In Hunan, Family Planning Turns to Plunder

"Since 2000," he said, "they haven't smashed homes. They abduct children."

Yuan said several circumstances can lead to a seizure: Birth to an unmarried couple, or a couple whose marriage has not been officially registered; parents who exceed quotas and parents who raise an adopted child without meeting adoption requirements.

A Los Angeles Times story in 2009 brought the topic to the U.S. Through Americans who wanted to help the families, photos of possible children adopted in the United States who may have been from Gaoping made its way to the town.

That year, a stranger met Yang Libing and his wife in a hotel in the city of Chengde. They were shown two photos of a little girl, and they recognized her immediately.

"I was certain at first glance that she was my daughter," Yang Libing said.

Later, a translator who sent the photo and used the family name Ye told the parents that the girl "is living a happy life in the United States, and her adopted parents love her." Ye provided no further information.

Local parents, including Yang, could only guess whether their children were in the photos.

DNA tests were never conducted, nor did the Gaoping residents receive any further information about how to contact the families with adopted children.

Searching for Daughter

Yang Ling was born a year before Yang Libing and his wife migrated to Guangzhou for jobs. The daughter was seized from the home of her grandparents in Gaoping, who had been raising her while the parents worked far away.

Later, Yang Libing remembers, family planning cadres tried to stop him from searching for the girl.

"They promised to give me two licenses" so that the couple could have "two children with no penalty, as long as I stopped looking for my daughter," he told Caixin.

He said he rejected their offer and eventually traced the girl to the Shaoyang orphanage. But by the time he got there, she was gone.

Yang Libing's case file at family planning department includes statements supposedly signed by Yang Libing and his father. The documents claim the little girl was found on a street, and that the family had been willing to accept all of the government's decisions for her care.

But no one in the family admits making such depositions. Moreover, the signature of Yang Libing's father in the documents was misspelled.

Another file, supposedly signed by a now-retired local official named Wang Xianjiao, had similar problems. Wang said she never wrote nor signed such a document, and that her name was misspelled.

Other local parents have similarly rejected government arguments that they wrote letters giving up custody rights. They claimed local government officials forged these files.

Their claims go against a statement by Liu Shude, Gaoping's director of family planning in five years ago, who said "it's impossible to fake" these documents.

Yang Libing's wife Cao Zhimei was happy to learn that her daughter apparently lives in the United States. She told her husband she wanted Yang Ling to come home, right away.

But later it became clear that the family could not afford to pursue more than a local search for the daughter. So the mother abandoned Yang Libing, and moved away.

"She left a note saying that since her daughter was abducted and could not be brought home, what's the use of living with me," said Yang Libing, as tears welled up in his eyes. "So as long as I'm alive, I'll continue trying to bring my daughter home."