Talk:One-child policy/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Cato Institute

Multiple mentions of the Cato institute claiming capitalism will solve the problem do not seem to fit with the article. It seems to me like the free market people pushing their agenda in a place it doesn't belong. I am not against free markets, but this is not the place for it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.30.139.105 (talk) 04:08, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Unexpected Results

Someone delete this crap. It was obviously written by some Chinese guy with a poor command of English, using his own inductive logic to draw a very backwards and offensive conclusion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.19.157.130 (talk) 20:17, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Missing facts

Just noticed (apologies if I am incorrect, or missed it) that there seems to be no mention of the expiry date for this policy - I believe there is one? In addition, isn't it the case that where both parents are only children themselves, they are allowed two children? If these facts are correct, I think someone should add them for balance.--Hontogaichiban (talk) 17:15, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the policy itself indicate some circustamance that people can have two-child, one of them is if parents both is single-born child, they can have two childs, but as you all know, people get more education will born less, so I think though people can born two, but they will still born one, since the high living and education price in big cities. Tnds (talk) 09:57, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Found a few photos that should be considered!

Hello, here are some links to find billboards:

[[1]] (pick 8) [[2]] [[3]] [[4]]

--Chomeara (talk) 20:29, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Do you know any of the copyrights on those, because they look useful. Leonard^Bloom (talk) 01:14, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Girls not adopted

I'm just here to suggest that someone who knows about it write something about the girls who remain in orphanages for their whole childhood. This kids' novel "Chu Juue's House" touched upon the subject but I don't know whether that content was factual or not. In the book orphans are working in silk worm factories.. 75.68.77.207 17:12, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Never heard of such things in reality. Anyway, is this something related to one child policy? Augest 02:08, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Are you kidding? Yeah it's related to the one child policy. Do you think so many baby girls would be in orphanages without it? I am very interested in what happens to these girls. I can't imagine that they grow up well adjusted.Yeoldemathshoppe 22:55, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Im doing this at A-level. and some of it is true but usually the girls who are abandoned at the orphanges die of disease as they are not looked after by those who work there. Some of them who are ill are just left in rooms to die. to find out more you should take a look at "the dying rooms" documentary on Channel 4 website.

I think adopt gril have no relation wiht one-child policy, Chinese have a traditional view, if baby is girl, whole family will sad, while baby is boy, whole family will happy, as you know, there's many female kings in western and it is accepted and have some rule, but only 1 female emperor in China.(Wu Zetian). Other woman, though they are the actual ruler, they still need a male emperor to represent the god(Such as Cixi).

If there's no one-child policy, you can image that girls are all over China, since people ,especially peasants, want a boy, if first baby is girl, they will born antoher, then second, third, forth,fifth,sixth..it won't be end until a boy borns or they are too old to born.Tnds (talk) 10:04, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Wrong statistic

Could someone verify that "71111% of China's population resides in rural areas", is in fact meant to be 71.11...%? --220.237.56.163 13:56, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

that obviously cant be right.I shall go fix it.Raspberrysnapple 00:49, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

NPOV tag

This article is obviously not NPOV as only the criticism of "One-child policys" is presented.Augest 19:12, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

when 2nd child is born bnenifits are lost

I agree with you partially. This article is very strangely written, puzzling sentence structures and all. I also am looking at this strange sentence, "In addition, there is no scientific research showing direct link of infanticide and one-child policy." Is scientific research needed? It seems a statistical number or a policy issue, not a scientific one. Additionally, it seems to be poorly inserted between two statements linking infanticide and the one-child policy. Somebody is not using very good discretion when they are editing this article. Di4gram 06:13, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

NPOV tag should not be removed as there is still only the criticisam of "One-child policy" being presented.Augest 04:53, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

19:40, 21 January 2008 (UTC)19:40, 21 January 2008 (UTC)19:40, 21 January 2008 (UTC)~good idea

Chinese communism

Who ever made this needs to remember that they can only type due to public education.

A total leftist obviously made the "One-child policy" entry. One merely read this:

"Additional children result in fines, or more frequently the families are required to pay fees for public services such as education for the children that is otherwise free."

Education for the children is "otherwise free"? Nothing is free. These people give virtually everything to the government, there is no private ownership. The Chinese government simply uses them as one giant sweatshop. A worker can put in 100 hours during a seven-day work week yet the most she or he can earn is 900 Yuan per month. 150 million Chinese fall below the international poverty line! The schools are not "free" any more than public schools here in the US (where each kid can carry a price tag of $11,000/year) are "free." The citizens pay for them one way or another. But it's more egregious with communism, where people own nothing, and the government owns everything. It's a typical fallacy among the left to regard social programs as "free" when it's evident to everyone else that they are funded via a citizenry raided by those at the top. I invite any fellow Americans who own homes to inspect their property tax bills then ask your local city council where most of it goes. ANSWER: 80% goes to your local schools, and you will pay more each passing year. Then inspect the last federal education funding bill that W let Ted Kennedy write. It's the largest increase in history. The very lunch that millions of kids eat at public schools every day is federally funded (READ: Paid for by you and me, regardless of what state we're in).

It's this kind of myopia that leads numbskulls to remark that Cuba's healthcare is "free."

First, China is never a communist society, and your claim is not true. Socialism with Chinese characteristics was considered to be essentially capitalism. There is even constitutional private ownership, and the Chinese personal deposits exceed 11.63 trillion Yuan (US$1.4 trillion) at 2003.

Second, there is a minimum income tax line of 1800 Yuan/mo, so a worker with a salary of 900 Yuan/mo does not pay income tax. BTW, sales tax are paid by the seller and property tax do not exist in China. Even the attempt of institute a fuel tax was ejected by the congress.

Since the seller passes along all costs to the buyer, sales taxes (just another cost) are paid by the buyer - even if the buyer isn't aware of the actual amount. Rklawton 20:34, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Third, the schools were not expensive. The tuition I paid in primary school was 40 Yuan per semester, which was roughly 10 USD. My university tuition (400 Yuan, or $50 per semester) was waived because my family was under the poverty line.--Skyfiler 22:33, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

wow dude. what city did you go to school in? all my relatives in nanjing... chengdu... chongqing... two working parents, fairly well-to-do, they have all been limited in their academic opportunities (albeit in varying degrees) by financial constraints. 67.120.232.11 09:02, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

So this section is a critique on taxation, right? I don't see how that makes the one-child policy article slanted. It just means the author didn't want to get into a big discussion about the distinction between state-funded and free in a technical sense. Actually, I think bringing up the issue of taxation would make the article non-neutral since that isn't germane to the discussion. The logic of the article here at least is sound: people pay taxes for schools, but get their children admitted for free. Families that break the one-child policy also pay for the children's admittance. If that's true, it makes sense to me.

Also, most of the unsigned comment above is stupid. What's wrong with public schools? The education of children and the most basic of opportunities for limited economic mobility are a national interest, and are thus state-funded though taxation. That opinion certainly isn't leftist. I don't know of a single example of even major libertarian and conservative reactionaries actually attacking public schools. Many want vouchers, but nobody has said, "Hey, and let's not pay to educate poor kids whose parents can't afford it." You really hold that point-of-view alone. And sign your posts. Ihavenoheroes 18:35, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

China IS communist, they identify themselves as communist, and they comply with Marx's book The Communist Manifesto. He also said in that book that a communist would be known primarily by their desire to eliminate all private property, which is in fact the policy of the Chinese government. They do allow private property in the free trade zones, but not generally throughout the country. Most "companies" in China area are actually divisions of the military, and the CEOs are usually officers in the army of China. As far as vouchers, everyone understands that the effect of vouchers is to move people away from public schools and into private schools. I support public schools, but I also know that they can be misused in a way that results in them being propaganda camps. Public schools should not be used to indoctrinate politics, for example. Just the "three R's." Libertarianism is not reactionary or extremist; it is a moderate philosophy like liberalism. Extremist right wing philosophy would be neoconservativism or fascism. Extremist left wing philosophy would be communism as seen in China. --Brian, a True Liberal, as in Alexander Hamilton, not Che Guevera 71.116.106.31 07:33, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Wow, just how brainwashed can a person be? "Extremist left wing philosophy would be communism as seen in China"? Puh-leeez. Been living under a rock for the past 30 years, have you? -- Miborovsky, libertarian supporter of the Capitalist Party of China 20:55, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

OK, your libertarian craziness aside, generally it is acceptable to refer to government entitlement programs as "free" being as you don't pay for them. Obviously there are social costs, and the money for them doesn't come out of thin air, but that is all tied to the philosophical question of there's no such thing as a free lunch. savidan^{(talk) (e@)} 13:52, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

the article is basically true, but it's a little bit outdated. these days, men take mistresses, not concubines, and no way in hell are the schools in China that cheap. 40 yuan a semeste (and that goes to about 5 US dollars, not 10)？ that's not really true. in the rural places maybe it's that much, but where i went to school, it was about 300, 400 yuan a semester. in the bigger and better schools it goes to maybe about 10,000 yuan a semester. and even though china can't be totally commuist, it is trying very hard to be that way. market-wise, it is basically capitalist, borderline socialist; national policy-wise, it is about socialist. to some people, having a boy is really important, but most people are really open to girls too. a lot of people don't care if they have a boy or not because no matter what, it's your child. in the rural areas, most people ignore the one-child rule anyways. my friend, who is from fu zhou, china, has 6 sisters and 1 brother. and yes, the people of different ethnic groups than the main one can have more than one child.

