BEIJING — China’s ruling Communist Party has spent the past decade trying to reverse the demographic collapse it once engineered. But its latest move — taxing contraceptives for the first time in more than thirty years — has left many citizens bewildered, angry, and afraid. Starting January 1, condoms, birth-control pills, and other contraceptive products will be subject to the standard 13 percent value-added tax. Officials frame the measure as “normalizing” contraceptives as consumer goods. But for many Chinese, the policy feels like a blunt attempt to push families into having more children, regardless of the personal or public health … Continue reading Beijing’s Condom Tax Signals a Return to Control, Not Reform