Essay, Research Paper: Chin'as One-chiled Policy

In order for a population to gain prosperity, the government needs to provide the people with their basic needs: food, education, healthcare, jobs, housing and protection. The government's purpose is to serve the people, and to bring these basic needs to the society, but it costs a lot of money. Once a population grows larger and larger, the government spends most of it's capital on human resources than to help modernize the country. China had the same problem, so the Chinese government initiated a policy in 1979 called the "One-child policy."
This policy has been a very controversial issue. It has caused the death of many girls, children have become spoilt and self centered, and has also increased the rate of international adoption in just 21 years. This policy stated that all couples were to have only one child. For all legal couples who signed to the policy, the couple and their child were granted economical and educational advantages if they followed the rules. All pregnancies were to be authorized, women were to obtain birth coupons before conceiving a child, their menstrual cycles were publicly monitored, pelvic examinations are performed on those who are suspected to be pregnant, all unauthorized pregnancies are to be aborted no matter what stage and mandatory sterilization of a couple who have two or more children. All these strict rules were established with the policy. The policy and its consequences were strongly resisted by the people, especially those living in rural areas. This is where the one-child policy vs. the two-child policy comes in.
The one-child policy applies to all married couples living in urban areas. The government is more severe to these couples because they have a job in which they can support their child. While the parents work, the child can go to school to be educated. This is not possible in the rural areas because the family depend on their children to do hard labor work to help produce enough so they can survive. The government states that if a rural couple have a child and it is a girl, they can have a second child, the two-child policy. Most couples, if their first child is a daughter, will continuously abort all pregnancies until a male heir is shown on the ultrasound.
There are 3 'withouts' and incentives if couples follow the policy. The three 'withouts' are, without permission, no one is pregnant- you have to get permission, pass a written test and be over 24 years of age; without second child- cannot have permission to have second child, unless living in rural areas; without early birth- cannot be any underage mothers giving birth. The incentives are usually cash bonuses but also land increase allocations for those living in rural areas. The children are also given preferential treatment and they are guaranteed a job. There is also a financial penalty if a couple has 2 or more children. The fine can possibly amount to 20-50% of the family's total annual income, paid to the Chinese government. These 'illegal' children, unauthorized births, are not entered on the population count, which makes the government statistics less reliable. These children have no medical benefits, no grain rations and no opportunity to attend school and later in life, no chance of employment.
Culturally, children are a sign of prosperity, but since the one-child policy was initiated, families have preferred of have boys in order to pass on their family name to younger generations. Girls on the other hand, will be married off into another family and carry their name instead, later in life. Girls will often be left in orphanages where they will die of malnutrition before they even reach the age of one. Sex discrimination is also present in rural areas as they prefer boys who is strong and can do labor work. Girls often receive less attention, care and resources than boys. Since the access of ultrasound, which shows the sex of the fetus, over 50,000 -75,000 girls have been aborted. There are a few different ways of abortion which includes infanticide- injecting poison into the baby's soft cap, crushing the baby's skull using forceps, or drowning and smothering of the baby in rural areas.
International adoption increases as more children, especially girls, are put into orphanages. International adoption happens more often than local adoption because the couples fear of the child's biological parents coming back to claim their child. Most of the international adoptions in China are Americans who want to take care of a girl who is mistreated and will probably not live to be one. This is an advantage of the one-child policy because more girls are given the chance of going abroad to experience a different life in which they would be given the same attention as boys.
The one-child policy was initiated because the government was spending too much money on human resources. China's population takes up approximately one fifth of the world's population. This is because during Mao's rule, he said, "every mouth brings two hands." He thought that a bigger population would assist China into becoming economically powerful, quicker. That was proved wrong when he started the Great Leap Forward. Instead of China moving forward, it brought them back. China, at that time, was experiencing a drought. Crops failed, the peasants lied to Mao and his officials about how much grain they had, the officials wanted more, the peasants were dying of starvation, a great famine had hit. Many people died from this famine which lasted for 3 years. An approximated 30 million people had died, yet the population had still increased. This is because family is the core of the Chinese culture. Families quickly grew and things went back to where they were.
