Chapter 3956

Su Xinghui said, "Home-style dishes are good enough. I could also cook a few home-style dishes back then, but in recent years, work has been too busy, and I've let my skills go, leaving everything to Minister Lu."

Lu Xiaoya covered her mouth and smiled, and Chen Xuehai and Zhu Yue also chuckled.

Although there were no delicacies from land or sea at today's meal, everyone ate to their heart's content, and Su Xinghui and Lu Xiaoya were both very satisfied and happy.

The two didn't take a car home but walked back. On the way home, Lu Xiaoya said, "Xinghui, Linshan is truly becoming better and better."

Su Xinghui said, "Yes, it's already much better than it was two years ago. I hope it can get better day by day."

Linshan was indeed becoming better and better. On their way home, there were street trees and flower beds on both sides of the street. The streets were wide and clean, the streetlights were bright, and the shops along the sidewalk were bustling, proving the city's growing prosperity.

Su Xinghui looked at all this with a bit of intoxication. He was the mayor of this city, and he had personally built Linshan City into what it was today. This feeling was truly wonderful.

Walking on such a road, the couple seemed to have returned to the time of their first love. Now, both of their jobs were busy, and they still had to take care of the elderly and children. Days like this, where the two of them could walk on the road, were becoming fewer and fewer, which made them cherish it very much.

Suddenly, Su Xinghui's phone rang. Su Xinghui picked up the phone and saw it was a call from Lu Zhenghong. He smiled at Lu Xiaoya and said, "It's Dad's call."

Su Xinghui answered the phone, and Lu Xiaoya was also listening attentively from the side. Su Xinghui said, "Dad, how do you have time to call me today?"

Lu Zhenghong was now the Secretary of the Discipline Inspection Commission and was truly busy every day, having no concept of going to work or getting off work. Staying up all night for meetings was a common occurrence, so he called Su Xinghui much less often now.

Lu Zhenghong laughed and said, "You brat, you dare to talk to me like that?"

Su Xinghui said, "Isn't this just to make you happy?"

Lu Zhenghong said, "Xinghui, I'm telling you a piece of news today. If you hear it, you'll definitely be happy."

Su Xinghui asked, "Dad, what news do you want to tell me?"

Lu Zhenghong said, "After full research and demonstration, the central government plans to start piloting the 'separate two-child' policy in several provinces and cities across the country starting next year."

Su Xinghui was overjoyed upon hearing this. The "separate two-child" policy meant that if one of the spouses was an only child, they could have a second child. This was the first step in relaxing the family planning policy.

In recent years, Su Xinghui had repeatedly advised Gu Shanmin and Lu Zhenghong, telling them about the importance and necessity of relaxing the family planning policy. In fact, many experts were now publishing theoretical articles explaining why the family planning policy should be relaxed, so the central leadership was also considering this.

In his previous life, Su Xinghui had seen with his own eyes that after China's birth rate declined, even the implementation of the comprehensive two-child policy failed to stimulate a high birth rate. By that point, the low birth rate had basically become an irreversible trend.

Therefore, the later implementation of the relaxed family planning policy was already a few years too late. If it had been implemented a few years earlier, the situation would not have reached this point.

The decline in the birth rate had obvious effects on China because it was the Han nationality that implemented family planning, which was China's main ethnic group. Later, it was also the Han nationality whose birth rate declined, which caused the proportion of the main ethnic group's population in China to keep decreasing.

Although China's population had not decreased, that was because the average life expectancy of Chinese people was increasing. The birth rate was decreasing, meaning the elderly population was increasing. China was increasingly entering an aging society. When the elderly passed away in large numbers, China's population would experience a very rapid decline.

By then, the proportion of China's main ethnic group's population would drop to a very dangerous level. It should be known that many countries experienced internal turmoil because their main ethnic group's population was not large enough to suppress other ethnic minorities.

Besides these drawbacks, the reduction in population would also cause China's economic vitality to decline, and China's economic growth rate would slow down. Because China's rapid development over these years was largely due to the demographic dividend, could it still develop so rapidly once the demographic dividend was lost?

Over these years, during several economic crises worldwide, the reason China was able to pass through them smoothly was because China had a large population and a sufficiently large domestic demand market. By then, with a rapidly declining population, would there still be such good things?

Su Xinghui had repeatedly advised them, and Gu Shanmin and Lu Zhenghong had also been persuaded by him. However, it was not easy to get the central government to formally implement such a policy because family planning had been implemented for many years and had become a basic national policy. Everyone felt that family planning was a matter of course, and some even thought that a smaller population was a good thing. If the population were halved, wouldn't the per capita GDP double?

Besides such thoughts, please don't forget that China also had a dedicated family planning department.

If the family planning policy were to be relaxed, the interests of the family planning department would be damaged. The interests involved were not a small matter, so the stakeholders were trying their best to oppose it. Such a game had been going on for several years. Now, hearing that the central government was finally preparing to pilot the "separate two-child" policy, how could Su Xinghui not be happy?

Su Xinghui said, "Dad, that's truly great."

Lu Zhenghong said to Su Xinghui, "There's another piece of good news: your Yanbei Province is among the provinces and cities to pilot it next year."

Su Xinghui was even happier now. Yanbei Province becoming a pilot province meant that Su Xinghui was also qualified to have another child.

Although Su Xinghui was not an only child, Lu Xiaoya was, so the couple met the conditions for the "separate two-child" policy.

Su Xinghui and Lu Xiaoya both loved children, and they had sufficient conditions to have a second child. It was only because of the family planning policy that they couldn't have another child, which had always been a regret for them. Now, there was finally an opportunity to make up for this regret because he and Lu Xiaoya were not yet very old.

Su Xinghui said to Lu Zhenghong, "Dad, this is good news. Thank you!"

Su Xinghui knew that for this pilot policy, Gu Shanmin and Lu Zhenghong must have put in tremendous effort to get the central government to implement it.

Lu Zhenghong laughed and said, "No need to thank me for this. Alright, I have other things to do, so I won't talk to you anymore."

After hanging up the phone, Lu Xiaoya asked, "Xinghui, what happened?"

Su Xinghui said, "Xiaoya, Dad just told me that starting next year, the central government will pilot the 'separate two-child' policy in several provinces and cities across the country."

Lu Xiaoya often heard Su Xinghui's attitude toward family planning. At home, although Su Xinghui did not have a deep hatred for the family planning policy, he didn't have any good feelings about it either.

In fact, Su Xinghui had never attached great importance to family planning work and did not enforce it strictly, let alone the bizarre things that happened in some places to complete family planning tasks, and the bizarre slogans that emerged one after another, even slogans like "One person exceeds the quota, the whole village gets sterilized" were openly painted on walls.

Under Su Xinghui's governance, economic construction was always the primary task, and family planning was consciously downplayed by him. Therefore, under his governance, family planning tasks generally could not be strictly completed according to indicators. However, he had always been good at economic construction, and besides family planning, his other work was completed very well, so no one criticized him for this.

Influenced by Su Xinghui, Lu Xiaoya also thought about some of the harmful aspects of the family planning policy. She also didn't like the family planning policy. Now hearing that the family planning policy had loosened, she was also very happy. She said, "That's great. This is finally a good start."

Su Xinghui whispered, "Xiaoya, there's another piece of good news."

Lu Xiaoya asked, "What good news?"

Su Xinghui said, "The provinces and cities to pilot it next year include our Yanbei Province." ===== CHAPTER 3958 =====