I was talking about the situation and exchange rate at that time, that is, in the 80s.--Skyfiler 22:47, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Can't help to say this, mmm... China is definitely communism, at least for U.S. Otherwise, U.S. would not keep considering China (at least in U.S. state strategy) as its long term enemy/competetor (at least potential). Considering the long term standing of American's anti-communism tradition, it's also not a surprise to see so much misunderstanding about China in Wikipedia English version. But this may change with the help of the Internet. It's harder and harder to prevent people from communicating directly. --Augest 05:04, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Do you really believe that US considers China a threat because it is communist? Is it because the Chinese system is different from the American system and if China becomes a leading economic power then it would make the crazy rampant American capitalist economic system no longer the perfect economic standard that it shoves down the throats of developing countries worldwide? Then everyone in the world will start strutinizing the American system. Hey they might even notice that 40% of Americans don't believe in Darwin's theory of evolution. Hey maybe rampant capitalism isn't the best system. Wow, maybe a government that provides national health care would be better. That's a thought. Hey maybe it is not such a good thing that 2% of the population owns so much land depriving other people from the security of a home. Hey maybe we don't need to listen to those Americans who don't believe in the use of condoms or other means of contraceptives and cry human rights abuse all day long. Maybe America's puny 200 years of history might not last longer than 300 years but China has survived 2500 years with their various forms of government. 66.171.76.139 05:17, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

The criticisms of people calling China's healthcare system free seem to me to be obviously written by people living in a private healthcare state (USA?). I'm from the UK and we consider our healthcare to be free. We pay taxes of course, but that doesn't stop healthcare from being 'free' in itself. Balfron 00:51, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Get a clue. By free it is meant there is no additional cost beyond the norm. Primary education in public schools is free in US because there is no additional mandantary fees beyond taxes. It is the same in China. Having additional unsanctioned child means the family has to pay additional fees to attend school.

It'd be quite a challange to find a Chinese who believes in communism ideals. You can find Chinese who are member of the communist party but that person is still a capitalist. Communism is an idea, communist party is a political entity. China is a totalitarianism ruled by communist party. Before anyone blasts me, please teach yourself the difference communism, captalism, socialism, democracy, republic, totalitarian and dictorship etc. The reason US consider China a threat is because China is a totalitarian, had the communist leader been popularily elected by the people the situation would be different. BTW there is nothing that says there can't be a democratic communism, it's just human nature that prohibits it.

It seems people on both sides of the argument don't really understand the inner goings of China. --NYC 17:58 Feb 15, 2007 (UTC)

The reason US consider China a threat is because China is a totalitarian -- Oh, I remember that U.S. invaded Iraq because "it produces and uses of weapon of mass destruction" Augest 05:30, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Just read this interesting article. Another proof that U.S. consider that China is communism and communism is evil. "Bush had said Tuesday that that the Victims of Communism Memorial was dedicated to tens of millions of people killed in communist regimes including China, the Soviet Union, North Korea and Vietnam, and that their deaths should remind Americans that "evil is real and must be confronted." http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070614/ap_on_re_as/china_bush_memorial. Augest 03:54, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd just like to point out that obviously nothing is free in any absolute sense, in China or anywhere else. ("Hence the economist truism that "there's no such thing as a free lunch.") The phrase "Education that is otherwise free" has the assumption of civilian taxation built into it. Please limit your criticisms of economics and tax law under Chinese communism to forums for such, not discussions of the One-Child policy. -KCJ

Infanticide

This is false. Infanticide is illegal in China and there is no national requirement for pregnancy testing in China.

The practice, although required by the government, is not widespread as over-quota mothers usually are forced to have an abortion long before bringing the baby to term. China requires all women of child-bearing age to take pregnancy tests at government clinics every 3 months.

hahaha "infanticide is illegal in China"...ya think? the problem is that little, if anything, is done to prevent it, and punishment is scarcely enforced. 67.120.232.11 09:05, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

That's the problem of law enforcement. However, infanticide is of course ILLEGAL in China. Augest 17:28, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'm sure torture is technically illegal there as well. The communist government chooses to ignore treaties they have signed with regard to torture. They don't have an independent Supreme Court as we do in the nation of the United States of America to order the executive branch not to torture people. --Brian 71.116.106.31 07:36, 1 April

In response to the above, you torture people in the US anyway. Jbeckwith

There are well-documented accounts of infanticide performed by hospital personnel in China immediately upon the birth of an out-of-quota child, to enforce the government’s one child policy.

Uh huh. Sources? -- Миборовский ^{U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai!} 20:34, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Here's a doctor's account of forced infanticide in a Chinese maternity ward: http://www.connectionmagazine.org/archives_old/duty.htm

As well as a lengthy report on female infanticide in China: http://www.cnn.com/interactive/specials/9908/china.social.overview/content/infanticide.html

Here's an organization that researches and documents what they term 'gendercide' in China: http://www.gendercide.org/case_infanticide.html

Speaking of sources, does anyone have a source to back up these statements from the Infanticide section:

"The root cause of infanticide, especially for baby girls, is more likely to be the traditional preference of boys." In response to this statement this is a know fact it wouldn't need to be cited. China's history proves the prefrence for boys over girls. That would also be why there are millions of girls in orphanges and no boys.

"Direct infanticide is rare as it is not accepted in Chinese culture, and the parent would be charged with murder."

Barring references, I say that these should be deleted as someone's anonymous opinion. A.V.

--The preference of boys is the cause of female infanticide is addressed even in the cnn source you cited "In China the traditional preference for male offspring, along with ... ..., have combined to create rising levels of female infanticide." There is even a paragraph there to explain the traditional women status. Infanticide in China is definitely illegal. Here an English source for it " The Chinese Government have acknowledged the problem and introduced laws to deal with it:

Marriage law prohibits female infanticide. Women's Protection Law prohibits infanticide and bans discrimination against women who choose to keep female babies. Maternal Health Care Law forbids the use of technological advances, such as ultra-sound machines to establish the sex of foetuses, so as not to pre-determine the fate of female infants or encourage selective abortion. " http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/ethics/abortion/female_infanticide_2.shtml

It also said "Female infanticide has existed in China for a long time, and although the One Child per Family policy has added to the problem, it didn't cause it."

As far as the rate of infanticide, I did not find a direct data. Compared to the size of Chinese population, I guess the data cited in above articles is not big enough. An indirect way to deduce this is the Chinese infant death rate (can be found in the resources in the article), which is rather low and can indirectly show infanticide is rare in China, at least now. --Augest 03:45, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, infant mortality would not be an accurate measure of infanticide in China. In the Chinese obstetrician's account above, freshly born infants are often euthanized in China and charted as abortions. There is no way to get an accurate count of infanticide in China. Any comment on frequency would have to be someone's opinion which should at least have an organization or name name attached to it.

Doctor's report of forced infanticide, originally from Reader's Digest: http://www.connectionmagazine.org/archives_old/duty.htm

Time magazine report on trends in China, including mention of the growth of female infanticide: http://www.time.com/time/asia/mediakit/pr/article/0,17540,473731,00.html

Research into the frequency of Chinese female infanticide by two anthropologists that was originally published by the San Jose Mercury News. Unfortunately, I’ve only been able to find the complete article on Freerepublic: www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3935c67833b3.htm

A CBS news report on US State Department’s official view: “Despite some changes, China's one-child family planning program remains a source of coercion, forced abortions, infanticide and perilously imbalanced boy-girl ratios, State Department officials said Tuesday.” http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/12/14/world/main661072.shtml

The United Nations Population Fund lists dozens of articles outlining female infanticide in China: http://149.120.32.11/search?q=infanticide+china&site=unfpa&client=unfpa&proxystylesheet=unfpa&output=xml_no_dtd&btnG.x=8&btnG.y=16

A.V. 17:22, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Just want to remind infanticide means the kill of babies, not the unborn ones or fetus, not the abandonment. The latter two cases better fit in the categories of abortion and abandonment. None of above references exactly given the data of infanticide and they obviously mix all three situation together. The one in the Reader Digest talked about the forced abortion unless someone insist kill unborn/fetus is infanticide. This is wiki, an encyclopedia. Thus, I think we should follow the strict semantic of infanticide. --Augest 06:23, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps you should read the links more carefully. Every article I linked is from mainstream sources, CNN, the UN, and every one uses the word infanticide - meaning the killing of already born babies. All of them discuss the growing problem of infanticide in China, so I'm not sure where you got the idea that we're talking about abortion. The first article from the Chinese obstetrician is specifically detailing a case in which a live birth was euthanized with a shot of iodine through the soft part of the skull some eight or ten hours after birth. In the English language, that would constitute the definition of 'infanticide'. A.V. 15:49, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

The "main-stream" here are all U.S. media or U.S. official media. Even that UN article is talk about U.S.'s altitude. Considering the long time political standing of U.S. government, it is reasonable to doubt the POV of these report. However, these are "sources", whether they are POV or not, so I did not revise your revision to the previous version.

I read that reader digest report. Although the title is used "infanticide", the content is talked about the abortion of a 8 months. This is not something new. Pre-lifers called abortion as infanticide. However, technically speaking, that is wrong. For the others, yes, they mentioned infanticide, but my point here is NO DATA provided --Augest 17:37, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

I've asked before, but please read the link before you comment on it and misrepresent it. It's a waste of space, but let me paste a section of the article in the hopes that you will read it:

"Arrested and forced into the hospital by the local Family Planning Office, the mother had been injected with rivanol, an abortifacient drug. "But the baby was born alive," said the midwife. The cries were coming from an unheated bathroom across the hall. "I asked the orderly to bury it", she continued. A small hill nearby served as an unmarked graveyard for such purposes. "But he said it was raining too hard."

