8 ms·

China to Ease One-Child Policy; Will Also Abolish Re-Education Through Labor

41 points by chaz 13y ago

davidjgraph 13y ago
Remember, this policy was formed some time after the Great Chinese Famine - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine. I'm not agreeing with the way the policy was enforced, but it's an important background context to why it came about. The population numbers were taking off and this famine wasn't that long ago.
- rayiner 13y ago
  Uh, the one-child policy was introduced almost 20 years after the Great Chinese Famine. I question the implied causal link.
lylebarrere 13y ago
Hopefully a positive step in the right direction, but I am reticent to believe that the Re-Education camps will actually be abolished. I'll believe that when all current prisoners in the labor camps are released.
timje1 13y ago
What's interesting is that there's now a societal expectation to have one child per couple, so the birth rate recovery will be spread across many years or decades. The economist has published several excellent articles on the modern impact of the policy. http://www.economist.com/news/china/21573579-china-may-have-begun-long-end-game-its-one-child-policy-experts-say-it-cannot-end-soon http://www.economist.com/news/china/21573579-china-may-have-...
ph0rque 13y ago
Just speculating here, but could communism be eased out of China the same way many countries peacefully abolished slavery?
- rangibaby 13y ago
  Once Taiwan and Korea got rich and developed enough, they both ditched their dictatorships. I think the same thing will happen in China; it's just taking awhile because the country is huge.
- JDShu 13y ago
  China is not Communist... maybe your question is can be restated as if China will adopt democratic system eventually? I personally believe the answer to that is that is has to, and yes it will probably be more stable compared to the collapse of the Soviet Union - China has that, and it's own history of revolutions, as a reference.
  - theandrewbailey 13y ago
    China not communist? It's right there in the name of the ruling party.
    - Jacqued 13y ago
      Well then I guess "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" is a republic with democratically elected officials. There isn't a single communist country, and I don't think there has ever been any. You could argue that Russia was on a path to communism in 1917, but Lenin promptly put an end to it. At most, China used to be (but isn't any more) a socialist country.
      - leokun 13y ago
        > There isn't a single communist country, and I don't think there has ever been any. The Animal Farm problem I guess, maybe AI can help some day.
        gambiting 13y ago
        Are you familiar with Ian Banks and his Culture books? This is basically what happens - people created "minds", computers which run their societies,but every person is provided with an infinite supply of anything they desire(it's fabricated on demand) and everything(and I mean everything) is allowed, with the exception of killing other people.
z92 13y ago
Too little too late. One reason why the west doesn't need to fear Chinese military power is that, well China don't have any warrior left. If you are the only son, its your duty to take care of you ageing parents instead of fighting at the borders.
- AllenKids 13y ago
  One Child policy is not well implemented across China especially in the rural area. People from rural area is also over represented in the military. I don't have any numbers but I'll bet more than half that's in the service still have one or more siblings back home.
- oddx 13y ago
  Another effect of "single child policy" is significant prevalence of number of men over women. And it's known for making society significantly more aggressive.
  - philwelch 13y ago
    I don't know if it makes society more aggressive, but women are the limiting factor in population growth so the excess men are essentially expendable, or would be but for their parents needing support.
  - shangxiao 13y ago
    "And it's known"...
    - oddx 13y ago
      If you are interested I recommend "The Moral Animal" by Robert Wright, book has more details on subject.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- jl6 13y ago
  What is a better proxy for military power: manpower or manufacturing capacity? I'd argue that war has become as high-tech and automated as everything else, and you no longer need a large standing army to dominate.
rayiner 13y ago
I didn't even know they still had these things. I figured they went away in the 1980's or 1990's. Do the Chinese still perform full-term abortions to maintain the one-child policy? http://www.ewtn.com/library/ISSUES/NEWEVID.TXT http://www.ewtn.com/library/ISSUES/NEWEVID.TXT ("[M]others arriving in labour at the hospital are asked for their child-bearing licences. Babies being delivered without a licence are given 'the poison shot.' A hypodermic syringe filled with iodine or formaldehyde is injected through a 5cm needle directly into the soft part of the baby's head as it crowns. The baby can take up to 48 hours to die."). Apparently it still happens: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/may/06/chinas-barbaric-one-child-policy http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/may/06/chinas-barbaric... ("In 2007, I read of riots breaking out in Bobai County in China's south-western Guangxi province. Under pressure from higher authorities to meet birth targets, local officials had launched a vicious crackdown on family-planning violators. Squads had rounded up 17,000 women and subjected them to sterilisations and abortions and had extracted 7.8m yuan (£800,000) in fines for 'illegal births,' ransacking the homes of families who refused to pay."). See also: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/22/opinion/chinas-brutal-one-child-policy.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/22/opinion/chinas-brutal-one-... ("According to Chinese Health Ministry data released in March, 336 million abortions and 222 million sterilizations have been carried out since 1971."). I suppose it is a testament to how much the business types at places like WSJ whitewash the fact that China is still the world's largest dictatorship, and quite a brutal one at that. All in the interest of making a quick buck overseas and prostrating themselves to Chinese investors, of course.
- timje1 13y ago
  Asking if the Chinese still perform full-term abortions a very loaded question. Do you still beat your wife? Officially, it's always been illegal, though some officials have performed late term abortions as a result of pressure coming from above. I believe the different regional bureaucracies and officials implement the rule differently. The one child policy has mostly been relaxed in the rural provinces, though these were also the places with the most horrific atrocities happening in them. Possibly, in some remote parts, late term abortions continue.
  - 13y ago
shangxiao 13y ago
I think we can just kiss goodbye the hope that the world's population growth will be curbed anytime soon...
- virmundi 13y ago
  You're forgetting war. If countries do, indeed, go at each other for resources, the overly populated country can just throw bodies at the problem until they win. Look at the USA's wars. North v South, huge losses on the North side compared to the South. North won because of more bodies. US v Germany (both WW's), US lost millions more than German. Throw dough boys at them until they run out of bullets. China can do that in spades, especially against smaller countries like Japan. Or the Koreans. Or the Taiwanese. The end result is China significantly reduced its surplus population, leave behind land, commerce centers, and getting spoils. Win-win for them since they don't really seem to care about the human cost.
pavlov 13y ago
China should abolish the death penalty. It is abused in horrible ways including forced organ harvesting. The number of executions in China is a state secret, but it's estimated to be around 5000 per year -- more than all other nations combined. Bodies of executed prisoners have long been a major source of organ transplants in China: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_transplantation_in_China http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_transplantation_in_China According to several reports, political prisoners and prisoners of conscience (e.g. Falun Gong members) are being executed in the thousands and harvested for organs. These are not convicted murderers, but people who have never even received a trial.
- philwelch 13y ago
  This just in: Westerner demands that thriving civilization, centuries older than his own, adopt his culture's standards of human rights.
  - pavlov 13y ago
    China's total lack of an independent justice system and the resulting atrocities is not news, but bears repeating. If you don't believe in universal human rights, there's probably nothing I can say to convince you otherwise. I guess the 20th century's bloody history didn't teach mankind very much, when people still look up to "thriving" nationalist states that build economic growth on the tortured flesh of their citizens.
    - philwelch 13y ago
      I don't like when other countries execute large numbers of people for reasons I disagree with, but I'm not going to go over to China and tell them how to run their country.
      - toomuchtodo 13y ago
        > but I'm not going to go over to China and tell them how to run their country. That's the problem. Your (as a country or people) culture ends where basic human rights begin.

