (CCI).
On Thursday, Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Mao Ning said the Chinese government had adjusted its cross-border adoption policy to be “in line” with international trends.
“Apart from the adoption of a child or stepchild of blood relatives of the same generation who are within three generations of foreigners coming to China to adopt, China will not send children abroad for adoption,” Mao said.
“We express our appreciation to those foreign governments and families, who wish to adopt Chinese children, for their good intention and the love and kindness they have shown,” she added.
It was not immediately clear what would happen to families who were in the process of adopting children from China.
The rule change comes as Chinese policymakers struggle to encourage young couples to get married and have children after the population fell for two consecutive years.
China has one of the lowest birth rates globally and has been trying to incentivise young women to have children. Many, however, have been put off by the high cost of childcare, worries over job security and their future outlook as growth in the world’s second largest economy slows.
China implemented a rigorous one-child policy from 1979-2015 to reduce its population. When families were restricted to having only one child, many opted to keep male children, who are traditionally expected to be the main caregivers for their families, and give up females for adoption.
China’s move to halt international adoptions comes after the Netherlands in May banned its citizens from adopting children from foreign countries. In Denmark, people will no longer be able to adopt children from abroad after the only adoption agency said it was stopping operations.

MANDALAY: Communist rebels battling Myanmar’s junta have taken in 138 elephants as fighting rages in the jungles and scrubland around Mandalay.
The tuskers have been coming into the rebel camp in twos and threes since July, many led by handlers fleeing the junta-controlled timber camps that employ them.
Others have been taken as spoils in territory captured by the Communist Party of Burma (CPB) as it battles the military and its 2021 coup that ousted Aung San Suu Kyi’s government.
“We were worried that if no one took control of them, these elephants would fall into the hands of traffickers,” said Ni Ni Kyaw, the general secretary of the CPB’s People’s Liberation Army.
“If these elephants reach the black market or are taken by traffickers, they will have a huge problem,” she told AFP on Thursday.
State timber enterprises in Myanmar are thought to employ around 3,000 elephants, the majority dragging freshly cut trees through the dense jungle to transport hubs and mills.
At one PLA camp last week, around a dozen of the animals knelt in a line alongside their handlers before heading off on a march.
A (CPB) soldier clad in camouflage and carrying a rifle stepped up to the wooden platform on one elephant’s back and the small herd rumbled off into the forest.
In olden times Burmese kings fought their rivals on elephant-back and rode the beasts into battle, according to chronicles.
But Ni Ni Kyaw said it was not certain how the communists would use the animals in their battle against the military.
“We are worried that we are going to lose this treasure of our country, therefore, we will take care of them as best as we can,” she said.
The PLA was providing rice and cooking oil to the elephant handlers — known as mahouts — and their family members, she added.
Myanmar has been in turmoil since the military ousted Aung San Suu Kyi’s government and seized power in 2021.
The resulting military crackdown reignited clashes with long-established ethnic minority armed groups, as well as newly formed pro-democracy “People’s Defense Forces.”
The military has lost swaths of territory in northern Shan state and around Mandalay to an alliance of the armed ethnic minority groups and PDFs battling to overturn the coup.
“Even our human beings have many difficulties due to the current fighting and there are a lot of displaced people,” said Ni Ni Kyaw.
“Elephants have big bodies and they eat a lot, so they need a lot of space in the jungle.”
“When the revolution ends one day, we will have a new government and will hand these elephants to the forest department.”