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Paul Escobedo
Christine Peterson
ENGL-111G-D23
29 July 2013
China’s Lost Children
The United States (U.S.) has just implemented a new law which prevents parents from
having more than one child. This law is to be enforced starting on 1 AUG 2013. This is not a true
statement but what if it was? The people of the United States would probably revolt.
Unfortunately for the population of China, it is a fact. The one child policy has been in effect in
China since 1979 (Jian). This policy has been the cause of baby abandonment, abortion, and
murder. Instead of continuing with the one child policy, China can create incentives for farmers
and industrialists as well as for others who are willing and able to be trained in a needed
profession. If the Chinese would also elect to import a higher number of foods and goods each
year it would not be as harsh of an environment as China predicts.
The regime of Deng Xiaoping argued that rapid population growth would retard
achievement of the "four modernizations" (in industry, agriculture, science and
technology, and defense) by hampering attainment of full employment and by
cutting into increases in capital accumulation, living standards, and education (qtd.
in Chen, 1979; Liu, 1981: 8-10).
China’s current president, “Xi Jinping,” has continued the communist rule with no change to the
one-child policy (Buckley).
China’s idea of population control did not start in 1979 with the one-child policy. The
struggle with population control began in 1949 with the formation of the People’s Republic of
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China (PRC). Initially the Chinese government did little to prevent a raise in the population
level. This was due to a need for laborers as well as the fact that some of China’s leaders at that
time believed they could tell China’s people to be less fertile and they would comply.
In 1957 a speech was given by then Chairman Mao Zedong who declared that he would
like to keep the population at six hundred million “for many years,” (Banister). Soon after, it was
realized that to succeed in population control China would need a long term, proactive plan. Part
of that plan included lifting the ban on contraceptives in 1958 (Banister). Even with the ban
lifted the short supply along with the low quality of the contraceptives did little to help prevent a
rise in birth rate. It is reported that the contraceptives which were available would only cover 2.2
percent of China’s population at that time (Banister).
It was after the famine of 1959-1961 that China amped up its efforts in population control.
Not only were cheap contraceptives being pushed on citizens but UIDs and vasectomies as well.
It was also at this time that China introduced the later, longer, fewer campaign.
In 1964, the first national Family Planning Office was established to oversee
China’s fertility reduction programs, many of which focused on urban areas with
modern medical facilities and access to supplies of birth control. Government
officials also had more control in cities to monitor residents, enforce policies, and
threaten those who did not comply. Banister reports that by 1966, many cities in
China had experienced a significant decrease in their fertility rates. Rural areas
remained largely untouched by family planning efforts until after the Cultural
Revolution of 1966–1969, at which time many of the urban family planning
networks expanded their control into the surrounding towns and countryside
(Banister).
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Then in 1978 the government of China created the goal of a zero percent growth rate by the year
2000. The one-child policy followed on the heels of this new goal.
According to Edward Wong of the New York Times, China’s family planning commission
praised the ongoing one-child policy for having prevented four hundred million births (Wong).
The number of prevented births equals twenty-nine percent of China’s current population of “1.3
billion” (Barrientos). With China believing that the one-child policy is the answer to their
problems, they may have prevented a more beneficial and humane policy by failing to use the
intelligence of those four hundred million babies that never got a chance at life.
An example of that intelligence lies within Carissa Yip. At only nine years old Yip is the
youngest person to reach expert level per the U.S. Chess Federation. The chess federation has
been recording chess statistics since 1991 and currently has Yip placed in the top seven percent
of all players registered and in the top two percent of all females registered (Associated Press).
Yip also has the ability to play with her back to the board. With each position called out Yip
tracks the move on her imaginary chess board (Associated Press).
Jacob Barnett is another prime example of what China may be preventing with their onechild policy.
Jacob Barnett is currently studying advanced physics, quantum field theory,
chaotic laser physics, and dynamical systems. He is the youngest researcher ever
to be published in Physical Review A. Jacob's mission is to spread his love of
science throughout the world and to end what he calls Math Phobia (Barnett).
Currently Barnett is a 14 year old Master’s student at Indiana University-Purdue University
Indianapolis (IUPUI) who is working his way towards a PhD in quantum physics (Ward).
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Children such as Carissa Yip and Jacob Barnett may hold the answers to current and
future problems. At this point only time will tell as they continue to grow and learn. Had China
not established the one-child policy in 1979 they would have had many minds of intellectual age.
Minds which could have helped China become a better place to live and grow.
