The family planning policy has been grabbing headlines since the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Communist Party of China Central Committee eased some of the policy restrictions. The family planning policy, introduced in the late 1970s, allowed most families to have only one child.

The policy was implemented after Chairman Mao Zedong's era, but in fact Mao came up with the idea of family planning way back in the 1950s. And although he didn't implement a family planning policy, it would be pertinent to look into that chapter of history now that the policy is being eased

In August 1949, when the CPC was on the verge of attaining victory in the civil war, signifying the "failure" of the US policy toward China, Washington published a paper, "United States Relations with China with Special Reference to the Period 1944-1949" (or simply "China white paper"). The paper said regimes were overthrown in the past because they could not feed China's huge population, and concluded that the CPC would fall into the same trap. Mao wrote a series of articles in response to the "white paper" and then US secretary of state Dean Acheson's "letter of transmittal".