he Chinese government announced a nation-wide crackdown on Chinese citizens who violate the country's one-child policy.

China's 28-year-old child limit policy bans most urban families from having more than one child, although, families who live in the countryside are sometimes permitted to have a second child if their first is a girl.

In the latest attempt to curb the number of Chinese families who flout the family planning policy limits, the Chinese government has upped the consequences for violators. In the past, China's one-child policy was easily circumvented by rich families who could easily afford to pay the fines from having extra children.

However, on Thursday, China's National Population and Family Planning Commission announced on its website that, "In the future, city residents' family planning violations will be entered in the credit system of the People's Bank of China." Officials are hoping a "black mark" on their credit record will be a more effective deterrent to having extra children than simply paying fines.

Additional measures are being implemented in other provinces as well. For example, the eastern province of Zhejiang announced it planned to publicly name and ridicule rich families who ignored the one-child policy by paying to have their second or third baby.

China's one-child policy is aimed at curbing China's exploding population, which comprised about 20 percent of the global total. China currently has about 1.3 billion people, but the hopes its one-child policy will help keep the population under 1.36 billion by 2010 and under 1.45 billion by 2020.