Thread: Forced Population Control in China

I was reading an article in Marie Claire about the family planning laws in China, which state that a married couple may only have one child - ever. Personally, I find this practice offensive and barbaric. What happened to a woman's right to choose? Somehow I'd bet that abortion is legal is there, but deciding to be sterilized is not your choice?

I wish somebody would stand up for the women who are being held down like animals and forcibly sterilized. I realise that my country (USA) probably won't stick our nose in, because we depend on China's exports. But someone needs to stand up for these women. Who will it be? What can we do? I'm so angry that my hands feel tied.

What are your thoughts? Do you think one child per family family planning makes sense? I would love to hear from some of the Chinese members of this forum, explaining their perspective.

And what do you think about trying to control the population anyway? It seems to me that nature will right itself and that we don't need to be worried about over population.

Thoughts?

I have nothing to add to this topic except that I know Chinese people who immigrated to Japan just for the purposes of having as many children as they like. Sad, but they're happy now.

OK,maybe i can give you some info about this.As a developing country and has 1300 million people ,China did make the family planning policy to control the counting of popularity. In those days giving birth to more than 2 babys, almostly the family would be fined.While if the family's first baby is a girl,having another baby is OK. Thank God,that tough time had past . Nowadays, each family can have 2 or more babys as you like.(one of my friend's aunt has 4 babys,3 girl and a lovely boy).
As i known,few families moved to japan because of the family planning policy. U can find that the relationship between Chine and japan is very complex. History tells you what you want to know. I should stop here. :)

Contradictory to your post, I agree with one-child policy. Yes, I'm concerned about overpopulation. I don't want to see a world wherein the lands, waters, and air are filled by human beings - I mean every inch. That's scary. With a limited resources the world have, how are you supposed to feed all those people when resources are slowly burning out. There will be no balance and the only option that might be available for majority of human beings at that time will be death.

this is a very difficult topic but i do not agree with trying to control population but also parents having a big family and not been able to look after them and try to give them some different opportunities i dont think is fair either. i have two kids and have seen the benefits of one haveing a sister or brother.

I think if people can financially afford to have more than one kid and are willing, then they should be able to. I don't like how the government intervenes into people's personal lives/choices and tells them they can't have more than a certain amount of kids. But then again, if the country can't afford to have a huge population blowup, then it kinda makes sense to setup some sort of limit. It's a crazy thing, but we live in a crazy world.

Well, I haven't read the article, but either you or the author are simplifying it a lot though, JustJenna. What I think needs to be clear, is that not all of China's population are restricted under this law (I think in fact that the one-child policy mainly concerns the minority population in the cities of China, while the rural population is exempted).

There is a reason as to why this policy was implemented. In reality, a lot of state incentives are given to families with one child, whereas families with more children in urban areas are often forced to pay the government and/or loses their social and economic incentives. Moreover, having been travelling in China myself, the policy's strictness is different depending on the province, and it's certainly not some kind of nation wide attempt to control the population, but rather the population growth.

Some studies have shown the policy to have remarkably positive effects, preventing overpopulation, and in China's case, with a population that has been sky rocketing, I think that this has been very important to keep the nation prospering and for the government to be able to look after its citizens in a proper way.

Surely one could argue that this a complete violation of human rights, and you would probably be right, but considering the alternative I still don't know what's best.

Edit; SilverStreak, there is a possibility of that, which is why rich families in many cases, although living in urban areas, have more than one child.

Edit 2 (answering your comment below, JJ); Well, you're definately over simplifying it not bringing in all the details to the discussion and basing your arguments on one article, but I'm reading it at the moment. And by the way, those were hardly arguments, only my own personal experiences and what I know from having travelled in China a lot, next time try to actually read what I wrote.

The thing is, the world will right itself. If the world is truly over-populated, nature will fix it. Its happened before.

Also someone above mentioned that people are allowed to have as many babies in China as they want. If that is the case, then why are women being forcibly sterilized? Why are heavy fines being handed out and their children being denied government benefits? You should read the Marie Claire article in it's entirety to learn about what I'm talking about.

@SS1891: You haven't read the article and yet you accuse me of over-simplifying the issue? Please at least educate yourself with the material I'm mentioning before you try to form a valid argument.

Working in tax (And with one of my colleagues who was born in Shanghai and came here when she was 18), part of what I have studied is the international tax law. As has been mentioned in this thread, the one child policy is only for the big cities, rural areas there is no such rule, after all...who would help with the farming?

Anyhow, when looking at international tax policies, we looked at how people in China are not actually forced to have only one child, they can have more than one. But those who have only one (for whatever reason) are given tax breaks by the government as an incentive to have only one child. So for a lot of people who can afford it, who cares about saving a few hundred dollars or so in tax if they want a second child?

Its a bit overdone, this whole one child thing. theres a lot which isnt said about the true situation