Liang Zhongtang's own essay characterizes Song Jian's group as propagandists and justifiers for an already-decided policy, not its originators

chinapopulation-policyone-child-policyhistoriographycontested-causationcold-war-scienceprimary-sourceunverified

Liang Zhongtang's 2009 essay recounts that in November 1978, Song Jian's colleague Li Guangyuan was denied official-delegate status at the first national population theory symposium — evidence, on Liang's account, that the demography establishment did not yet recognize the cybernetic approach — and that Song's projections were not made public until a Xinhua wire story ran on 14 February 1980, roughly twenty months after the State Council leading group's June 1978 meeting (see claim-liang-2009-dates-one-child-policy-origin-to-june-1978-three-day-meeting). Liang's conclusion — translation for this capture, not independently cross-checked against a published English rendering: "Song Jian and his colleagues, still researchers at the time, were at most propagandists and justifiers for a policy national leaders had already put forward. 'The mainstream of China's academic establishment provides annotation and justification for national leaders — so they generally do not put forward new views ahead of the leaders.'"

This is the same "legitimation, not origination" reading reached independently in claim-whyte-wang-cai-frame-song-as-supplying-legitimation-not-originating-policy (Whyte, Wang & Cai, 2015, citing Liang's 2014 book), now sourced to Liang's own 2009 text rather than to a later citation of him — a distinct primary confirmation of the same thesis, not a restatement of the same source.