"With the mother still protesting, I went across the hall to the bathroom. It was so cold I could see my breath. Next to a garbage pail with the words DEAD INFANTS scrawled on the lid was a black plastic garbage bag. It was moving, and cries were coming from inside. Kneeling, I told the midwife to open the bag."

"I had imagined a premature newborn, hovering between life and death. Instead,I found a perfect 4 1/2 pound baby boy, flailing his tiny fists and kickinghis feet. His lips were purple from lack of oxygen." http://www.connectionmagazine.org/archives_old/duty.htm

As you can see, the baby was delivered live and in the next room from the mother when the clinic first attempted to euthanize it. That is not an abortion.

As to data, the debate is whether the Chinese government promotes infanticide, openly or not, with their population policies. The official policy of the US State Department, the United Kingdom Parliament, and a UN committee investigating human rights abuses is that China's birth control policies encourage female infanticide. This article is suffering factually from your refusal to accept any source that states that infanticide is a problem in China. At this point, I think it best I edit the article myself.

US State Department position: http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/27-12142004-416868.html

UK Parliament: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199697/ldhansrd/vo961218/text/61218-08.htm

UN committee: http://www.hrichina.org/public/contents/article?revision%5fid=2944&item%5fid=2943

A.V. 03:37, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I did not say infanticide is a problem in China or not. However, what I emphersized is that infanticide is ILLEGAL in China. China's birth control policies did not and never "encourage" FEMALE infanticide, although as a result it may accelarate female infantcide or gender selected abortion in some cases, for some time, as poverty will have the same results. It is not the cause of the female infanticide. The UK article from BBC I referred also pointed this out.

"Marriage law prohibits female infanticide.

Women's Protection Law prohibits infanticide and bans discrimination against women who choose to keep female babies.

Maternal Health Care Law forbids the use of technological advances, such as ultra-sound machines to establish the sex of foetuses, so as not to pre-determine the fate of female infants or encourage selective abortion."

As I said, infanticide is ILLEGAL in China. The problem of infanticide is a law enforcement issue. Not every crime can be prosecuted, same situation here. This is similar as the family violence. I would not say U.S. government encourage family violence simply because there are many such cases reported in U.S.

In addition, the Reader Digest article you referred to was published in 1995. And from the whole article, one can easily see, the mother was sent to have an abortion instead of have her baby killed. "the mother had been injected with rivanol, an ABORTIFACIENT drug", "BUT the baby was born alive,", all this referred to that this is a case originally targetted to abortion. That is to say, although some local officials forced a pregnant to do abortion and even cause infanticide in the case of a too-late abortion (assume what reported here was not fake), I did not read report that they dare to purely kill babies. In addition, what this article talked about is a baby BOY, not FEMALE infanticide. In addition, your UK article is something published around 1996 and it is a religious organization. But of course, these are still resources. However I am regret that all your resources are from only one side, not the both. --Augest 03:33, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

I stand by my sources that show the official positions of the US State Department, the Parliament of the UK, and a UN Committee investigating human rights abuses. All three organizations cite the Chinese government's policies as being responsible for cases of infanticide, along with sex selective abortions. I only present one side of the argument because this article stated that China's family planning policies had nothing to do with infanticide. That is your unsourced, and apparently biased, opinion.

In other words, here's your opinion:

"China's birth control policies did not and never "encourage" FEMALE infanticide . . . "

Here's the official US State Department opinion:

“Despite some changes, China's one-child family planning program remains a source of coercion, forced abortions, infanticide and perilously imbalanced boy-girl ratios, State Department officials said Tuesday.” http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/12/14/world/main661072.shtml

Which one rightfully belongs in the Wikipedia article?

A.V. 12:38, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

once the baby was born alive, in a place where infanticide was *truly* illegal, the doctors would rush to try and save the baby's life. instead, here we see they killed it.

just because something is made law doesn't mean it is made practice, nor does it mean that the government in truth even supports the law. while infanticide is technically illegal, there is apparently a widespread lack of enforcement, rendering the "law" useless. it is illegal to drive over the speed limit, but everyone goes ten over anyhow and there is rarely any enforcement up to that point. so, the speed limit really is ten over what it the sign says. there is a town i used to work in where you could get pulled over for going 2 over. here, the speed limit really is the speed limit. i say this to illustrate the difference between a law that is just there and a law that is enforced. the other day i saw a person wearing a shirt that says "it's only illegal if you get caught." to expand on that, it's only illegal if law is enforced.

nor does it really matter what a said government's (or any person or organization) official position on a matter is, what matters is what they practice. that is how you see what their position really is. take it for what you will.Wewillprosper 21:24, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

whether official position really matters is another topic to discuss. For wikipedia as an encyclopedia, we need to provide accurate information as what it is instead of talking about our own opinion/research. By the way, although in general officers will not stop you with when go over under ten of the speedlimit sign in our state, some of my friends received tickets when they go over even 5 miles and I myself personally stopped by officer once and receive a warning in that situation. Augest 22:57, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

One-Child Policy details

"This name is based on a popular misconception that Chinese birth control required all Chinese to have one child."

Unclear -- "to have one child" or "to have *no more than* one child" ? Thanks.  :-)

Fixed. Curiously the government never really tried to encourage people to have no children at all.

Also the Chinese healthcare system is as I understand it almost non-existant, and therefore children are needed to support their parents, and grandparents. See the 4-2-1 part of this article. Balfron 00:54, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Dude, that will cause massive uprisings. -- Миборовский ^{U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai!} 20:33, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

^ Why are you posting?

Multiple births

The sentence:

Also, when a Chinese woman has twins, it's usually fine, so many Chinese couples try to use conceptive drugs to do this.

Doesn't make sense. Does it mean that twins are lucky. Evil Monkey∴Hello 04:53, May 19, 2005 (UTC)

I think that the intended meaning of this sentence is that Chinese couples try to have twins to increase the number of children they are allowed to have.

I've heard that if a couple has twins they face no fines from the government. Theshibboleth 06:25, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

This is true. My cousins are twins in China, their parents were not fined. 67.120.232.11 09:07, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Not true, having twins is same as having more than one child. You may not be fined but you would lose the same economic benefit as if you had a 2nd child. Having twins is a huge burden on poor urban families. --NYC 16:08, 15 Feb 2007 (UTC)

I have heard that the only way you can try for another child is for the first one to be handicapped. i think this is very unfair because the way that it was phrased was as if it was swaying, sometimes couples have a handicapped child, so they are allowed to 'try again to see if hey can have a "better" one' Also, I don't see what the problem is with having an ultra sound scan at the start of a woman’s pregnancy. That way, the baby isn't even developed enough for it to be like a baby is being killed because of its gender, it is only a tiny 'something'. after all, is it not better for something that hasn't even been properly developed yet to be destroyed, that a newborn baby girl to be left on the streets to die? But, this method should only be used, in my opinion, after a few weeks of pregnancy so that nothing in the form of a human is destroyed, only an undeveloped fetus (if that’s how u spell it lol) so i think the government should allow a woman a month or less pregnant to see the gender of the child so she can destroy it if she wants whilst its only an egg/ fetus, than to secretly starve it if its female once it has been born. Do you agree? from Emma age 13

Emma, I think a lot of people would agree with you, but others consider the fetus to be a person. Fortunately we don't need to determine the right answer here! The goal of this encyclopedia article is only to accurately describe the details of the "one child policy", without having to ultimately decide if it is right or wrong. That’s a lot easier task I think you will agree! Thanks for your great writing style, I hope you will continue to contribute to Wikipedia. technopilgrim 01:53, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Emma, the only thing I would like to add to this is the fact that you can't determine the sex of the fetus when the woman is less than a month pregnant so your plan wouldn't work. China and India don't allow abortions if you've found out the sex of your baby and no longer want it. See below. 29 April 2007. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.189.50.231 (talk) 18:22, 29 April 2007 (UTC).

Doctors are forbidden to disclose the sex of the fetus to the parents. In fact, doctors won't even allow the parents to see the ultrasound image by law anyway. If you had the proper connection or resources (bribe), that's different story. 16:10 15, Feb 2007 (UTC)

The fertility drugs sentence seems suspicious. I doubt that "many" is the right word to use here. Is there a source we can cite? Goaty 16:44, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Source added. Rklawton 16:14, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Emma,you really scare me.Fetuses are people,and it creates a lot of problems for a society when a kids are killed off at the convenience of people.Sincerely,A fourteen year old.

Minorities

I'm aware that in many areas (besides the SARs) this policy is not enforced because of ethnic minorities. Where is it not enforced? SchmuckyTheCat 23:19, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

As far as I know, this policy is different for ethnic minorities. Child control policies of ethnic minorities usually depends on their ethnicities and local policies. For example, In Inner Mongolia, couples can have 2 children, and Mongol couples can have 3 after permission, while couples of some small ethnicities are not restricted. In Xinjiang, urban couples can have 3 children, and 4 after permission, while city couples can have 2, and 3 after permission. In Tibet Autonomous Region, birth control is encourage but not enforced. In other areas, child limit of ethnic minorities is usually 2 with some exceptions for small ethnicities and some areas. As a result, The ratio of ethnic minorities population increased from 6.7% at 1982 ([5]) to 8.98% at 1995([6]).--Skyfiler 05:18, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

Although your statistics may tell you otherwise, but as a resident of Inner Mongolia for over five years, I have never known the Han-2 kids, Mongol-3 kids policy. My son was born in Inner Mongolia, and because of policies at the time, we were not allowed to have a second child. Colipon+(T) 03:33, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

The question has already been answered in very specific terms, but generally speaking - the policy is not enforced in rural areas, and the ethnic minorities dhjtdyd djtgkt tf fut f tfufuy fy fyt rftr fyurfy yrtrfyt ftyrtrfuyyrft trt rftr trtr rtrttt r rfutrutrtend to reside in rural areas. 67.120.232.11 09:09, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

I know a Tujia dude (CPC bigshot) who has 2 kids. -- Миборовский ^{U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai!} 20:32, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

It's also true that not all minority ethnic groups exercise the option of having more than one child. For example, based on what I learned on one visit to the country, although Koreans (a small but fairly influential nationality) could have more than 1 child, in fact their total fertility rate is lower than that of Han. The reason for this, I was told, is that the Koreans there want to get along and not be seen as asking for exceptions (which is not the same as saying they seek to assimilate).

