Ruth Institute Blog

by Charlie Butts

A bill working its way through Congress would deal indirectly with forced abortion and sterilization in China.

All Girls Allowed, an organization headed by Chai Ling, has testified in favor of HR 2121 — the “China Democracy Promotion Act of 2011,” which is sponsored by Congressman Chris Smith (R-New Jersey). A spokeswoman for Chai’s group, Tessa Dale, explains that the bill would block anyone involved in forced sterilizations or forced abortions from entering the U.S. Read more…

by Steven W. Mosher

Over the years, I have been asked many times to estimate how many lives have been lost in China as a result of the one-child policy. Given that the policy has been in place for 30 years, I respond, and given that each year the government aborts between 10 to 15 million women, the total number of unborn children whose lives have been sacrificed is somewhere between 300 and 450 million. It is impossible to be more precise, I add, because of the Chinese Communist party’s penchant for secrecy about such sensitive matters. Read more…

by Marcus Roberts

We have mentioned before rumblings about the Chinese government’s one child policy emanating from Guangdong province.

The Economist has recently run a feature article on this story which provides a few more details.   What is interesting about this story is that: Read more…

Just in case anyone still thinks the one-child policy is a good thing.

by Carolyn Moynihan

The trafficking of women for forced marriage and prostitution is a growing problem for China, but a predictable one given its population policy and resulting demographics.

The official China Daily reports that Chinese police have “cracked 9,165 trafficking cases and rescued 17,746 women since April 2009 when the Ministry of Public Security launched a special campaign”. Many are lured to neighbouring Asian countries — Malaysian police had detained a total of 5,453 Chinese women suspected of prostitution by the end of November — but they can end up as far afield as Europe and Africa. Read more…

What China imposed on its population, we’re adopting voluntarily.

For the last several months, Chinese officials have been floating the idea of relaxing the country’s famed “One-Child” policy. One-Child has long been admired in the West by environmentalists, anti-population doomsayers, and some of our sillier professional wise men. In Hot, Flat, and Crowded (2008), for instance, Tom Friedman lauded the policy for saving China from “a population calamity.” What Friedman and others fail to understand is that China is built upon a crumbling demographic base. One-Child may or may not have “saved” China from overpopulation, but it has certainly created a demographic catastrophe. Read more…

This is a book review of true stories from women affected by China’s one-child policy. As a soon-to-be mother of three girls, this stuff just breaks my heart. I’m posting the review because I think more people should be aware of this huge problem.

by Jonathan Mirsky

I know a British couple with a Chinese daughter, pretty and fluent in English. Of course the little girl was adopted. It is necessary to steel one’s self against three agonising thoughts: how did such children come to be here, why does one never meet an adopted Chinese boy, and what does one reply when the adopted Chinese child asks, ‘Why did my real mother let me go?’ Read more…

I knew things were bad in China thanks to its one-child policy, but this article points out horrible consequences that probably few people know about. And yet, sadly, it doesn’t look like China has learned enough to change its ways, still!

Constance Kong

The Government’s 2020 vision has been blind-sided by a think tank’s report on its population policy disaster.

To say that China’s one-child family policy has been a disaster is an understatement. A report released earlier this month by the nation’s top think tank – the Communist Government’s Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) – says that the policy has created a huge gender imbalance with significant implications for future social stability. Read more…

This is how bad things have gotten. And yet has China changed its one-child policy? Why are they still blind to what the rest of the world sees?

Just when I thought I’d heard every creative way of flogging off property when the chips are down – along comes a new one to prove me wrong – an entrepreneurial developer in Beijing, China, has decided to lure buyers to his luxury Ecological Bay project with the offer of a wedding to one of their sales ladies – and he’s even throwing in a dowry to seal the deal… Read more…

Oh, terrific. Another China. As though things are just peachy over there. Right now the policy is voluntary, but I wonder how long that will last?

Michael Cook, Mercatornet.com

Bangladesh is going to introduce a voluntary “one couple, one child” population planning policy by 2015 to curb its growing population.

The Director General of the Directorate of Family Planning Mohammad Abdul Qayyum told the Chinese news agency Xinhua that: “The Chinese policy influenced us in framing our policy though we are not making it mandatory.” He said that the government plans to promote a “No more than two children, one is best”.

Continue reading.

Time to start having kids, China. If you still can.

Michael Cook, Mercatornet.com

China’s rapid economic development and America’s evident vulnerabilty after the Global Financial Crisis could make the Chinese a bit smug. But as leading demographer Nicholas Eberstadt points out in a frightening article in the Far Eastern Economic Review, China faces gigantic economic problems as the legacy of its one-child policy. Read more…

Michael Cook

Who is responsible for China’s infamous one-child policy? Surprisingly, it is not 60 years of Communist rule.

Today China celebrates the 60th anniversary of Communist Party rule. The Party is highlighting the nation’s huge and powerful military, its international influence, its towering role in the world economy, and its growing prosperity, at least in the large coastal cities. It has left behind the barbarities of Mao Tse-tung and has become a “civilized”, “harmonious”, “prosperous” and “democratic” country. Read more…