Three million babies hidden

Since 1978, China's government has limited each couple to one child, carrying out forced abortions and sterilizations, and monitoring women's intra uterine devices to control the population.

For parents violating the policy, the penalties can be harsh. Large fines are levied, houses are often demolished and offenders are sometimes jailed.

In millions of cases, families are prepared to take the risk, according to research by Liang Zhongtang, a demographer and former member of the expert committee of China's National Population and Family Planning Commission.

Mr. Liang has discovered discrepancies in China's census.

"In 1990, the national census recorded 23 million births. But by the 2000 census, there were 26 million 10-year-olds, an increase of three million," he said.

His findings suggest that the one-child policy may not have the grim consequences that have been widely predicted.

According to China's own figures, the traditional desire among Chinese families to have a boy, coupled with the one-child regime, should produce a surfeit of 30 million men by 2020, with many parents allegedly using ultrasound to guarantee the sex of their child.

Policy-makers have warned that millions of frustrated men, who would be unable to find wives, could wreak havoc on Chinese society, leading to a steep rise in prostitution and violence. Mr. Liang said the imbalance was "definitely not as severe as the statistics suggest."

"What happens is that the unplanned baby girls usually do not get registered with the authorities when they are born," he added. In a small village outside the southern town of Xiamen, the Fu family has raised seven daughters.

"I am the biggest offender against the one-child policy in China," laughed Mr. Fu, a 47 year-old who did not give his full name.

"We sent out all the daughters apart from the eldest to stay with friends as soon as they had stopped breast-feeding," he added.