In Xinjiang, the minorities there (principally Uighurs, Kazakhs, Hui, but also Tajiks and others) can and generally do have more than 1 child. But I was told by one Uighur that the financial penalty for exceeding the allowed number isn't very great. "How much would it be?" we asked him. He pondered for a while. "Well how would it compare to the price of a sheep?" we asked. "About the same as one sheep," he answered. Seems like a pretty modest price to me if you want another child.Mack2 19:19, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, to you that would sound minor, but you have to realise that in suburban areas, people still starve when there's a bad years harvest. The fee you have to pay also varies, so it's not so that a billionaire would pay the same fee as a poor man. Furthermore, many people say 'I know someone with two children'. That may very well be true, since the 'one child policy' doesn't mean you can have one child only. As stated many times, the 'correct' way to say it, is the Birth Control Policy. That will make it clearer that in many areas, people are allowed to have two or three children.

One-child policy do not affect minoritys, they have own law about the born-control policy.Tnds (talk) 10:08, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Sources needed

This article seems to be in desperate need of more sources. Further, a lot of the information is disputed. I think it is entirely possible that this article is entirely factually accurate, but especially because of the disputed information more sources need to be cited. Theshibboleth 06:59, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

I found some external links. The UN article has a lot of information, but I have no time to dig into it. Anybody wanna have a try?--Skyfiler 23:33, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

--sex ratio sources.

The entry relied on the CIA World Factbook in indicating a sex ratio at birth in the PRC of 112, without, however, indicating any date. Because this ratio changed a lot between 1980 and the present, it was important to indicate dates. I found a number of authoritative sources (and cited one) that show the trend from 108 (actually 107.6) in 1981 to 111 in 1990 to 117 in 2000 for all of China. The figures reported for other countries presumably come from the CIA Factbook, but the dates are not indicated (the CIA figure for China was at least 15 years out of date). In addition, the article had stated that the "natural baseline" for comparison was 106, but among human populations this baseline is best viewed as a range of 103 to 107. Thus in 1981 in the PRC the sex ratio was right at the borderline, and only later showed a marked rise. Though historically the ratios may even have been higher in some regions -- well before the advent of the communist regime; however, that's beyond the scope of my editing.Mack2 14:32, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I have added to the text the results of several key studies by demographers that address the patterns and explanations for sex ratios at birth. These studies correct some of the misconceptions (sorry for that word here) about these patterns that may come from relying too heavily on newspapers and advocacy groups. One substantive addition involves clear evidence of preference for girls in high parity births to families that have already borne 2 or more boys. Another involves the issue of adoption, which two Swedish demographers have contended accounts for half of the so-called "missing girls" in the 1980's. Although I name and date the studies in the text, I don't know how to incorporate these items into footnotes and proper references there. So I will include them here in the hope that somebody will be kind enough to do the editorial work to put the references into the main text. Thank you.

Barbara A. Anderson and Brian D. Silver. 1995. "Ethnic Differences in Fertility and Sex Ratios at Birth in China: Evidence from Xinjiang," Population Studies 49 (July): 211-226.

Susan Greenhalgh. 2003. "Science, Modernity, and the Making of China's One-Child Policy," Population and Development Review, 29 (June): 163-196.

Sten Johansson and Ola Nygren. 1991. "The Missing Girls of China: A New Demographic Account," Population and Development Review 17 (March): 35-51.

Zeng Yi et al. 1993. "Causes and Implications of the Recent Increase in the Reported Sex Ratio at Birth in China, Population and Development Review 19 (June): 283-302.

Weiguo Zhang. 2006. "Child Adoption in Contemporary Rural China," Journal of Family Issues 27 (March): 301-340.

35.9.6.175 04:18, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

P.S. I have now registered and can be contacted by my userid, Mack2: Mack2 17:16, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

-- forced sterilization sources.

I happenned to see that a source was desired for forced sterilization. I think thats because someone feels that its POV or accusitorial, however it should be noted that forced sterilization is not new or unique to china. In fact its argueable that if it took place in china it was for more legitimate reasons than the other places its been practice. I'm specifically referring to the United States own use of this practice, even being vetted by the supreme court. Apparently 20/20 did a spot on it, unfortunately the page is no longer on the main site but the wayback machine has a copy. The purpose in the United states was eugenics, weed out the stupid, criminal, or other mental aborrations. The purpose in China is disimilar in that it is an effort to control out of control population growth. I found this in a quick google search, it shouldn't be too hard. IT does happen. In the US the laws are still on the books...

"For the United States, the question is not so clear. When this was occurring, the country's mindset was positive toward this. Right now, the human rights component is such that we are not set to do this again in the near future. However, with the support of the public, anything is a possibility. Some of the state laws--those stated that anyone who was labeled feebleminded could be sterilized without consent--are still on the books. The Supreme Court case from 1927 still stands as well (http://abcnews.go.com/onair/2020/2020_000322_eugenics_feature.html).

In fact, in 1980 there was a class action suit that was rejected because of the precedent that the 1927 Supreme Court case established"

above quoted from http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/forcedsterilization.html used under US fair use. You may wanna check out more of the links from the above site:

http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/9901/26/sweden.sterilization/

http://mcsnet.ab.ca/cad/FamilyLife/ForcedSteril.htm

http://cwfa.org/library/life/1998-12-29_life-peru.shtml

Piotrowski, Christa (2000). Neue Suricher Zeitchug. "Dark Chapter of American History:

http://abcnews.go.com/onair/2020/2020_000322_eugenics_feature.html

Yamaguchi, Mari (1997). The News-Times. "Victims begin to talk about Japan's sterilization program." http://www.newstimes.com/archive97/dec1997/ind.htm

http://web.archive.org/web/20010918004733/http://www.abcnews.go.com/onair/2020/2020_000322_eugenics_feature.html 65.24.200.137 19:35, 27 March 2006 (UTC) --

Population control alternatives

Since China also promotes intellectuality, why don't they do away with this policy and administer IQ tests to all children, and take away those found below a certain IQ level? So you know, even babies with an IQ of 150 are forcibly aborted, so why not?

The mentally challenged are a drain to society, more or less, so why doesn't China follow this course of action instead? Please reply to my User Talk page, as well as here. --Shultz 08:01, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Our purpose in writing this encyclopedia is to summarize existing and historical information, not to develop policies or improve society. Your question would be better placed on a webforum devoted to the topic. Cheers, -Willmcw 19:18, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

What webforum can I visit that pertains to this topic? --Shultz 21:54, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Try here: [7] SchmuckyTheCat 22:03, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Nang hsing tsao siung sui tsien? An English version of the site would help.

• We aren't Internet 411. SchmuckyTheCat 13:40, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Uh, since every Chinese baby has a minimum IQ of 130 there is really no need to impose IQ tests. What they're planning is kill everyone in America and Europe except for the smart ones (>130) and repopulate the planet with the superior Chinese master race. Yeah. -- Миборовский ^{U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai!} 20:31, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Source? Don't create rumors, which can only downgrade wiki. --Augest 22:46, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

A well-written WP:BJADON candidate. Not bad. --Kakurady 03:01, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

People with a low IQ are also needed. If erveryone was a genius, how would cities stay clean? To be a very succesfull farmer, would you need to know Einsteins theories? Furthermore, having a low IQ does not mean that you cannot be smart. It only means you understand some things slower, and lastly, babies with a low IQ can develop into very smart and capable people.

Social impacts

Retirement security

Children in China are the retirement policy of the families. What has the government done to reflect that? Just taking away the right to have (more) kids won't do, if there is not an appropriate state-retirement plan in place. Does anyone have more info? 61.3.130.25 12:42, 16 May 2004 (UTC)

You're right, there is a problem because traditional Chinese culture is structured so that the retired depend heavily on the kids. The government hasn't done anything to help compensate. I imagine the responsibility is just going to fall very hard on the siblingless generation. 67.120.232.11 09:12, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

You are actually very wrong there. The government had already been working very hard on compensating and caring for elderly people. Take the very small example of that the large family farms are now converted into small rooms, where poorer people, as well as elderly, can live.

Furthermore, the first question makes it sound as if the government just thought 'Well, let's have fun and tell people they can have only one child'. Firstly, the policy does not mean people can only have one child. It is the birth control policy, and it means that people can have more children, even up to three, depending on the region. (without fines). Secondly, if that policy had not come into action, there would have been far too many people. That would have resulted in high unemployment rates, which means there is no, or very little income to support 6 or more children. This would result in more poverty, and, because children would still be the only means of retirement, more children. No more jobs, so also no more jobs for the children, which means there would be no retirement at all. This would also have great effects on huge medical problems.

Circumventions

I understand that in order for authorities to avoid letting mothers out of the country to give birth and circumvent the policy, there are medical exams when applying for passports. However, China's borders are extensive and porous, so why don't mothers surreptitiously leave the country and give birth on foreign soil that way?

