Comments on: Gov’t Studies One Child Policy Reform – Western Critics Still Clueless

By: Uln

Uln — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 11:46:09 +0000

Completely agree with this post. I have been so many times in heated discussions about the 1child pollicy that I dont care to speak about it anymore. Even non-religious people in the West get all excited about it, I guess for the reasons Kai mentioned above.

The thing is, if China had not implemented the policy it would be probably not far from 2 Billion by now, and all those idiots would probably be shitting their pants and complaining about the lack of control of the population in China. I only wish some other countries would do the same, starting with India, because the World just cant take indefinitely high numbers of people (this is not “malthusianism” as some like to say, it is pure logic, open your eyes people!)

By: Tim

Tim — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 08:18:54 +0000

I�d say that there are fairly strong arguments that it may have not been necessary, but at this point it�s important to focus on reform from what has been learned about the policy so far.

The larger concern is the effect the policy has had on notions of the value of a female life as opposed to a male�s and the economic costs of supporting an aging population on par with more developed countries.

Family planning isn�t necessarily evil, just not convinced that fertility regulated by the State is a good idea.

By: Stan

Stan — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 07:40:34 +0000

Some of the discussion about the magnitude of demographic change that can be directly attributed to the One Child Policy has been quite interesting. Another point is that the policy was really never strictly enforced in many rural areas (i.e. where most of the people live).

In my opinion, none of this debate says anything about whether the policy was a good idea or not (at the time it was passed).

By: Tim

Tim — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 07:35:49 +0000

The One Child policy is not only misunderstood outside of China but also in the country as well. The policy eventually was eventually adjusted to vary by location with many actually under what has been really a �1.5 child policy.� It�s debatable how effective the policy was as well, since population growth rates were apparently falling in China before the different policies were instituted.

Anyway, Professor Wang Feng, has a write up on the issue that�s worth a read: http://www.eastwestcenter.org/fileadmin/stored/pdfs/api077.pdf

By: Stan

Stan — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 14:39:15 +0000

Yes, there always has been criticism from the Left as well. I always felt, however, that it had more to do with unintended consequences (i.e. gender issues) and implementation than some general moral-based attack against the underlying policy itself.

By: Kai

Kai — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 14:34:06 +0000

Werd to your mother!

That said, amongst Western critics, I think there’s as much secular/feminist “anti-sexism” as there is religious “right to reproduction” underlying their reprehension. For example, selective abortion often mirrors the forced abortion angle. It’s either the Chinese are evil in limiting a person’s right to have kids or the Chinese are evil in choosing sons over daughters if they can only have one.

I wholly agree that some idiots are going to point to reform (or adjustment) as validating their criticism of the idea. I also agree with you that the idea is rational social policy for a very real social problem, but yeah, the implementation could’ve been better. But then again, implementation could ALWAYS be better.