China tries to even out birth rate.

Hainan -- It is over 30 years since the People's Republic of China instituted its one-child policy in an effort to limit population growth. Particularly in rural areas this has led to massive--often forced--abortion totals, as well as infanticide and abandonment of newborns, mainly girls. Because of the tradition that a son will carry on the family name, be available to work on the family farm or business, and support his parents in their old age, most Chinese parents prefer to have boys. Girls are expendable.

In recent years, population statistics have shown up some consequences of this policy. In Hainan province, boys now outnumber girls by 3 to 1; and in Fujian there are 135 boys to every 100 girls. The resulting imbalance in the population is showing up socially: young men are having problems finding wives.

The Belying government is now starting to crack down on ultrasound clinics whose scans reveal the sex of the expected child, but the new laws are not enforceable in practical terms. More successful has been the "caring for girls" program which exempts girls from school fees and offers parents business loans and housing. Professor Li Yongping, a Belying university demographer, has produced a report recommending that people should be allowed to have more children, thus effectively ending the one-child policy. (Files from Globe, Dec. 11, 2004, and Sunday Telegraph, Jan. 9, 2005.)

Comment

The damage of 30 years of brutal repression will have consequences for many years to come although the theorists in Beijing think they can correct the imbalance by 2010. Among current consequences are an increase in crime, trafficking in brides, violent crimes involving gangs, substance abuse, and underemployment among males. (Another untoward consequence unmentioned by either of CI's information sources is an increase in AIDS infection in China due to a consequent increase in unwonted homosexual activity.)

In some families in China the parents buck the system and have a second child. The wife has to give birth outside the hospital environment with a female relative in attendance, and then spirit the baby away to family members in a rural area, where the child is raised. The parents visit the child when they are able, but one may presume that the child is not told that the "visitors" are, in fact, the parents. This, and other cases, puts tremendous pressure (and suffering) on families.