Population Control

Which of the following views by China's former leaders do you think history will prove to be true regarding China and its population?  Mao Zedong held that a large population was an asset for China.  Zhou Enlai believed that controlling the expansion of population was a pre-requisite for economic growth.  Explain why you believe one or the other to be correct.  

This is one instance where I agree with Mao.  Contrary to popular accepted thinking on the subject of family size and its relation to economic growth, I believe in a natural law and evolutionary approach to population management.  The dynamics of populations begin at the very heart of creation, and when these fundamental forces are unnaturally manipulated, the very nature of our existence is tampered with and is at risk.  When political and social engineers see a problem like the Chinese government does, they view the growing baby, the fertile mother, or the large family, as a threat to their way of life.  It is not initially a question of survival, although through the failed policies of the CCP have often made it one (for instance, the famines of the Great Leap Forward which killed 30 million), but a question of material and economic allocation of resources.  For the one-child proponents, it is a zero-sum game, with a finite and limited amount of products, services, entertainment, jobs, and other resources.  They ignore the advances made through biotechnology and medicine and their effect on the maintenance of large populations. Mao was right to assert that a growing and large population can be a tremendous asset to a country, as we are witnessing from the efficiencies of the Chinese economy, borne not through automated factories, but raw labor advantages.  However, Mao was wrong in possibly every other way in providing for his countrymen.            Thus, one of the dilemmas created through the forced restriction of the birth rates, is a rapid aging of the populace.  In the article "The Most Populous Nation Faces A Population Crises", Kahn writes about the rapidly aging Chinese population and the coming burden on the largely non-existent Chinese pension system, a shrinking labor pool, rising taxes, and increased competition for capital.  To quote Mr. Hu Augang, a Chinese economist, "We will have the social burden of a rich country, and the income of a poor country.  No country has ever faced the same circumstances before."  To remain philosophically consistent, any government that is willing to go through the type of measures China has taken to enforce control over births, will possibly use similar techniques on the aged, such as euthanasia.  If the Government thinks they have the power to destroy life at the earliest stages, what is preventing them from killing seniors who are placing a burden in a similar manner? 

Chinese Population Issues, Conclusion

The one-child policy must be abandoned. It has prolonged the negative views towards women that have contributed to the sex-ratio imbalance. It violates the rights of parents on a profound level and usurps the natural right inherent to parents. The government can pursue methods and attitudes that will capture the collective thought process of the Chinese people and encourage responsible family growth so the country will not have to face a population explosion. Evidence already shows a preference for small families (4), and as the country grows in wealth and education, this preference will likely continue. Chinese culture is changing to reflect the economic gains made during the last twenty-five years, and more freedoms in other areas of life will make continued application of the one-child policy increasingly difficult. The government should recognize this social movement and phase out the policy, and replace it with a large-scale public health education program that places the responsibility back in the hands of the parents. There is evidence of relaxation of some aspects of the policy that have been welcomed by couples, and reduced the tensions between the people and government officials (4). The Chinese government has many larger issues to deal with at this point in history. Unprecedented foreign investment and trade have placed enormous sums of capital into the Chinese economy. Bigger issues such as rural poverty, environmental degradation, failing state-owned enterprises, international political tensions, and internal political pressures should take precedence on the government’s list of priorities. Chinese civilization is on the cusp of a sweeping renaissance that properly nurtured by forward thinking policy decisions can bring about major advancements in society, industry and technology to the Chinese people and to the world. China must continue to sustain the very strength that has brought them to where they are today; the vast numbers of Chinese citizens that “are born not only with mouths that need to be fed, but also with hands that can produce, and minds that can create and innovate."(5).



Works Cited

1. "Malthusian Mythology and Chinese Reality: The Population History of One Quarter of Humanity, 1700-2000 - Shorenstein Reports - Institute of East Asian Studies, UC Berkeley." Institute of East Asian Studies, UC Berkeley. 30 Nov. 2007 http://ieas.berkeley.edu/shorenstein/1998.05.html.

2. "Chinese Ancestor Worship - ReligionFacts." Religion, World Religions, Comparative Religion - Just the facts on the world's religions.. 30 Nov. 2007.
www.religionfacts.com/chinese_religion/practices/ancestor_worship.htm

3. "Shortage of girls in China today." Encyclopedia.com - FREE online Encyclopedias and Dictionaries. 30 Nov. 2007
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-.