41 points by chaz 13y ago

Remember, this policy was formed some time after the Great Chinese Famine - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine. I'm not agreeing with the way the policy was enforced, but it's an important background context to why it came about. The population numbers were taking off and this famine wasn't that long ago.

rayiner 13y ago
Uh, the one-child policy was introduced almost 20 years after the Great Chinese Famine. I question the implied causal link.

lylebarrere 13y ago

Hopefully a positive step in the right direction, but I am reticent to believe that the Re-Education camps will actually be abolished. I'll believe that when all current prisoners in the labor camps are released.

timje1 13y ago

What's interesting is that there's now a societal expectation to have one child per couple, so the birth rate recovery will be spread across many years or decades. The economist has published several excellent articles on the modern impact of the policy. http://www.economist.com/news/china/21573579-china-may-have-begun-long-end-game-its-one-child-policy-experts-say-it-cannot-end-soon http://www.economist.com/news/china/21573579-china-may-have-...

ph0rque 13y ago

Just speculating here, but could communism be eased out of China the same way many countries peacefully abolished slavery?

rangibaby 13y ago
Once Taiwan and Korea got rich and developed enough, they both ditched their dictatorships. I think the same thing will happen in China; it's just taking awhile because the country is huge.
JDShu 13y ago
China is not Communist... maybe your question is can be restated as if China will adopt democratic system eventually? I personally believe the answer to that is that is has to, and yes it will probably be more stable compared to the collapse of the Soviet Union - China has that, and it's own history of revolutions, as a reference.
- theandrewbailey 13y ago
  China not communist? It's right there in the name of the ruling party.
  - Jacqued 13y ago
    Well then I guess "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" is a republic with democratically elected officials. There isn't a single communist country, and I don't think there has ever been any. You could argue that Russia was on a path to communism in 1917, but Lenin promptly put an end to it. At most, China used to be (but isn't any more) a socialist country.
    - leokun 13y ago
      > There isn't a single communist country, and I don't think there has ever been any. The Animal Farm problem I guess, maybe AI can help some day.
      - gambiting 13y ago
        Are you familiar with Ian Banks and his Culture books? This is basically what happens - people created "minds", computers which run their societies,but every person is provided with an infinite supply of anything they desire(it's fabricated on demand) and everything(and I mean everything) is allowed, with the exception of killing other people.

z92 13y ago

Too little too late. One reason why the west doesn't need to fear Chinese military power is that, well China don't have any warrior left. If you are the only son, its your duty to take care of you ageing parents instead of fighting at the borders.

