The Chinese Communist Party has got to be beside itself these days. It has plotted and triangulated its ascension to the lead player on the world stage, but not all is working according to plan. As an organization committed to controlling events of all kinds, the National People’s Congress is suddenly finding there are forces at play it cannot control.

Opening its nation to the world and experimenting with free-market economics has brought riches beyond its imagination, but it has also been a Pandora’s box of sorts.

The country’s efforts to get young couples procreating again have been greeted with a shoulder shrug. The one-child-per-family policy has not been so easy to roll back. China is learning what all advanced societies have learned — when people have higher standards of living and their professional and recreational opportunities expand, their interest in bearing and raising children is curtailed.

This realization has come to pass right when Chin