Having a second child in China?

edit.: Got an answer.

A relative contacted a friend who works in the relevant gov. dept. and was informed that even with the children being given foreign citizenship, Chinese citizens are still bound to the 1 child policy, and you would be fined for violating, regardless if the spouse and said additional child were foreign.

I was always under the impression that a Chinese citizen married to a foreigner was exempt from the 1 child policy. I'll try to find the relevant documentation that made me think so, however it might just be muddled up rumour.

Btw, did he mention what amount the fine is?

No, but more "hearsay" from one of my students today said in GZ it was 100k rmb, however the one-child policy article on Wikipedia suggests it is a floating fine related to the year and place of the child's birth.

I have a second child. Since both of our children have foreign citizenship and are not on my husband's hukou, there isn't a problem. The problem would arise if we wanted to put the kids on his hukou, which we don't.

It might be different for us because I'm the foreign one, and China can't really control my reproductivity the way they can (try to) control a Chinese woman's. I've heard of Chinese women married to foreign men being harassed by the local authorities when they got pregnant with their second child, but I've never heard of anyone actually fined. I also personally know quite a few foreign-Chinese couples with more than one kid who had no problems though.

Someone who had an extra kid (a Chinese couple) and paid the fine here in Beijing told me that the fines have to do with the average per capita income for each city, it is some ridiculous amount, like 10x whatever the average income is, so big city dwellers pay huge fines whereas country folk pay less.

The fine definitely varies a lot.  Don't make any assumptions about how big or how small it's going to be based on rumors.

Another option - if the first child is a girl, some places allow a second child.  Her hukou would need to be moved first if this isn't the case in your current location.  Locally, I see this difference between Dongguan City (1 and only 1 child) and my village in Liaobu Town in Dongguan County (a 2nd chance if the first one isn't a boy).  Personally, I find the major focus on wanting a boy to be disturbing, but that's a debate for another thread.

Relevant to both of the above - move the hukou to where the penalties are affordable.

My daughter has no hukou, and regardless my wife is not from the countryside where they have such benefits. I guess what we are going to do based upon advice from someone else is just not report the 2nd child at all and get the "permission slip" like we did for the first one. Apparently others haven't had a problem with that, however there is 0 chance of ever having Chinese citizenship (which is fine).

And miss all the fun of filing 300 papers (in quintuplicate) with 27 government offices to move the hukou???

If the missus is an ethnic minority (say: Uighur, Miao, Dong, Zhuang, etc.) the one child policy isn't an issue unless they are a party member.

One of my chinese friends who is just having her first baby told me that if both she and her husband were only children then they would have been allowed to have a 2nd child (but because only one of them is an only child then they don't qualify for that).

There are more and more get out clauses to the "one child policy". If you live far enough into the countryside, you may well be permitted to have a second if your first child is a girl. If you are an ethnic minority - have two. If you and your husband/wife are both single children, have two. If your first child has a certain illness, have two (not necessarily even that serious, someone we know has two perfect children cos first child had some supposedly serious illness).

Biggest get out of all - if you have enough money to pay the fine, or enough guangxi not to get fined, have two! Doesn't work if you are a state employee as rules are still enforced and you risk losing your job, but if you work for a private company it's not a problem. More than a few families in our (very middle-class) compound have two children, while at the other end of the economic spectrum our very poor ayi has two, although they are both tucked away in the countryside with their grandparents!

One thing I noticed is the great disperity between ages. I think western families usually have kids within 3-4 years. I've seen many siblings with up to 10 years of separation

One of my students (she's a senior in high school now) is the eldest of 6! The younger five I believe are currently living in America, but are not American citizens. My students are generally pretty wealthy and I'd say that at least half of them are not only children. Out of the half that are only children a lot of them have parents with government jobs, otherwise they'd probably have brothers and sisters themselves.

DD, the age gap thing is partly because there are rules about when you can have your second child. Where my husband comes from, the countryside in Yunnan, they're allowed 2 children regardless of the gender of the 1st child as long as there's a 5 year gap between the two children.

There are definitely lots of exceptions to the 1 child rule; it isn't nearly as black and white as it is portrayed back home.

We're definitely witnessing the passage of the last generations of Chinese likely to have actual brothers or sisters, at least for a while. When children in foreign-language classes refer to others using those words, they generally actually mean cousins or even neighbors.

Anyway, regardless of the various spotty and arcane rules for the homeys, I don't think the Chinese generally even attempt to constrain the reproductive rights of foreigners...even if one parent is Chinese. I've known a number of such couples that had multiple children in China, and not a wink of trouble about it beyond a few envious looks.

When children in foreign-language classes refer to others using those words, they generally actually mean cousins or even neighbors.

When I lived in the boonies in Liaoning province, this was true.  Most 'sisters' and 'brothers' turned out to be cousins or close family friends.  However, I've got to disagree with you based upon where I'm living now.  I've had private students who've come to me in sibling groups of 3. The majority of my uni students have at least one sibling and some have more than one.  I ask the question during my culture lesson on families.  These kids are English majors and know what the words mean.  I verify 'same mother and father.'  When I ask how this is possible under the 'one child policy' they say "Just pay the fine."