Letters to the Editor
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Species Survival
I'm going to make the controversial statement that there is no downside to China's one-child policy.
Here's why. We are facing a species-survival level crisis as humanity. The fact that we in the U.S. absolutely refuse to acknowledge it does not make it any less urgent, nor true. We are faced with destruction of the life support systems that we rely on.
China is one of the few countries that is confronting the fact that this species-survival problem is rooted in population growth. Of course, this is an outgrowth of their resource and geography association-- it is forcing them to realize what the rest of us are in deep denial about. And believe me, we are. If you don't believe that we are, then look yourself in the mirror and ask yourself to name one thing that you've done proactively besides using fluorescent lightbulbs that you've done today to counteract climate change.
Think women's rights are important? Try attempting to preserve them in a world of collapsing societies. Think poverty and human rights are important? Try fighting either when we have masses of migrating humanity due to global warming. Think discrimination against races is a problem? Can you imagine what is going to happen when we start running short on enough protein to make everyone happy?
I'm not recommending that everyone drop their pet causes and work solely on the looming environmental crisis. But it's time for everyone to diversify their portfolio and put about 30% of their activist time into this one. Because when the climate and the planet start to really unravel, none of the rest of it is going to matter. China, by keeping their one-child policy, even in the face of a society with rising standards of living, is doing an amazing thing.
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Little Emperors
I saw a lot of Little Emperors on my visit to China last summer. The strange thing was when I'd see families with two kids, often a brother and sister. Inevitably, the brother was obese and incompetent, the sister thin and helpful.
I'm curious about dating and marriage in China in another fifteen to twenty years. There will already be a surplus of eligible men for women to choose from. A substantial portion of those men, I believe, will be doughy and dependent, and left by the wayside. There may be a lot of individualist Little Emperors, but in the long run, the Empresses may benefit the most.
My Party-member brother-in-law's traditional Chinese mercantilism came through when we he was telling me that he was glad he had two year old daughter. "In twenty years," he told me, "smart pretty girls will be able to get anything they want. They will be worth their weight in gold."
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In America
I routinely see 4 year-olds wheeled about in strollers the size of Suburbans.
"Little Emperor" syndrome isn't exclusively Chinese.
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One child per family
We might shudder at the idea of a government telling people how many children they can have, but China is doing the planet a huge favor. If their population were to surge at the moment when they are going through an industrial boom, think of the disaster for the environment. I'm no fan of totalitarianism, but I give the Chinese credit for looking towards what is sustainable for their country. And is this not just the flip side of countries who encourage multiple child families through tax credits or restrictive reproduction rights policies?
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Too bad the rest of Asia, Latin America . . .
. . . the U.S., Africa and the Arab world wouldn't adopt this policy as well, though the real problem being that most cultures still think people need to get married and need to have children.
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What's wrong with sex selective abortion?
In America, I'm all for it! Keep your laws off my body!
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Only on Salon
..do you see people having a conniption fit over US federal wiretaps on their phone calls, but fully supporting a forced abortion policy by the government. Fortunately, Salon posters are representative of only a VERY SMALL portion of the population. Most would be afraid to say half this stuff in real life.
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Fact Check in Aisle 3...
(Of course, even among urban dwellers, people with enough money and connections are able to get away with having more than one child.)
Of course, you are merely spouting what you've been told so often it must be true, without checking it first.
What could you possibly mean by "get away with"? Unless you secretly bore the child at home, and planned on it never getting a passport, driver's license, bus pass, or attending school, no-one could possibly "get away with" it.
To save you actually being a journalist and doing research, here's what happens if you have a second child in China, as an "urban dweller" (ie. someone with a big-city residence permit or "hukou"):
You'll be fined. And it will be difficult and expensive to get a residence permit for the second child. That's it. No-one goes to jail. Excess children are not separated from parents. No "2nd child detector vans" roam city streets.
The residence permit is what prevents (to take a positive slant on it) enormous Indian-style or African-style or South-American-style slums at the edges of China's large cities. That's because the residence permit is what allows you to attend government schools/hospitals etc.
That's not the same as people being prevented from "freedom of movement". It just that their access to government services outside their "home" area is limited. Not denial, but discouragement. Young 20-30 somethings with university degrees work anywhere they can, and eschew the limited protection of access to public insurance, and buy private cover, or have none.
Now, anyone can have their own opinion on residence permits (the Chinese government realizes the current system doesn't work well and is scrambling for a replacement) and anyone can have their own opinion on reproductive "rights".
But please, if you're writing articles about these issues as they apply to China, a little more rigorous fact-checking could be in order.
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Echoing Reality Based Lefty
This letter is - well - Reality. The writer is correct in every point. Overpopulation can destroy us. It may not be very far off. The effects of global warming are showing up much more rapidly than expected. The result is unknown. Compare Mexico with China. Both are in trouble. China is doing something about it,