The Chinese Government and various circles in Chinese society have paid great atten-tion to the health and care of children. Much painstaking work has been done in protecting children's lives and health. As a result of these efforts, remarkable success has been achieved.

　　In 1995, China's birthrate was 17.12 per thousand and 20.63 million children were born, the natural growth rate being 10.55 per thousand.

　　The mortality of children under five years old is an important indication of the situation of children in a country. According to a national maternity and child-care monitoring report in 1994, the infant mortality of China decreased to 37.79 per thousand from 200 per thousand in the early 1950s and the mortality rate for children under five years old to 46.74 per thousand. From 1950 to 1980, the annual decrease rate of China's infant mortality was above five per cent, higher than the annual decrease rate (2.5 per cent) of the average infant mortality of developing countries in the same period and also higher than that (4.6 per cent) of developed countries. In the 1990s, the annual rate of decrease of infant mortality in China is 6.50 per cent and that of children under five years old is 5.85 per cent. So far, no other country in the world enjoying an annual per capita income approximate to China has reached such a high level.

　　Using vaccines for children is an economical and effective way for preventing epidemic diseases and reducing children's death rate. From the 1950s, China began to popularize the bovine vaccine and in the early 1960s, smallpox, an infectious disease seriously endangering children's health, was eliminated. After the 1960s, China began to inoculate BCG, pertussis, diphtheria, tetanus, measles and poliomyelitis vaccines. In the 1970s, activities for immunity from diseases were carried out during winters and springs; and in 1978 work on planned immunity for children was started on a nationwide scale. All this has led to a great drop in the incidence of the relevant infectious diseases and the mortality from such diseases.

　　Insgroupsto eliminate poliomyelitis, while strengthening regular work on immunity and the monitoring of poliomyelitis, China performed nationwide six rounds of reinforced inoculations on children under four years old, on December 5 and January 5 separately in each of the three years 1993-96, each round involving about 80 million children. In this way the timetable for eliminating poliomyelitis has been shortened.

　　Since the implementation of China's immunization program, great achievements have been made and the incidence of infectious diseases has sharply declined. A national report on the country's epidemic situation reveals that the number of cases of measles, diphtheria, pertussis and poliomyelitis in 1994 dropped by 96.4, 99.4, 99.3 and 97.5 percent respectively compared with 1978; the death rate decreased by 97.4, 99.3, 96.5 and 97.7 percent respectively. In 1994, the number of incidences of the above-mentioned four epidemic diseases fell by about 3.517 million and the number of deaths by about 13,000 as compared with 1978. In 1995, only one strain of a wild virus was found in the stool of a child suffering from poliomyelitis who came from abroad to Yunnan for medical treatment. No other poliomyelitis wild viruses were found in Acute Flaccid Paralysis cases.

　　China has paid great attention to improving children's nutritional status and various medical and health measures have been adopted. In the early period after the founding of the People's Republic of China, the government handed out infant foodstuffs in some areas. From the 1960s to the 1970s, a scientific diet for children was popularized in China. The nutritional status of Chinese children has gradually improved since the supplementary food was developed in the 1980s and since breastfeeding was advocated and dietary scheme was optimized in the 1990s. Now it is rare to find cases of serious malnutrition caused by shortage of food or cases of serious vitamin-A deficiency.

　　At the same time, insgroupsto improve the level of medical treatment and health care and the nutritional status of children in rural areas, measures for promoting the building of township clinics, county antiepidemic stations and county health centers for women and children have been adopted by the state. Since 1991, 300 million yuan (US.3 million) from central finance has been allocated and 8.65 billion yuan (US.02 billion) from local financial administrations, collective economy and peasants had been pooled for input that direction. By the end of 1994, the conditions at 36 percent of the township clinics, 29.8 per cent of the county antiepidemic stations and 27.7 per cent of the county health centers for women and children have been improved by various degrees.

　　A survey shows that children's nutritional status in China has improved considerably. Compared with 1990, the rate of malnutrition in children under five years old dropped by 23.82 per cent in 1995, fulfilling, ahead of the time, the medium-term target envisaged in the Outline of the Program for Chinese Children's Development in the 1990s.

　　However, as a developing country with a large population, China still faces some problems and difficulties due to restrictions in its economic development. For instance, the targets for the reduction of the mortality rate for pregnant and lying-in women, elimination of tetanus in newborns and the control of AIDS have not been attained as planned. Prominent differences exist between different regions and between urban and rural areas in terms of conditions for and the level of child subsistence, development and protection. The environment for child development has yet to be further optimized. Problems relating to health care, education and rights protection of the children of migrants need to be solved. The number of children among the HIV positive and AIDS-suffering population is on the increase. These are key problems that need to be solved in the future.

　　Therefore, China has another 10-year project set for the children:

　　-Adhering to the principle of "children first," guaranteeing children's rights to subsistence, development, protection and participation, improving the overall quality of children, promoting the healthy development of children both physically and mentally, and raising the main health indicators of Chinese children to the advanced levels of developing countries;

　　-Popularizing senior secondary education step by step in large and medium-sized cities and economically developed regions with basic universal nine-year compulsory education;

　　-Gradually perfecting the legal system for the protection of children to ensure the rights and interests of them are safeguarded in accordance with law; and-Optimizing the environment for the children and securing special protection for children in need.

　　Centering on these general objectives, the new National Action Program puts child developmentsintosfour categories-health, education, legal protection and environment-and sets main goals and corresponding policy measures for child development in each category.

　　In the health category, the former goal of child health care has been expanded by adding such elements as improving the physique of children and strengthening physical training. The education aspect gives special attention to the issues of compulsory education for female children, disabled children, migrant children and children in poverty-stricken and minority-inhabited areas, and puts forward goals for popularizing senior secondary education step by step. The environment category has been especially enriched with goals for creating a favorable social environment for child development. The category of legal protection stresses the protection of children's rights, especially their personal rights.