The country's newfound prosperity allows many to start buying SUVs, so if they want to avoid border checkpoints on their way out, they can turn on the 4x4 feature and leave China many miles away from any road border crossing, you see? --Shultz 18:11, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Even w/o SUVs, there are many other ways to leave the country w/o passports in order to give birth outside of China. [anonymous IP user]

First of all, you're talking about a totalitarian regime. Read up on (1) internal passports/residency permits; (2) the ethnic tensions between Mongolians, Uyghurs, and Han; and (3) the lack of good hospitals, gas stations, or airports out in China's western frontier. Anyone who can buy a heavily armored SUV with 4 wheel drive and drive all the way from China to Uzbekistan (through remote desert areas with no food, water or gas stations), unmolested by any curious police officials or bandits along the way, is also powerful enough to fly straight out of Beijing to a first-class hospital in some First World country. --Coolcaesar 20:50, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm not just talking about the western parts of China. There's also the southern parts, to Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, India, and the other countries in the vicinity. To the north and east, there's Russia. There's also Mongolia to the north.

If China is totalitarian, it's becoming less and less totalitarian each year. Consider North Korea; now THAT'S totalitarian.

And no matter how powerful a Chinese citizen is, they'll need a passport to fly out of a country no matter what. That's why it's mostly better to sneak out of China by land. --Shultz 21:22, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

The answer to the original question is that there is no need to leave the country to have the child. The only punishment the government mets out these days is an economic penalty, and if you can afford the tax bite (mainly that you're on the hook for the kid's education if you want them educated), then you can have the child & plenty of middle-class families do just that without any social stigma or government hassle. The idea that the hospital or the government will do something to harm the 2nd child or to the mother is a myth. technopilgrim 01:53, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

re: "...is a myth." I feel it's worth pointing out that it's not entirely baseless, because in the past, the government would indeed harm the mother and/or child. This may be worth exploring if the article includes a historical context to the one-child policy, specifically in the pre-open door policy times of China. 67.120.232.11 09:16, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

One fact I know is, due to the mis-understanding or what so ever, some Chinese came to U.S. (in most cases were illegal immigrates) and gave birth to 2 or more kids, and then applied for the green card as a political refugee with the reference to one-child policy. This was once considered an effective way to get green card not long before. But now, it looks like U.S. government stopped to consider the applicants in this situation as a political refugee.Augest 17:18, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Kidnappings

User:Skyfiler deleted edits noting the rise of kidnappings cited by a reliable source. His edit comments cite lack of numbers. I think we should discuss this matter here rather than continue unilateral edits (recognizing that my addition was, indeed, a unilateral edit).

Should the fact that the source didn't cite numbers be relevant to the facts at hand, specifically, an increase in kidnappings? The source didn't come from some blog or op-ed. It's from "Human Rights Watch," and they make it their business to identify and report human rights abuses. They've been following the impacts of the One-Child Policy for over a decade. Here's the paragraph pulled from the citation:

A cultural preference for boy children, combined with state population control policies, has resulted in a shortage of women and girls in rural areas, creating a lucrative market for traffickers. While the state has cracked down on some trafficking rings, many Chinese women and girls, especially those from rural and ethnic communities, are kidnapped and either sold as wives or trafficked into the sex industry.

We should also keep in mind the latest Chinese censorship row. The state is well known for suppressing unflattering information, jailing dissidents, etc. Waiting for solid numbers may well be what government officials want.

So, let's talk about citations necessary to overcome Skydfliler's objections. Rklawton 22:42, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

The source addresses kidnappings of two different reasons, and IMHO only one of them (kidnappings for wives) is related to the article. Increase in kidnappings can be easily attributed to the rise of sex industry.--Skyfiler 23:52, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Good points. Note that one might additionally argue that the sex industry has boomed due to the one-child policy. More information will help, but don't we have enough to reinsert the statement? Rklawton 01:39, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Now another source is needed for that argument, but I won't say the policy is the only factor.--Skyfiler 19:29, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Abortion is murder...

Family planning officers force abortions on mothers with a second child on their way, which is just as murderous as murder itself.

Therefore, a policy of giving IQ tests to all children in China and exterminating those below the IQ of 100 as the alternate way to control population growth would be at the SAME LEVEL as forcing abortions via the current policy. The mentally challenged are more or less a drain to society, so why wouldn't China follow that policy instead?

In case you were wondering, I, however, do not condone any population-limiting policy whatsoever. Maybe such that those with big enough families get relocated to less dense parts of the country (say Urumqi or Lhasa), but nothing more severe than that.

--Shultz 21:12, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with the article. Please find another forum for general ranting. The speak command on the game Urban Dead might be more interesting for you. SchmuckyTheCat 01:03, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

well since murder is defined as unlawful killing, and abortion is legal, then it can not be murder.

I generally am inclined to agree with the opinion of this individual,abortion IS murder,and should be prosecuted as such.Nevertheless,Shmucky is right,this has nothing to do with this talk page and should not have been posted here.Raspberrysnapple 00:55, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

NPOV

So long as this article doesn't explain the problem(s) China is trying to address with this policy, this article will remain non-NPOV. While the one-child policy has clear problems both in theory and in implementation, I see no discussion of its benefits. I have this nagging feeling that China lost 20 million people a couple of generations ago due to a combination of population growth (their own post-war baby-boom) and Mao's failed agricultural policies. This policy is probably one of many aimed at preventing another such tragedy. For balance, someone familiar with the official position should add this information as well. Rklawton 16:40, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

I concur. Even today, with its population roughly stabilized at about 1.3 billion, China is always teetering on the brink of massive civil disorder, with 500 million starving peasants getting increasingly envious of the middle class in the eastern coastal cities, and with the official figures for protests getting higher and higher each year. If they hadn't brought their population growth under control, there would probably have been a civil war already! --Coolcaesar 01:22, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Contradictions

I tagged the page as contradictory. Under infanticide: "The national average of nearly 120 boys born for every 100 girls. The accepted norm is 106:108." Under Gender-based birthrate disparity: "118:100, which differs substantially from the natural baseline (105:100)". Also, under gender-based birthrate it says that other Asian states also have higher than average ratios, but it doesn't state why this is relevant. Is it because of cultural reasons or genetical reasons?

The second contradiction is that in the beginning of the article it says it is a current policy in China but in the overview it says it ISN'T a national policy and then goes on to say what kind of a policy it is. Obviously it is a policy even if the Western name "One-child policy" might be slightly misguided. Mackan 09:14, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Family planning is a national policy, and different areas have different interpretations. One-child policy is coined by English speakers, and there is no counterpart in Chinese.--Skyfiler 16:22, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

I think that that needs to be made clear from the start of the article (where it says it IS a policy). Mackan 09:15, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

One Chiledreno

The one child policy was not helpful to china. China's population has still grown, and the crime rates have gone increasingly up, especialy Murder.

Just imagine what might have happened if the One Child Policy wasn't in place. ;) Lokiloki 03:15, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Exactly, you only have to look at the exponential rise of the Indian population to see how relatively effective the policy has been. By 2050, Indias population will have overtaken that of China, despite their best efforts to curb growth. And what exactly does crime have to do with the policy?? It has more to do with the abandonment of the 'iron rice bowl' and the rapid adoption of liberal market policies, resulting in unequal socioeconomic distribution.

As to whether or not the policy is helpful to China, it all depends on what specific aspect (of the many) one is focusing on. In your case, you seem to be looking at population growth. Of course the population has still grown. One can't expect the population growth rate to jump down into the negatives immediately. What is more important to look at is fertility and birth rates. Since the policy's implementation in 1979, the total fertility rate (children per woman aged 15-49) has dropped from 6.2 to 1.83. I'd say that is a significant change, and thus in the case of population growth - everything else aside - the One-Child Policy is effective and has helped China. Statistics from 2006 World Population Data Sheet from the Population Reference Bureau. - 08:19, 13 February 2007 (UTC)gmandolyn

sex morals

We in China and the old person say it count for much it is the morals and ethics does not have the anus sex. Many surveys demonstrations young China husband and wife have many anus sex to appear together for the birth control method. the American pornography which and watches, hates by the cultural elites Inside China. This wikipedia only has the criticism from exterior China. Inside China criticizes importantly, should not throw out.

Thanks to woman rewrites the unit in the health danger

Information on Wikipedia must be reliable. Facts, viewpoints, theories, and arguments may only be included in articles if they have already been published by reliable and reputable sources. Articles should cite these sources whenever possible. Any unsourced material may be challenged and removed.

Articles may not contain any unpublished theories, data, statements, concepts, arguments, analyses, or ideas, or any synthesis thereof that is designed to advance a new position.

Wikipedia is not the place for original research. Citing sources and avoiding original research are inextricably linked: the only way to verifiably demonstrate that you are not doing original research is to cite reliable sources which provide information that is directly related to the article, and to adhere to what those sources say.--Skyfiler 18:31, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

I cite the origin edition. Young Chinese husband and wife the use butt take the birth control method. You like the butt and hate.

Do not make personal attacks anywhere in Wikipedia. Comment on content, not on the contributor. Personal attacks will never help you make a point; they hurt the Wikipedia community and deter users from helping create a good encyclopedia. Users have been banned for repeatedly engaging in personal attacks. Abusive edit summaries are particularly ill-regarded.

"Our woman" was not neutral point of view and the modification you made had no source links. See Citing sources for Wikipedia:Verifiability. BTW, please Wikipedia:sign your posts on talk pages --Skyfiler 19:38, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Although I do agree that anal sex has perhaps become more prevalent, I do not think it is relevant to the point where you have to mention it flamboyantly with terrible grammar. Like many Chinese students I've met, you believe your vocabulary is very advanced. As a genuine piece of advice, please learn how to construct correct sentences, and do not come on here and voice claims that have no citations, and use it as a means to show that you speak a second language. Colipon+(T) 00:41, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

My fearful english to help use computer dictionary! HA! ADVANCED! HA!