Population increased because the people needed to restore their culture. The unemployment rate increased, the supply and demand of job were unbalanced. There were more labor force than jobs. The unemployment problem was holding back the productivity of the country, which made it difficult to modernize the country. The government spent more money on baby funds than modernization and if there is no modernization, China will fall behind the world and lose face. The rate of illiterate or uneducated people increased as the government had a shortage of funds to build more schools. The scarcity of natural resources was disordering the environment. They were running out of living space, food and energy. The total of cultivated lands decreased as more land is used to develop industries, transportation and shelter for the people. Grains diminished as lands decreased and there was a shortage of food. There were demands for more living space and more land for cultivation. High demands caused an ecological imbalance. The government ends up cutting down forests for living space, endangering many habitats for animals, especially China's panda. All these hindered the social and economic development of the country.
The problems caused by this policy will be seen in about 20 years later when many men will find themselves without spouses. The child of the family will have problems supporting his parents later in life, as the child is supposed to provide them with a good life, as they have done when he was young. Also, there will be a serious imbalance of sexes, where they will many more men than women. The child today is being spoilt by their parents and grandparents. They are called 'little princes or princesses', even 'little emperors'. The family expects them to do well and do not allow themselves to fail. The mental health of the later generation will decrease as the pressure is put onto them by their family to succeed and to place first in their studies. Also, these children are very self centered and lack the ability to work together. This will be a problem because if people want to increase the living standards of China, then people will have to learn to work together and cooperate.
Although the population has decreased and is under control, this policy violates human rights. This is an issue of human control vs. human rights. Westernized countries say that this policy should be stopped because it is inhumane, cruel and also violates human rights and a women's right to plan her own family. China says the only way to keep the population in control is to take these strict rules so that less people will violate them. It is needed in order to keep people in control. "It is necessary to create terror for a while…, or otherwise it would be impossible to suppress the activities… Proper limits have to be exceeded in order to right a wrong, or else the wrong cannot be righted." This is what the Chinese government is trying to do to its people. Fear is needed to keep them in control and once they know the consequences, the people will listen to the government.
During my interview with Louisa Yu, she stated many important points. Each fetus inside a mother's stomach is already a living human being, so it would not be fair to take away a baby's right to live whether it is male or female. In an ideal Chinese family, each child, male or female is part of the family and if the girls are aborted, there would be a sex imbalance and the number of females would decrease. It is not possible to live in a society without women, because men themselves are unable to conceive children. The population then would take a down fall and by that time, the Chinese government would have to think of ways to increase the population. The actual intention of the ultrasound is to check on the developing fetus to detect if it has any deformities, and not to check the sex of the fetus. Once, parents find out they have a girl, it is usually aborted. Abortion is not only physically harmful to the mother, but also physiologically. If China did not initiate this policy, then the government would have no control over the people. In the isolated, mountainous regions of Northwest China, the government have no control over the village people. Although they can still conceive all the children they want, they are still poor. This is an example that can be used to show the people that the government had its restrictions for the good of the people. Another example that can be used is India. The government cannot control the increasing population, the country itself has a poor economic base, it does not have enough money to support the whole population. China has this policy for a reason. With it's control, China can approximate the population in a few years time to make sure that they have enough money to feed all the people. Although the families today are only to have one child, parents and other family members are encouraged not to spoil the child too much, otherwise they get too spoiled and self centered. If they are not spoiled when they are young, then they can still learn to cooperate together. There is a lot of competition in the world. The children today must learn that they are the only people in the world and that they can get whatever they want. In their future, there will be a lot of competition for jobs and even though they are Chinese looking for a job in China, the company could still hire foreigners. Parents must try not to raise a child who think that they can get everything they want in life, otherwise they will be in for a big surprise.
I think that the one-child policy is too strict on to the people of China. They should at least be given the chance to have another child. With another child, less girls will be aborted, girls will be more accepted into society and there will be a more equal ratio between the sexes. The children will not be so self centered and will have learnt to cooperate if they have a sibling. Although this sounds as a good enough solution to end the violation of human rights, there is also the fact that the government will spend too much money on its population and the need of more land will increase, there will be a shortage of food, more people will be illiterate. There are two sides to an issue and neither one is always the 'right' way. The only solution is if the government and the people will negotiate and hopefully pass new rules that will meet the standards of both the government and its people.