Another possible option to China’s one-child policy is sex education. Out of 1,100
parents surveyed in China more than forty percent said that their child did not get any type of
sexual education at school (Klein). Although there have been efforts to include sex education in
schools it is not mandatory. To the Chinese speaking of sex is often considered taboo and the
idea of teaching sex education in schools provokes parents to speak up and have it kept out of the
classrooms (Klein). With the lack of sex education and the temptation of the opposite sex
China’s leaders are not using each and every possible option to prevent over population. If used,
the options available to China could very well create a healthy alternative to the one-child policy.
Unfortunately, like the U.S., China’s youth are also becoming more likely to have
premarital sex than in previous generations.
A sexual revolution of sorts is underway in China, particularly among youth.
Whereas a generation ago, prevailing attitudes towards sex were conservative by
any standard and premarital sex was almost unheard of, today young people in
China are increasingly open to more liberal ideas about dating and relationships.
According to the 2000 Chinese Health and Family Life Survey (CHFLS), the first
nationally representative survey on sexual behaviors and attitudes, four in 10 men
younger than 30 say they have had premarital sex, more than twice the proportion
among those in their 40s. The same trend appears among women. Two in 10
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women younger than 30 report having had sex before marriage, compared with
one in 10 of those in their 40s (Wang, Hertog and Meier).
With the rise of premarital sex in China the population will not raise so much as compared to the
number of abortions. With the growing acceptance of premarital sex along with the lack of
sexual education, China’s youth will create more unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted
diseases due to the lack of personal protection and contraceptives.
According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) the use of condoms properly and
consistently can lower the risk of obtaining or transferring a sexually transmitted disease (STD).
This is to include the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). “Laboratory studies have
demonstrated that latex condoms provide an essentially impermeable barrier to particles the size
of STD pathogens,” this study also included particles of the HIV virus (Centers for Disease
Control). If China’s leaders would create programs to educate their people on the use and
effectiveness of condoms it would be another strike against the current inhumane practice of the
one-child policy.
Properly used female contraceptives are another tool which can help to prevent
unwanted/unplanned pregnancies. There are many types of contraceptives available to women in
2013. These include the Copper T intrauterine device (IUD), hormone implant, hormone
injections, hormone patch, pills, and diaphragms to name a few. The effectiveness of the
contraceptive will depend on the type chosen. Charts provided by the CDC show an
effectiveness range from 78% (spermicide) to 99.95% (implant). By making these options
available to the women of China, unwanted/unplanned pregnancies would decline.
In lieu of contraceptives being used for prevention, the Chinese government uses them as
retribution for not following the one-child policy or for not being able to pay the large sum of
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fines after birthing a baby outside of the policy. Since 1971 China has performed 196 million
sterilizations and has also inserted 403 million intrauterine devices, many of which have been
forced upon the women of China by local government officials (Rabinovitch).
On March 19, a doctor at Tongshan County warned that sterilizing Shen Hongxia
would be life-threatening. Nevertheless, local Family Planning Officers forcibly
sterilized her, in order to avoid an “illegal pregnancy.” Shen Hongxia, 42, died,
leaving behind her husband and two children, one of whom is two years old
(Ertelt).
Reggie Littlejohn, President of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, emailed LifeNews
(Ertelt’s publisher) about another incident which also took place in March of 2013. Her
statement made it onto Ertelt’s report, “In the other case, a woman who had been forcibly
sterilized twice was found hanging in her local Family Planning Office, under suspicious
circumstances,” (Littlejohn).
With China’s sex education being practically obsolete abortion is a common term
amongst the Chinese population. It is ironic that sex education can be kept from classrooms yet
abortion is well known as a consequence of pregnancy. Since 1971 China’s doctors have
conducted over 330 million abortions (Rabinovitch). Although the one-child policy was initiated
in 1979, China had previous campaigns to help keep the birth rate under control. One of the more
popular slogans used by the Chinese government was “later, longer, fewer,” which pertained to
getting married later in life, having long intervals between children, and having fewer children
overall (Bailey, Ruddy and Shchukina).
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However, having an abortion is legal in many countries including our own. The issue is
not simply with the abortions. The issue is that so many of them are unwanted and forced upon
innocent Chinese women.
Forced abortions have always been a part of the policy, but not discussed openly.
That changed dramatically June 2, when authorities dragged Feng Jianmei, who
was seven months pregnant, from her home. She was taken to a hospital in
Shaanxi province in northwest China. Feng, 27, who already had a 5-year-old
daughter, was injected with a chemical to induce an abortion and kill her child
(MacLeod).
Unfortunately Feng’s turmoil is not hers alone. Other cases have slipped out of China as use of
the internet becomes more prevalent. One other such case involves Yeqing Ji of Shanghai, China.