As a Chinese, I never heard or read anything about this "sex moral" and don't think morality even in China is really concern the way HOW people make love (while, in many culture including Chinese, sex itself unless inside marriage may be consider immoral or sin.). In a place like China where other birth control tools such as birth control pills and candom are available and convenient, (it looks like it is even encouraged/promoted by government for the married couple), it is ridiculous for people use such a method to do birth control. In fact, I never heard except in gossip or rumors that people use this method to do birth control. If anal sex has anything to do with birth control after all, it looks more reasonable for the people who can only use "natural family plan" birth control such as some Cathlic Christan to use this method for birth control. --Augest 02:40, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Let's leave personal attacks out. I prefer useful information with proper citations even with terrible grammar and spelling over perfectly formed non-encyclopedic sentences. Poor spelling and grammar are simple to correct. Useful, well-cited information is much more difficult to find. Rklawton 17:41, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Children with pressure

I can not see any connection of this problem with one-child policy in your post. Pressure on kids is more like a social problem due to the fast pace of today's socialty or highly competitive job market, instead of one-child policy. In addition, the tradition expectation of Chinese on the kids' study is also a problem. Even in U.S. the kids from Chinese immigrates family got more expectation from their parents. In addition, I almost never read such criticisms for one-child policy no matter in Chinese media or Foreign media. It is true people complain about the pressure on kids, but they seldom induce it to the one-child policy. As long as I know, Japanese kids or Taiwai kids have the similar pressure if not more serious. Please cite the source to show this is a criticism for one-child policy.--Augest 02:40, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Quite frankly, if parents had more than one kid, there would not be nearly as much pressure. It is, like you said, a problem that has social factors, but it is impossible to ignore the fact that the One-Child policy worsened such problems. In China, parents sometimes rely solely on their single child for success, thus pushing them very far. Colipon+(T) 03:41, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Then you need to clarify this in your edit. In addition, still, the issue here is whether it is just your own opinion or it is the public/general criticisms on one-child policy. If it is the former case, then wiki, as an encyclopedia, is not a place for publish personal views. If it is the latter case, you need to cite the source. In fact, in most cases that I heard the complain of the pressure of kids, people would induce the reason of it to the over sized Chinese population and crowded job market instead of one-child policy - many Chinese in fact think that one-child policy in some sense help the situation by reducing the population size. --Augest 15:17, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, and if there were more children there would be even more competition. Your opinion has no backcup.

I concur. Chinese-Americans also push their kids because they want them to do better than them and have a good job. I had a busy schedule both in China and still have a busy schedule in America. Chinese-Americans also push their kids to remember the Chinese language because China is a growing country and the demand for Chinese will increase. I heard American kids are going through Chinese school to fill that demand.

Deployment of one-child policy

Most non-Chinese use 'one-child policy' to refer to Chinese birth control policy, no matter whether it is for urban, suburb or rural area. On the other hand, Chinese birth-control policy definitely cover rural area, if not emphersize on rural area. It is difficult to deploy birth-control policy in rural area, and policies in these area are kind of different from that in urban area. But compared to itself, birth rate in rural area is decreased since the deployment of the one-child policy.--Augest 03:13, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Women follow their husbands' name

Traditionally, women in China would change their family names to their husbands's name or add their husband's surname before their surname. This was only changed about 1940-1950s. For instance, Ms. Anson Chan Fang On, the head of Hong Kong's civil serviceSang, her maiden name is Fang, and she got her surname Chan from her husband. More examples about the names of married women in China can be easily found in novels written before 20th century and history documents. --Augest 22:29, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Please go back and check again. Women never officially assumed their husband's surnames. What you are referring to is the practice of giving a reference (usually literary) to a woman using the husband's name after marriage, which was never her real name in any case. For example, Liu Fangshi (刘方氏) means a member of the Fang family married to Mr. Liu, and is not actually the name of the woman. The woman is usually called by a colloquial name (like a flower or something to the likes of that), and this name is never really recorded in writing. Empresses, for example, never adopted imperial surnames. You are also referring to the practice in Hong Kong and Taiwan, which in reality was adopted from western tradition, to place husbands name before one's own.

If you so claim that the practice only began in 1940's, then explain why Soong May-ling never became "Chiang Soong Mei-ling" upon marriage. Colipon+(T) 06:57, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

This so-called colloquial name is just the given name of woman, which should not be used in a public occasions and can only called by her family numbers. Liu Fang (刘方氏) is not just a reference, but an official surname of the woman. She need to use this official surname in all formal occasions. shi(氏) in Chinese means surname or family name. I did not say the practice of putting husband surname before a married woman or a married woman change her surname into her husband's name begans since 1940's. I say the practice that women not using their husband name start 1940's.

Soong May-ling is called "Chiang Soong Mei-ling" upon marriage. This can be found in some literature. However, as I said, since 1940's or earlier, with the trend of feminism, this is not that strict though.

This tradition can still be observed common in Taiwan and HK because they were never been under the control of Chinese communist party. People there are keep more traditional stuff than those in mainland China. Feminism in Taiwan and HK had never been promoted as wide and strong as that in mainland China. --Augest 17:51, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Why is this here?

This article is a good example of why Wikipedia is an unreliable source. The article itself is obviously not neutral, not well researched, and poorly written. Yet it remains as the "definitive" entry for all and sundry to quote from. Why is it up there?

Marian.

This article will be an excellent example how wikipedians build a useable article from zero when it's done. It's there because this topic has enough value and/or importance to be kept and improved into a good encyclopedia article, not because it is already good enough. It may not be well written, so it needs volenteers like you to make it neutral, well researched, and well written. Go ahead, be bold, edit this page. By the way, when signing after a comment, you can use ~~~~ to sign your comment and link it to your user page.

Kakurady 14:35, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

"Some children who are in one-child families pay less than the children in other families."

pay less for what? (131.130.121.106 09:54, 12 May 2006 (UTC))

Agree, that sentence was not very clear. When I was in elementary school in early 1980s though, a classmate who was the only child in the family received money reward from government weekly or monthly (don't remember clearly).Coconut99 99 04:22, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree, there is absolutely no mentioning of the positive sides of one child policy. how many people would have been living in china now, and what problems would that have led to?

Mathias

The policy as an eugenics movement?

I heard somewhere stating that a reason behind the One-child policy has something to do with eugenics and that how the policy seems to favor boys lends support for this argument.--Ryz05 _t 01:43, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

The policy does not inherently favour boys. Traditional Chinese society favours boys. Eugenics have nothing to with the policy, and is likely a poorly organized conspiracy theory. The policy is a basic measure aimed at sustaining an equilibrium between the population and resource consumption. Colipon+(T) 04:36, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I concur with Colipon. Bringing population to a level that matches long-term carrying capacity is still the paramount issue. The gender imbalance is simply an unfortunate side effect of the traditional Chinese emphasis on male heirs. --Coolcaesar 05:11, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

When searching google for the one-child policy and eugenics[8], this website [9] on one-child policy posters states that Eugenics is mentioned in government posters. You can also read this article Is China's law eugenic?.--Ryz05 _t 22:49, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I did your recommended Google search. I saw quite a few websites from Tibetan sources, which are naturally anti-Beijing. Further, I saw several references on the first few pages alone about how China's one child policy has nothing to do with Eugenics. What you are referring to is actually another law passed in the early 1990's that have some characteristics that may reflect eugenics. If you want a separate article on this, please create it. Colipon+(T) 01:32, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

In this link http://www.unesco.org/courier/1999_09/uk/dossier/txt07.htm , I see no where did it suggest a policy that is different from that talked about in this article, so I don't see why a separate article has to be created.--Ryz05 _t 02:22, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Are the sterilization laws mentioned in the article part of the one child policy? Sounds like a related but seperate set of laws. TastyCakes 02:47, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

It has been known for government officials to sterilize people to prevent penalties from failing to curb population growth. I think their argument is that because of the gender imbalance, many people will never get married, but those that do will have children who will be better off in society. This article [http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=26633] seems to suggest that eugenics is "linked to the one-child policy," but I don't suggest trusting that article since it's a bit biased against China.--Ryz05 _t 17:50, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Favouring male children hardly can be said to be eugenics. Eugenics aims to reduce the number of "inferior" genes and phenotypes, while increasing the number of "superior" ones. But if there are more men than women, it just means that a proportion of that generation of men will not be fathers, while nearly all of the women will be mothers. Parents obviously must be evenly divided 1/2 men and 1/2 women.

