CHINESE WHO VIOLATED THE ONE-CHILD POLICY STILL REMAINS WORRIED-

Cindy Zhang  like millions of other Chinese parents who violated the one-child policy, thought her problems had been solved.
For good  three years, she and her husband had worried about the status of their younger child, Tutu. Tutu was born outside the one-child limit China set for most urban couples and lacked a hukou, the crucial household registration document all citizens need to attend state schools, receive health care, marry, open a bank account or even get a train tickets.

Beijing officials had told Zhang and her husband that their son would not receive a hukou unless they first paid a fine for violating the family planning law which is  300,000 renminbi, or about $45,000, which the family could not afford to pay.
Then last month something came which was close  to being like good news: The State Council, China’s cabinet, ordered local governments to come up with measures to register all citizens. The Jan. 14 directive said the hukou was a “basic right of citizens” and barred local governments from imposing any conditions that would prevent citizens from registering.

China’s new family planning rules had taken effect, which allow all couples to have two children, the hukou directive brought sighs of relief from Ms. Zhang and many other parents whose children could finally come out of the shadows.

Cindy Zhang said-

“I was very excited when I saw the State Council directive,”

But instead of clearing up the issue for the estimated 13 million Chinese who lack hukous, 60 percent of whom were born outside the one-child limit, the State Council directive has left many parents of unregistered children confused and fearful. They worry that they will still be asked to pay the fine. And they fear that if they request a hukou for a child who was not previously declared, they will be handing officials information that could be used to penalize them for violating the previous family planning rules.
“We’re very worried and scared because we don’t know if we’ll still be asked to pay the fine,” said Ms. Zhang, 38, who asked that her full Chinese name not be used. “It could be that it will be even easier for them to fine us.”
“It’s really a lot of money for us,” said Ms. Zhang, who has a master’s degree in computer science and worked at a leading communications company for a decade. “It impacts a family tremendously to be fined tens of thousands.”
Some provinces have announced that while paying a fine will no longer be a precondition for obtaining a hukou, families who violated the old rules will still be required to pay fines for children they had when the rules were in effect.

In the southern province of Guangdong, public security and family planning officials said a fine would no longer be a precondition for a hukou for children born in violation of the national policy,

The Southern Metropolis Daily reported. However, their families would still have to pay fines for those children or risk being taken to court.

In Jiangxi Province in 2014, the provincial government had similarly declared that it would not make paying the fine a prerequisite for getting a hukou. But some families who registered children born in violation of the policy were forced to pay afterward.
Government officials in Beijing and many other parts of China have yet to disclose how they plan to carry out the new hukou directive and whether fines will be imposed retroactively.
“I’m now worried the local government might use the new directive as a trap to fine us once they learn we have a second child,” said a 43-year-old Beijing resident who asked that only his surname, Cheng, be used because he has not gone to the authorities to register his second child, who was born in July.