AllenKids 13y ago
One Child policy is not well implemented across China especially in the rural area. People from rural area is also over represented in the military. I don't have any numbers but I'll bet more than half that's in the service still have one or more siblings back home.
oddx 13y ago
Another effect of "single child policy" is significant prevalence of number of men over women. And it's known for making society significantly more aggressive.
- philwelch 13y ago
  I don't know if it makes society more aggressive, but women are the limiting factor in population growth so the excess men are essentially expendable, or would be but for their parents needing support.
- shangxiao 13y ago
  "And it's known"...
  - oddx 13y ago
    If you are interested I recommend "The Moral Animal" by Robert Wright, book has more details on subject.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
jl6 13y ago
What is a better proxy for military power: manpower or manufacturing capacity? I'd argue that war has become as high-tech and automated as everything else, and you no longer need a large standing army to dominate.

rayiner 13y ago

I didn't even know they still had these things. I figured they went away in the 1980's or 1990's. Do the Chinese still perform full-term abortions to maintain the one-child policy? http://www.ewtn.com/library/ISSUES/NEWEVID.TXT http://www.ewtn.com/library/ISSUES/NEWEVID.TXT ("[M]others arriving in labour at the hospital are asked for their child-bearing licences. Babies being delivered without a licence are given 'the poison shot.' A hypodermic syringe filled with iodine or formaldehyde is injected through a 5cm needle directly into the soft part of the baby's head as it crowns. The baby can take up to 48 hours to die."). Apparently it still happens: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/may/06/chinas-barbaric-one-child-policy http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/may/06/chinas-barbaric... ("In 2007, I read of riots breaking out in Bobai County in China's south-western Guangxi province. Under pressure from higher authorities to meet birth targets, local officials had launched a vicious crackdown on family-planning violators. Squads had rounded up 17,000 women and subjected them to sterilisations and abortions and had extracted 7.8m yuan (£800,000) in fines for 'illegal births,' ransacking the homes of families who refused to pay."). See also: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/22/opinion/chinas-brutal-one-child-policy.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/22/opinion/chinas-brutal-one-... ("According to Chinese Health Ministry data released in March, 336 million abortions and 222 million sterilizations have been carried out since 1971."). I suppose it is a testament to how much the business types at places like WSJ whitewash the fact that China is still the world's largest dictatorship, and quite a brutal one at that. All in the interest of making a quick buck overseas and prostrating themselves to Chinese investors, of course.

timje1 13y ago
Asking if the Chinese still perform full-term abortions a very loaded question. Do you still beat your wife? Officially, it's always been illegal, though some officials have performed late term abortions as a result of pressure coming from above. I believe the different regional bureaucracies and officials implement the rule differently. The one child policy has mostly been relaxed in the rural provinces, though these were also the places with the most horrific atrocities happening in them. Possibly, in some remote parts, late term abortions continue.
- 13y ago

shangxiao 13y ago

I think we can just kiss goodbye the hope that the world's population growth will be curbed anytime soon...

virmundi 13y ago
You're forgetting war. If countries do, indeed, go at each other for resources, the overly populated country can just throw bodies at the problem until they win. Look at the USA's wars. North v South, huge losses on the North side compared to the South. North won because of more bodies. US v Germany (both WW's), US lost millions more than German. Throw dough boys at them until they run out of bullets. China can do that in spades, especially against smaller countries like Japan. Or the Koreans. Or the Taiwanese. The end result is China significantly reduced its surplus population, leave behind land, commerce centers, and getting spoils. Win-win for them since they don't really seem to care about the human cost.

pavlov 13y ago

China should abolish the death penalty. It is abused in horrible ways including forced organ harvesting. The number of executions in China is a state secret, but it's estimated to be around 5000 per year -- more than all other nations combined. Bodies of executed prisoners have long been a major source of organ transplants in China: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_transplantation_in_China http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_transplantation_in_China According to several reports, political prisoners and prisoners of conscience (e.g. Falun Gong members) are being executed in the thousands and harvested for organs. These are not convicted murderers, but people who have never even received a trial.

philwelch 13y ago
This just in: Westerner demands that thriving civilization, centuries older than his own, adopt his culture's standards of human rights.
- pavlov 13y ago
  China's total lack of an independent justice system and the resulting atrocities is not news, but bears repeating. If you don't believe in universal human rights, there's probably nothing I can say to convince you otherwise. I guess the 20th century's bloody history didn't teach mankind very much, when people still look up to "thriving" nationalist states that build economic growth on the tortured flesh of their citizens.
  - philwelch 13y ago
    I don't like when other countries execute large numbers of people for reasons I disagree with, but I'm not going to go over to China and tell them how to run their country.
    - toomuchtodo 13y ago
      > but I'm not going to go over to China and tell them how to run their country. That's the problem. Your (as a country or people) culture ends where basic human rights begin.