About abstract

Planned birth is hardly used in west. I never heard English-speaking people use this term when they talk about one-child policy. Only found one web page using this term when I search Planned birth in google. Put this term at the beginning may confuse readers. Human rights violation is seldom a critizism against one-child policy inside China. China is not a religious country and there are not many pro-lifers. The main critizism inside China about one-child policy are the potential social issues such as aging problem. It's better to left the detailed descriptions in the relative sub-part. Augest 05:22, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

POV claim

The intro says: "Though controversial both inside and outside of China, China's pandemic overpopulation problem required the government to take drastic measures." Surely this is POV? I personally don't agree that "drastic measures" were required and am highly skeptical in general about alarmist attitudes towards "overpopulation". Everyking 03:47, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you and have tried an edit to moderate the statement to . . . "stimulated the government to take strong measures." Fact is, though, that while high population growth was a drag and likely to become an increasing one on the government, there was not a "crisis" that required "drastic" measures. There were more gradualist and less "drastic" measures that could have been taken, even given the goal of stemming population growth and eventually shrinking it. Mack2 23:36, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

"Achievements"

I corrected the "achievements" claims for the policy in two ways. First, it read as if the family planning policy had actually reduced China's population. That is not true. It only slowed down the rate of growth, so that by one estimate it has about 300 million fewer people than it would have had without the policy. But China's population continues to grow. Second, it read as if China's population is getting smaller now because of the low "births per woman" (correct terminology would be total fertility rate or TFR, but I left that alone). While technically China's fertility rate may now be "below replacement" (with a TFR of ca. 1.7 as against a "replacement" level of 2.1 or 2.2), because of population momentum resulting from the number of women who are still in child-bearing age the population continues to grow, though more slowly than it might have. If this TFR is sustained over an extended period, and assuming that mortality rates do not decline rapidly, then China's population size may actually begin decline in the fairly near future. But that is not happening yet, to my knowledge (and the TFR by itself is not sufficient to show a population decline as opposed to a fertility decline).

One thing that hasn't been added to this discussion, but that may be warranted, is a consideration of alternative policies. Some have written that if instead of the "one child policy" the government had promoted mainly having childen when women were older by several years (i.e., delaying childbearing), combined with longer spacing between children in the case of multiple children, over a long period this would have slowed down overall population growth as much as the more draconian "one child policy" did -- by increasing the mean time between generations. And such a policy (which is the de facto practice in many countries that have no such policy in place) might not have brought on as much international reaction (though arguably some of this would have occurred anyway by folks who oppose the use of abortion). So, yes, the "one child policy" "achieved" a substantial reduction in population growth, but other policy approaches (e.g., a 1.5 TFR goal, accompanied by encourging waiting and greater spacing before having children) might have achieved the same objective though over a more extended timeframe. In any case, there is a literature on this subject of alternatives for China, but I'm not the best one to summarize it.Mack2 17:26, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

The "alternative" policies you mentioned are already included in China's birth control policy or whatsoever. The legal marriage age is China has changed from 18(F) and 20(M) or even younger to 20(F) and 22(M) or something like this. I can not remember the exact number now. Longer spacing between kids and late marriage are always promoted. The only thing is this is ignored by most western literature. I guess the reason lies in: 1, China is relatively not so open to outside before; 2, to those westners who went to China, "one Child" is something really surprise them rather than other staff. 3, Many materials just try to criticize China. On one side, Chinese would not really care what westerners said and would not waste money and time to explain. While for many westerners, they don't really care the truth but just want to critize China because it is China. Another thing is, most westerners don't know Chinese, and thus they have no first-handed material. All they got is just what they heard from others. --Augest 00:45, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Your comment is useful. I have been to China numerous times, and am aware also of the purely political aspects of the criticism. I am not a "Sino-phobe." My concern in contributing to this article has been to bring some balance by drawing on scientific research (both by Chinese and other researchers) rather than accepting the mostly political positions taken by certain groups. For example, in my own investigations, I see no evidence that the one-child policy contributed to the sex ratio imbalance. Arguably perhaps, "western technology" (ultrasound) had a far greater effect, but not only in the PRC, also in Korea, Taiwan, India, and elsewhere. I think the purpose of this encyclopedia is to give the readers a clear and "neutral" summary, minimizing strictly political interpretation. This requires presenting the best scientific evidence, it seems to me, with some documentation and bibliographic references that will help the interested reader learn much more elsewhere. Mack2 17:03, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, OK without engaging the full literature, I have added a short paragraph referring to a very useful article that reviews the policy-making process and internal politics behind the choice of policies: Susan Greenhalgh, "Science, Modernity, and the Making of China's One-Child Policy," Population and Development Review, 29 (June 2003): 163-196. Mack2 18:41, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

I've added now another interesting overview by Hasketh et al. from the New England Journal of Medicine. This appears to be a balanced assessment that points out that some of the claimed achievements for the policy initiated in 1979 may be exaggerated: China's fertility rates were already falling prior to the policy, and would likely have continued to fall somewhat had they not introduced the new policy. Thus, the claimed 250-300 million fewer births due to the policy are only partly attributable to the policy itself.Mack2 16:57, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

The population control policy is promoted as early as 1953 (see People's Dialy, March 5, 1953), and other methods such as enouraging late marriage have beed tried before the one child policy (Selected works of Zhou Enlai Vol.2).--Skyfiler 18:44, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

citation please

From "The 'One-Two-Four' problem": "However, allowances have been implemented in China allowing for a couple who are both only children themselves to have two children to combat this problem."

Can someone cite this? - BlackWidower 23:56, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Women's right to choose in marriage

"China continues to lose arable land because of erosion and economic development, required to feed its oversized population. There were reports of shortages of power in summer 2005. This policy has also helped women become more equal to men in their society. Now women have more of a say in who they marry because there are so few women compared to men in the country.[3]."

The citation doesn't confirm those last two sentences.

It is more like someone's personal view. I just removed it. Augest 16:18, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

the policy is for ethnic han chinese only

this should be mentioned shouldnt it?

No. The policy is not only for han ethnic groups. Other ethnic groups may or may not associated with the policy depends on their size, etc. Augest 02:32, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Also some ethnic groups (e.g., Koreans) have lower fertility than Han even if they might not appear to be subject to the policy.--Mack2 17:27, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

China in the Future

I fear that with the lack of females in china (as a result of the one child policy) will lead to china becoming very homosexual in the near future. That is one way to combat population problems.199.176.183.15 17:30, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

This concern is lack of fact or statistic support. As long as I know, in many areas of China especially urban areas, women of marriage age also complain it is hard to find the right guys to get married. Marriage is not mating. Even mating does not mean it is exactly 1:1. Not long time ago, before 1949, China is in fact with a marriage system of one husband and several wives/cuconbines. And such marriage system (one husband and several wifies/cuconbines) lasted for thousands of years. I think it still exists in some other countries/areas in the world. E.g. Is that for Morman people one guy can married with several wives? Is that true that in muslim one guy can be married with 4 wives? Does that mean in those areas the ratio of man and woman are 100:400 or higher? Augest 01:56, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

The gender imbalance could lead to higher rates of human trafficking, not only within national boundaries, but international. Also, prostitution could increase, with higher instances of HIV/AIDS transmission. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 141.213.198.142 (talk) 04:08, 29 January 2007 (UTC).

Poorly Written

I feel that some of the criticisms here are valid, but also think that the article is not coherent or well written. I think it has to be majorly overhauled. I am not knowledgeable about the subject enough, but think that it should be done.

SudsyJ 22:37, 20 December 2006 (UTC)SudsyJ

This article should be added

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21108585-2703,00.html

I would add it myself, but looking at this article it is so horrible I can't contemplate working on it. At the very least it would be thought that if allegations of forced abortion are going to be in the introduction, the known environmental and social costs of overpopulation would also be in there. Sad mouse 16:08, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree, I have previously done degree level work on this topic but the idea of editing an article in this much of a mess and with such an aggressive talk page is too much. The talk page in particular make me cringe; fair enough you can't be an expert on everything but why do people who clearly have no background on this topic insist on editing it and adding errors and NPOV... I know something similar was said a few screens up and the commentator got shot down for the opinion, but seriously... yuck! NickCwik 16:01, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Future Economic Consequences

There should be a section added to this page that talk about future economic consequences of the 1 child policy. Specifically that population growth is the main contributor to GDP growth, and a decreasing population is considered a great economic disaster. --DrewWiki 17:21, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

You can suggest White House to allow half Chinese population or even more (in case they want, and I guess many would like to) to immigrant to U.S. for booming the U.S. economy. Maybe they will adopt your opinion. I just wonder why there are illegal immigrants in U.S. Why don't they import these people and make a higher GDP growth, mmmmmm Augest 02:38, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Excellent response, Augest. No doubt someone is going to suggest at some point that the long-term consequence of the one-child policy is the failure of the Chinese society to thrive, leading to a move eventually to the thermonuclear annihilation of life on earth. The ingenuity of those with a POV to raise irrelevant and undocumented and unprovable consequences in argument against the policy is impressive. It does take us way off topic sometimes, however.--Mack2 21:07, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

China will suffer a lot after 2020,when a huge aged chinese nation is presented in the world while there are little or no young labors to work for their pensions.It's a stupid and flash policy to stop people from reproducing before making substantial capital and techinical assets and enough infrastructure.I hope China ending this policy the sooner the better,otherwise another stagnant Europe or Japan will arise.--Ksyrie 01:21, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Augest, your defence is based on WP:OR. This page tells that the One child policy decreases economic growth: http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/aug/050826a.html. FYI, illegal Mexican immigrants actually raise the GDP. The rationale for preventing illegal immigrants is to lower taxes by to preventing them getting the taxpayer paid welfare such as public education, etc. 71.185.237.221 20:54, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

A distinction must be made between total GDP (wealth of the country) and GDP per capita (wealth of inhabitants). If the growth of GDP is slower than population growth, then GDP per capita drops meaning that people get poorer, even if GDP growth is positive. Russia has a declining population and yet is one of the fastest growing economies. China has been the fastest growing major economy for the past 25 years. While USA's GDP is growing faster than Japan's, Japan has a higher growth per capita than the USA. Good article about it : Economist. GDP (PPP) per capita is a better measure of the wealth of populations than total GDP. AtikuX (talk) 05:17, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Neutrality

This page is highly biased towards the western point of view. I have added a view from China to point out what Chinese people think! PLease note that I did not write the original article, but simply added a new section to try and make in more neutral. --Hedgehog99 20:02, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Whilst being a detailed article the page is almost entirely against the Chinese policy. Whilst there may be concerns over human rights, and personal ethical views, this should not be conveyed in the article —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.178.114.88 (talk) 20:07, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Still non-NPOV

Please do not remove the NPOV tag. You only need to compare the length of the criticizing section and the length of the achievement section. Just take the leading paragraph as an example: you can find the introduction and the controversy, but obviously it misses a statement about the achievement. Looking through the whole article, you even can not find a number showing how big the poplulation of China would be if there were no one-child policy. There is a statement in the older version said that "so that by one estimate it has about 300 million fewer people than it would have had without the policy", I suggest that we should find the origin of this number and put it to the leading paragraph.

