BEIJING
(AP) — Famed film director Zhang Yimou and his wife violated China's
strict family planning rules by having three children without approval
and before they were married, local authorities said Monday.
Zhang, the director of The Flowers of War
starring Christian Bale, had on Sunday admitted flouting the rules by
having three children with his wife but refuted reports that he had
fathered seven children.
Zhang's 25-year career has made him one
of Chinese cinema's top names, Many of his films portray gritty rural
life. Zhang also designed the opulent opening and closing ceremonies for
the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
A family planning bureau in Wuxi city
in eastern Jiangsu province said on its microblog that its investigation
had found that Zhang and Chen Ting flouted family planning policies and
that the case was being handled according to laws and regulations.
Reports
had circulated online since May that Zhang, 62, had fathered seven
children from two marriages and relationships with two other women. The People's Daily newspaper,
the ruling Communist Party's mouthpiece, had reported that Zhang could
face a fine of up to $26 million. People caught breaking China's family
planning policy must pay a "social compensation fee" based on their
annual income.
In his first response to the reports, Zhang's
office issued an open letter through its verified microblog account on
the Twitter-like Sina Weibo site late Sunday denying that the director
had seven children but admitting that he and his wife have two sons and a
daughter in violation of China's one-child limits.
Zhang and his
wife "expressed their sincere apology to the public for the negative
social impact that this has created," the letter said.
The letter
said Zhang and his wife were willing to be investigated by the family
planning committee in Chen's hometown, the eastern city of Wuxi, and
would accept whatever penalty the couple might incur. It did not provide
details on how the couple had been able to evade family planning
authorities thus far.
The family planning office of Wuxi's Binhu
district said in their online statement that the couple had had three
children — in 2001, 2004 and 2006 in Beijing — without first seeking
approval from family planning authorities, and out of wedlock. They
obtained a marriage certificate in 2011, the statement said.
Family planning policies and the fines for breaking them vary from city to city. Some consider unmarried childbearing illegal.
The
statement quoted an unnamed spokesman as saying the office hoped Zhang
and Chen would continue to cooperate with family planning authorities
and truthfully report their income at the time.
Zhang's office
rejected reports that he had fathered more children. It said
unidentified individuals with "ulterior motives" had sent people to
follow Zhang's children and photograph them and that Zhang's office
reserved the right to take legal action.
Known to many as China's
one-child policy, the rules limit most urban couples to one child and
allow two children for rural families if their firstborn is a girl. The
government introduced the policy in 1979 as a temporary measure to curb a
surging population, but it is still in place despite being reviled by
many citizens.
Last month, the party announced that it would allow
couples to have two children if one of the parents is a single child,
the first substantial easing of the one-child policy in nearly three
decades.
___
AP writer Louise Watt contributed to this report.
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