TIME magazine ran a piece online titled "How China Has Pruned Its Families' Trees." Given how serious the topic is, the headline is more than a little flippant.
Hannah Beech makes several very shrewd observations. Given China's booming economy-- and seeing a "link between the single-child policy and double-digit growth rates"--it would appear that some "experts" are very forgiving of the nation's human rights violations. "Even as foreigners decry the forced abortions, sterilizations and other abuses committed by zealous family-planning officials," Beech writes, "an uneasy thought emerges: maybe China's rulers had it right all along."
She takes the time to list the unanticipated consequences of China's totalitarian social policies. Everything from a fertility rate way below replacement; "one of the planet's worst gender imbalances, largely a result of women aborting female fetuses due to a traditional preference for male offspring"; to " least 24 million 'bare branches' -- men destined to stay single because there are not enough wives to go around. As more of those boys become bachelors, China risks all sorts of social plagues -- from criminal gangs to greater trafficking in women."
On top of all that, "The other danger is that China will grow gray before it is rich enough to cope," Beech says. Factories "are now facing shortages of young, skilled labor. By 2050, one-third of Chinese will be elderly." And that doesn't even address the "habit" urban Chinese have gotten into--having one child or no children at all--due to an increase in affluence and "30 years of official propaganda."
A piece very much reading. It's at www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2002403,00.html#ixzz0tCglXF7L
Contact: Dave Andrusko
Source: NRLC
Date Published: July 9, 2010
