One-child China is a success, says Labour aide Adair Turner

Lord Turner head of the FSA

Adair Turner: Top Labour adviser

China's one- child policy  -  which has resulted in forced abortions, infanticide and compulsory sterilisation  -  has had a 'positive impact' on the country's economic performance, one of Labour's leading advisers says today.

Lord Turner, head of the Financial Services Authority, claims the laws on family size played a crucial role in China's economic take-off and allowed the country to develop without 'severe political and social tensions'.

But human rights campaigners criticised Lord Turner for appearing to support the draconian laws, claiming they had led to untold misery for women and children.

The former director general of the CBI Adair Turner argues that there is a pressing need to stop world's population growing at an 'explosive rate'.

'While there are good reasons for objecting to the enforced nature of the Chinese one-child policy, we should not underestimate the positive impact which that policy has almost certainly had and will have over the next several decades on Chinese economic performance,' he says in the Royal Society journal Philosophical Transactions.

Lord Turner claims the problems of a low birth rate and ageing population have been overstated in the past, and singles out China as a positive role model. 

China's controversial family planning laws, introduced in 1979, are thought to have prevented the birth of up to 400million babies.

Lord Turner plays down the social problems, claiming smaller families have led to increased savings, which in turn have fuelled growth.

He says: 'China today simply has more capital per worker  -  more and better roads, ports, power capacity and factory equipment  -  than, for instance, all African countries.'

Robert Whelan of the think tank Civitas said: 'It is regrettable that Lord Turner should inadvertently appear to support China's one-child policy as it has resulted in probably the most human rights abuses of any population policy on earth.

'I would also question his analysis that the one-child policy is responsible for China's economic spurt. It's much more likely that economic growth has led to the reduced birth rate.'

How China's family planning policy works
 

Amnesty International's China researcher Corinna-Barbara Francis said: 'Coercive measures used to clamp down on the growth in population in China  -  such as forced abortions and sterilisations  -  are abhorrent and should be stopped immediately.

'Women are not the only ones at risk: those who dare to defend their rights have suffered from human rights abuses as well.

'Amnesty deplores such practices and continues to urge the Chinese authorities to ensure that no coercive measures are used in the implementation of the one-child policy.'

Lord Turner, who has two daughters, is one of Labour's most influential advisers.

He set the minimum wage as head of the Low Pay Commission, led the review into pensions and fixed the UK's carbon targets as chairman of the Committee on Climate Change.

Last month he supported the idea of new global taxes on financial transactions, warning that a 'swollen' financial sector paying excessive salaries has grown too big for society.

He said the debate on bankers' bonuses has become a 'populist diversion' and that more drastic measures may be needed to cut the financial sector down to size.

The comments below have been moderated in advance.

The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline.

We are no longer accepting comments on this article.