Since late 2013, one of China's most controversial policies -the one-child policy -has been gradually phased out, culminating in the reorganization of the National Health and Family Planning Commission in early 2018, which saw it drop the family planning part from its name. Has China forgone population intervention and started to pursue a liberal population policy? This article demonstrates that the Chinese political leadership is still determined to steer the direction of future demographic developments, even though it changed course and has to employ new modes of steering. In fact, it has even elevated political steering of demographic developments to new heights under the rubric of 'top-level design' (dingceng sheji). This study takes a comparative look at the two ends of the life course, birth and old age, to reveal the continuity and change in population planning and policy discourses in China.In late 2013, China's newly installed government under Xi Jinping first decided to relax and then two years later to abolish its decades-old 'one-child policy' (OCP). The news was received with a sense of relief in the Western press. Many reports recounted the numerous problematic aspects of the OCP, such as forced abortions and sterilizations, a skewed sex ratio, the rapid aging of society and shrinking labor supply. The reports also often highlighted that the policy might have been unnecessary in the first place, because the social changes accompanying economic development -urbanization, rising educational standards, more self-determination for women, etc. -would have depressed the birth rate by default without employing the draconian measures associated with the OCP. 1 Now demographers argue that Chinese couples would be reluctant to take up the opportunity to have a 1 Martin K. Whyte, Feng Wang and Yong Cai, 'Challenging myths about China's one-child policy', China Journal 74 (2015), pp. 144-159; Zhongwei Zhao and Guangyu Zhang, 'Socioeconomic factors have been the major driving force of China's fertility changes since the mid-1990s', Demography (2018).

The proliferation of civic groups has been one of the most intriguing features of China's societal transformation over the past three decades. The massive spread of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) has given rise to a broad debate among China scholars about the nature of Chinese state-NGO relations. Several authors have developed theoretical concepts that highlight and explain the multifaceted and highly complex nature of relations between civic organizations and the party-state. Against this backdrop we develop the notion of embeddedness versus marginalization to unravel these complexities and clarify ambiguities. Drawing on in-depth case studies of nine Chinese NGOs working with children and youth, this article proposes a comprehensive conceptualization of Chinese civic groups' political embeddedness versus marginalization. First, we identify three separate indicators of embeddedness: formal registration, informal ties with public authorities, and the political economy of NGO-government relations. Second, we discuss three factors that have a major influence on these indicators of embeddedness. While some of the dynamics discussed might be specific to children and youth NGOs, comparisons with the findings on NGOs working in different fields suggest that the notion of embeddedness versus marginalization may also apply to other sectors of social activism. Therefore, our study offers a more nuanced understanding of Chinese state-NGO relations.

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