A new era has just begun in China. While years of human fertility restriction are not over, the severity of that oppression has been lessened. China has been operating under a one child policy since 1979. As a person free to have numerous children, it can be imagined the delight some Chinese citizens are experiencing since the Communist Party of China has just released a statement proposing to amend the policy. They now intend to relax the policy to allow two children for every set of parents. The initial policy should have been avoided and was an utter failure: it did not accomplish the goals the party had assumed it would achieve and created an infamous legacy of human rights abuse.
The policy was enacted to stunt/lessen population growth however, the extent to which the policy actually lowered the rate of growth made the program pointless. The Communist Party of China claims the policy prevented an estimated 400 million births as of 2011. Differently, some demographers suggest the true number of prevented births to be merely 200 million. China has clarified their publication of the policy’s effectiveness because of the negative publicity it was receiving for its exceptionally weak experimental validity. China attempted to mask their dishonest results by declaring the initial publication was incorporating the nine years prior to the policy as well. In other words, they sneakily incorporated years since 1970 since this is when they began discouraging birth, as opposed to 1979 when the policy was established. This controversy reveals and China’s interest to sugarcoat the actual results.
The New York Times condemns the program even further and published a study’s results suggesting the population would have capsized at 1.429 billion persons in year 2016 regardless. The program’s true effect is seriously doubted due to the inevitable demand to have one or no child. This decreased demand is a result of the inevitable scarce resources and thus increased expenses associated with having a child.
In regards to overpopulation, China historically faced a completely different predicament. Throughout the reign of Mao Zedong the birth rate fell from 37 to 20 per thousand. Moreover, life expectancy increased from 35 years in 1948 to 66 years in 1976. Compared to life expectancy in the United States, China faced a serious challenge in populating its country for several years. In effort to boost the population, Mao Zedong encouraged population growth. He ensured the government prevented family planning programs from emerging. His belief that population growth empowered the country resulted in an explosion of new citizens; the population increased from 540 million in 1949 to 940 million in 1976. Mao Zedong’s ideal of power led to an overwhelmingly complex issue, an issue seemingly impossible to resolve without the implementation of draconian and oppressive law.
It was in 1970 that the Chinese government began to grow concerned about the population. This is when they transitioned to a plan inversely different – families should only have two children and marry at later ages. Global debate broke out in regards to the developing catastrophe suggested by organizations such as the Sierra Club.
The problem with a large population is developing the technology and infrastructure to amass and provide the resources necessary to sustain life for a billion people. There are limited resources. Population leads to pollution. Population leads to disease. In essence, China concentrated its population to an extent beyond its resource capabilities.
The idea of instituting a barrier to increased population would thus seem to be the obvious solution – hardly even witty – yet, this has proven to be faulty logic. The population growth would capsize regardless of a population policy, so instilling a destructive policy was a bad idea.
What the policy did was counter-productive. China now struggles with an inverted working citizen to retired citizen ratio. Without the option to have two children, families frequently preferred to have a boy, resulting in China now having a disproportional number of males to females. The most consequential effect from this policy is the reputation the Chinese government acquired. Their violation of what most other domains of the world considers a human right, instilled a bitter distaste in their mouth. This policy rejects the ideals of a world with several emerging democratic nations.
What could have been avoided by more conscientious decision making, was resolved with a crude and ineffective method. The prevention of 200 million lives – lowering the projected peak of China’s population – is not worth the problems China now faces as a result of the one-child policy.
References:
Buckley, Chris. “China Ends One-Child Policy, Allowing Families Two Children.” The New York Times 29 October 2015. NYTimes.com. Web. 9 Nov. 2015.
Bergaglio, Maristella. “Population Growth in China: The Basic Characteristics of China’s Demographic Transition”. 11 Nov. 2015.
Potts, M. “China’s One Child Policy”. 19 August 2006. Web. 11 Nov. 2015.
“Total population, CBR, CDR, NIR and TFR of China (1949-2000)”. China Daily. Web. 11 Nov. 2015.
“World Development Indicators”. World Bank. 1 July 2009. Web. 11 Nov. 2015.
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