Members of the family planning commission of Xiaomiao village came to her
home and told her she was breaking the law. Unless she had an abortion, she was
threatened with a fine of 200,000 yuan, or $31,300, more than three times her
salary combined with that of her husband. Unable to pay, she said she had the
abortion (Kim).
However, the one-child policy is not only affecting women. China is facing an aging
society which will affect both men and women.
People above the age of 60 now represent 13.3% of the total, up from 10.3% in
2000. In the same period, those under the age of 14 declined from 23% to 17%. A
continuation of these trends will place ever greater burdens on the working young
who must support their elderly kin, as well as on government-run pension and
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health-care systems. China's great “demographic dividend” (a rising share of
working-age adults) is almost over (The Economist).
With life expectancy rising from 41 to 71 years of age between 1950 and 2003 the
estimated number of elderly at least age 60 in 2040 is 400 million (Goza and Zhang). “This
figure would represent 26% of the total population and be larger than the combined current
populations of France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom,” (Goza and Zhang).
These estimates may not be completely accurate when the time comes but they should be taken
seriously in order to prevent any further negative outcomes. Changes to the one-child policy
would help many in many different ways.
Now let’s not forget the children. Having other children around to socialize with makes a
considerable difference in behavior, intellect, and social wellbeing. Xuefeng Chen reports that
90% of urban children and 60% of children from rural areas have no brothers or sisters
(Xuefeng). In fact, a study of individuals born just before as well as just after the introduction of
the one-child policy was conducted to assess “social and competitive behavioral attributes such
as trust and risk-taking,” (University). The researchers also had the subjects take part in a series
of economic games. “Results indicated that individuals who grew up as single children as a result
of China's OCP were significantly less trusting, less trustworthy, more risk-averse, less
competitive, more pessimistic, and less conscientious individuals,” (University). It was found
that having children spend time with cousins or in a daycare did not compare to actually having
siblings. Again, this is another clear example of how the one-child policy has produced a
negative effect.
Another of China’s reasons for the one-child policy is waste. Yet, China has a large
electronic waste problem and not enough laborers to disassemble the pieces for recycling. The
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city of Guiyu, China actually looks like a dump site for electronic waste. The only difference is
that people actually live in Guiyu. The United Nations also reports “China now appears to be the
largest e-waste dumping site in the world,” (Powell).
China, one of the leading producers and consumers of the world’s electric and
electronic equipment (EEE), is also a primary destination for discarded products
— electronic waste (e-waste). The country is thus grappling with the reality of an
estimated 20 percent annual rise in domestically generated e-waste combined with
a role as one of the planet’s primary dumping grounds for global e-waste — a
massive environmental, social and economic burden (Powell).
With such a large quantity of e-waste it would be beneficial for China to have more laborers
available. Unfortunately the one-child policy has restricted the number of laborers available to
help keep China clean.
China’s waste problem is not only with electronic and electrical devices, it is with
chemical runoff and air pollutants as well. Although chemicals such as lead, beryllium and
cadmium are released from e-waste the runoff and air pollution from Longgang trash incinerators
can be even more dangerous. The incinerators have been built as China’s trash problem
continues to grow. Instead of choosing to create landfills on the extensive amount of land
available, China’s government has decided to have incinerators constructed. These incinerators
pour out dark toxic smoke which can attack an individual’s central nervous system (Bradsher).
“And these pollutants, particularly long-lasting substances like dioxin and mercury, are
dangerous not only in China, a growing body of atmospheric research based on satellite
observations suggests. They float on air currents across the Pacific to North American shores,”
(Bradsher). There are actually much better quality incinerators available but due to the cost of
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each one China’s government officials mainly choose to elect the lower quality lower priced
Longgang. With the higher priced Baoan incinerator virtually no dioxin or other pollutants
escape.
The difference between the Baoan and Longgang incinerators lies at the center of
a growing controversy in China. Incinerators are being built to widely different
standards across the country and even across cities like Shenzhen. For years
Chinese government regulators have discussed the need to impose tighter limits
on emissions. But they have done little because of a bureaucratic turf war, a
Chinese government official and Chinese incineration experts said (Bradsher).
Studies completed by the University of Washington and the Argonne National Laboratory in
Argonne, Ill., “have estimated that a sixth of the mercury falling on North American lakes comes
from Asia, particularly China, mainly from coal-fired plants and smelters but also from
incinerators,” (Bradsher). Clearly China can benefit from a larger population which will provide
the necessary laborers to take care of their home country.
.
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