Seen commonly in both rural and urban areas, most of the country's family planning policy posters have been updated with messages of a more human touch.

Since late July about 76 percent of the posters nationwide have been substituted with new ones.

National Population and Family Planning Commission described the new posters as more "reader-friendly, color printed, bearing both photos and words, and are more civilized and human-oriented".

Messages on the new posters include: "Mother Earth is too Tired to Sustain More Children" and "Both Boys and Girls are in Parents' Hearts".

A public survey by the Center for International Communication Studies of Tsinghua University revealed 43 percent of the respondents gave the new posters the thumbs up.

"They are more acceptable, amiable, delicately made and promote the policy in various forms, real life pictures for instance," Wang Yu, a rural resident of Beijing in her early 30s and a mother of a girl, said.

The nationwide campaign was launched after the commission issued in early July a ban on outrageous and ridiculous slogans like "Popularize the First Child, Control the Second Child, Prohibit the Third Child".

Slogans with vulgar and harsh language stoked great anger among the public and probably led to misunderstanding and even objection to the national policy, Xinhua News Agency reported, citing Zhang Weiqing, minister of the commission.

He urged local family planning officials to use understandable, persuasive and popular expressions in slogans, warning them to avoid relentless and rude wording, according to the Xinhua report.

Population growth has been somewhat slowed by the family planning policy, in effect since 1979, which encourages one couple to have only one child. However, ethnic minorities and some rural couples can have two children.

(China Daily October 12, 2007)