4. "NEJM -- The Effect of China's One-Child Family Policy after 25 Years." The New England Journal of Medicine: Research & Review Articles on Diseases. 30 Nov. 2007 http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/353/11/1171

5. "The Population Question." Catholic Conservation Center. 30 Nov. 2007 .
http://conservation.catholic.org/the_population_question.htm

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Chinese Population Issues, Part 5

What is the better approach to the issue of China’s massive population? This is a complex question that can only be addressed through consistent policy choices over generations. Chinese culture is durable and has survived incredible hardships throughout the centuries. A large population can be provided for and sustained through responsible policies that both respect the dignity, conscience and rights of each person, and encourage procreation that supports and sustains the prosperity of China. First, it must be the priority of the government leaders to initiate the change. Some concrete directives that could be pursued must address and change the long held attitudes towards women and their position in society, implementing some type of pension system to aid in providing for the elderly, shifting the attitude of looking at people in strictly economic terms, and improving the social, economic and human rights situation to enhance the conditions within the country.

Chinese Population Issues, Part 4

The question remains; is China’s population a huge problem that must be corrected through inhumane methods that violate the dignity and rights of the citizen that the government should be protecting? Or are the policies an extension of what has been done by the people themselves to manage the population previously, only now by force? Mao’s assertion that a large population is a benefit and resource for a country reflects the phrase “People are born not only with mouths that need to be fed, but also with hands that can produce, and minds that can create and innovate."(5). It was not the large population that caused mass starvation during the Great Leap Forward, but reckless public policy decisions driven by communist philosophy, such as steel production in backyard furnaces, unobtainable production expectations for communes, and bombastic statements fueled by Marxist thinking. These policies and ideas handicapped the government in providing assistance in food prouction and distribution, critically disrupted resource allocation during harvest time, and fundamentally disordered the existing economic system, which in turn caused millions of deaths through starvation.

Chinese Population Issues, Part 3

According to the study by Professors Lee and Wang, there is a history of infanticide practiced by Chinese parents dating back to the second and third millennia, BC. The study indicated the primary reason for the sex-ratio imbalance is the preference for male offspring, which originated with ancestral worship during the aforementioned time frame. Ancestor worship is “a ritual practice that is based on the belief that deceased family members have a continued existence, take an interest in the affairs of the world, and possess the ability to influence the fortune of the living.” (2). This reason along with the Confucian value system that almost always places the male above the female in most aspects of society (3) has produced an environment where infant girls are viewed as nonessential, if not a burden to some parents. These factors have historically organically manifested themselves in Chinese society and continue today under the government controlled one-child policy. Urban families who subscribe to male preference are under pressure to have a boy; since they are only allowed one child they do not want a girl. Rural parents are usually allowed a second child, especially if the first child is a girl (4). Although actual statistics are unobtainable, infanticide by the family is believed to be rare in China today, however it has been replaced with sex-selective abortion carried out by private practitioners (4).

Another major shift occurring in Chinese demographics is the rapid aging of the population. This dilemma has been caused by a decrease in the birth rate in tandem with stabilizing life expectancy. Those age sixty-five and older composed 7.5% of the population in 2006, and is expected to rise to 15% by the year 2025 (4). This is a large concern because most Chinese workers have no pension plan to support them in old age, and a smaller family unit to provide for them, due to the reduced birthrate.

Chinese Population Issues, Part 2

In examining the historical population trends of China, there are some key events that illustrate the current issues with managing the population. The Chinese people have over the centuries employed various means to manage the exponential growth of population. A paper written by Lee and Wang indicated the following cultural dynamics that have been used to regulate growth beyond what Malthus understood:

“The Chinese demographic system, in other words, was characterized by a great deal of human agency and individual choices that balanced marital passion and parental love with arranged marriage, the need to regulate coitus, the decision to kill or give away children, and the adoption of other children. Chinese families constantly adjusted their demographic behavior according to their familial circumstances to maximize their collective utility. Such demographic adjustment allowed them to prosper even under stress, if at the cost of considerable individual sacrifice. This deliberate decision making thus gave rise to low female survivorship and low marital fertility, which in turn enabled China to maintain low population growth at the aggregate level until modern times.”

These circumstances were how the Chinese people manage the growth before last few centuries, until the population started to rapidly increase during the eighteenth century. Lee and Wang indicate when the first major rise occurred between 1750 and 1950, when it tripled to 580 million. The second increase took place from 1950 to 2000 when it rose to 1.2 billion (1).

Chinese Population Issues, Part I

The population control policy, commonly known as the "one-child policy", has not addressed the root cause of the large population in China, but has exacerbated a subset of different problems, such as the sex-ratio imbalance, accelerated aging of the population, and heightened the tensions between the government, the Chinese citizens and the international community through the application of brutal and inhumane birth control procedures. In order to propose a logical and effective solution, one must initially properly define the problem. Is China's massive population an actual problem, or has it been examined through the largely discredited Malthusian position and influenced by the history of famine largely attributed to the failures of The Great Leap Forward? Is the raw number of people, or the inability or unwillingness of the government to effectively provide an economic system that can manage the population, the underlying source of the applied resolutions? Finally, what are some realistic workable strategies that could be examined to effectively administer solutions for the challenges of the Chinese population?