And I don't think the "one child policy" is a NPOV title, since one child policy is only applied in the urban area for Han Chinese, only ~30% of total Chinese population. The so called "one child policy" is only a misunderstanding of western media and some urban Chinese. I don't think we should stick to this misunderstanding. I prefer to use "Planned Birth policy" as the title.

Sinolonghai 16:47, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

It is not only the urban area of Han chinese.The rural Han chinese also are forced to adopt such policy,while to a much loosener degree.2 childs are maximam.--Ksyrie 05:03, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I know. But in the rural Han area, it can not be called "one child policy", where if the first child is a boy, no more child is allowed and if a girl, then the second allowed. So maybe we should call it "1.5 child policy" instead of "one child policy"? (And if I do more rigorous computation by taking an average of rural and urban area, I may get "1.35 child policy".) If you don't think the "1.5 child policy" or "1.35 child policy" is a good title, please consider "Planned Birth policy" as a title. Sinolonghai 21:46, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't know what is your socalled achievement,the chinese population is big,but its territory is also very big.The population density is not so high to be thought as overpopulation.Just comparing all the east asian countries and areas.The Japan 339,South Korea 480,Taiwan 636.None of them were crticised to be overpopulated and only China 137 seemed to be aware of its population and adopt this policy.Sometimes,I asked myself Was China an overpopulated country in reality or just someone thought it to be.--Ksyrie 02:14, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Please learn more Chinese geography before discussing the overpopulation problem in China. The vast western of China are occupied by mountains and deserts. The population of China concentrated in the eastern part and several eastern provinces are more dense than Japan, South Korea, even Taiwan. And their areas are comparable. See this page: http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Research/LUC/ChinaFood/data/pop/pop_3.htm, or List of China administrative divisions by population density. Sinolonghai 20:08, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Sinolonghai, please do not use WP:OR to justify your opinion. If 50% or even 70% of China is covered by deserts, then the density is still lower than Japan. Ksyrie, your information is perfectly acceptable to this article if you cite a source.71.185.237.221 20:38, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

I think the title stands, as it is the most common "translation" found in english for the policy. --82.247.184.126 (talk) 12:56, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Fertility Rate

The statement that the U.S. fertility/birth rate is 2.2 is just wrong, as can be seen here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_States The rate is 2.1, or possibly 2.09. The Editor 2 18:05, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

OCPF

Can someone explain OCPF in the article? Is it an acronym for "One-Child Policy Family"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.6.205.34 (talk) 08:25, 10 July 2007

Little Emperors

From the one, two, four problem: - This can often lead into "Little Emperors" -. No explanation of what little emperors is, it just says it can lead to little emperors. It may as well say "This can often lead into "Bojorn Mockavonitch". So, does anyone actually know what Little Emperors is? JayKeaton 14:01, 13 October 2007 (UTC) Spoiled kids. It should be there originally. Augest 00:55, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Removing the NPOV tag

Using original research to balance this article out is illegitimate. Balancing out this article so the number of positives and the number of criticisms--make no distinguish between the prominence and quality of the positives--are the same does not make sense at all. That is just mere quantity, not a quality argument.

It is obvious that a socialist system do not have the incentive nor ingeniuity to support such large population. Source: (http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/aug/050826a.html, http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=5457)

71.185.237.221 21:06, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Please don't use POV of one party to judge the general rule of a article structure/grammar issue. The NPOV tag is marked because this article is short of the positive effects/advantage of one child policy. Actually, there are many people support the policy. These need to be addressed in the article to make it Neutral of view. Using original research to balance this article out is definitely legitimate. Wiki is a encyclopedia. Not a forum. Augest 00:54, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I see your contributions in the introduction. These contributions violate the Wikipedia Manuel of Style and are POV. I removed them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.175.31.225 (talk) 01:35, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

I see your contributions in the introduction. These contributions violate the Wikipedia Manuel of Style and are POV. I removed them.

"But then why not just keep the wan-xi-shao policy, which resulted in a fertility decline from 5.75 to 2.72 children per woman from 1970 to 1978 ?[1]]." This is a question. Questions are not allowed.

"Because the main reason behind the Policy was economic." It is written in a subjective point of view.

" The state's new legitimacy is no longer dogma but improving the standard of living." This sounds like propaganda like the use of "dogma".

" The one-child policy will enable the state to free resources for economic development." Some people criticize it, so write it in an objective point of view at the non-introduction"

" The Policy is therefore included in the economic planning framework." This is already mentioned.

"impossible in time of de-maoisation. " The word "Impossible" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.175.31.225 (talk) 01:40, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

These contributions have nothing to do with me. You point at the wrong person --Augest 02:53, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Augest contributions

His contributions make this article sound like CPC propaganda. His contributions are ungrammatical and made this article more POV instead of less POV. He used propaganda linguistic methods in this article. 71.175.31.225 01:49, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

71.175.31.225 edit makes the article like a human right/pro-life group propaganda. Plus, his edit lists redundancy contents again and again with no organization and logic. Wikipedia already has a bad reputation of not accurate and out of control, please don't make it even worse.

Actually, I wonder why this article not be protected since there are way too much extremist: religious, pro-life, anti-abortion, communistphobic, etc... are eager to vandalize the article. See how many times this article being vandalized... --Augest 02:46, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I just checked your most recent edit. What you removed has nothing to do with me. I don't know why you point at me. As for the NPOV, I still think this article is not NPOV as it's not address enough for the views of supporting parties. --Augest 02:46, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Does the supporting parties outnumber the unsupporting parties? There are far more unsupporting parties. Therefore, your edits to equalize the parties is POV. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.175.31.225 (talk) 00:23, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

How do you know "There are far more unsupporting parties."? Please give a reliable resource for this claim. --Augest 01:43, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

It is your original research to "equalize" the proponents and critics at the first place. I just cited an example of why your original research can be refuted. The people supporting it are mainly brainwashed homogeneous groups from the PRC. (example) So these advocates just have one supporting argument. However, the critics are diverse so they held a wide variety of repercussions of why this policy is bad, and you have to support all the criticisms.

Just look at other articles such like Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. There are no supporting arguments and is filled with critics. It does not even contain NPOV tag. This article should be handled the same as the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 article.71.175.31.225 23:23, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I had read that article before. I was there and experienced the event by myself. Is that article perfect, surely not. Lies, propagadas, all bad things come out for that event. Not just CCP, but others, including those so called student leaders. It's a complicated and controversial topic. I could imagine Wikipedia could not handle such a complicated topic... and it's fine. However, one child policy and Tiananman Event are totally two different issues. There are lots of people who actucally support One Child Policy. UNFPA is a good example: U.S. even supported it before Bush withdraw the funding. UNFPA is definitely an International organization, not only for China nor U.S. Many Chinese actually supports One Child Policy. Many Chinese couples, especially those with good education, although they came to U.S., they still only have one child. (Of course there are also people against the policy.) Otherwise, the policy could not be there for about 20 years and still going on. Plus, the detail of policy also keeps changing. This is completely not addressed in the article. Actually, I even doubt if anyone who critize and supporting those critized statement really know the full content of the policy. Wiki can be a good place to help people understand what's really going on, or it can also be another forum controlled by/following one side political power. In the latter case, people can still get the info, what can be ruined is just the reputation of Wikipedia--Augest 01:38, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

For the NPOV, it's not only my view, if you read the discussion page carefully, there are many others have the same opinion as I. Please respect other's efforts before you do anything. And balancing the article out is definitly NPOV. Plus, put a NPOV tag also helps call attention of other editors to improve the quality of the article. -Augest 01:43, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I am tired on this topic. And kind of busy... Just found something interesting in the UNFPA article. Bush administration blocking fundiing from 2002 to 2006 for the organization based on unproved critics that UNFPA supports oversea abortion. Remembering Bush administration also seeks for extra 4 million or more this year on the Iraq war, which is also based on the wrong Information that Iraq has massive killing weapoons. I don't know what I can say. Maybe one day U.S. will be crazy enough to prohibit all legal abortion and at the same time spend huge amount of tax payer's money to send their 18 year old kids to Mideast to be killed by suicide bombers. What's a crazy thing... --Augest 02:23, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Lead sentence needing scrutiny

Search on Baidu for the following terms as a comparison:

"Family Planning Policy" - http://www.baidu.com/s?tn=baiduadv&bs=site%3A%28.gov%29+family+planning+policy&ie=gb2312&sr=&z=&cl=3&f=8&wd=site%3A%28gov.cn%29+family+planning+policy

"One Child Policy" - http://www.baidu.com/s?tn=baiduadv&q1=one+child+policy&q2=&q3=&q4=&rn=10&lm=0&ct=1&ft=&q5=&q6=gov.cn

"planned birth policy" - http://www.baidu.com/s?tn=baiduadv&q1=planned+birth+policy&q2=&q3=&q4=&rn=10&lm=0&ct=1&ft=&q5=&q6=gov.cn

Above 3 searches show while "one child" is a policy attribute, "family planning" is predominatly used term by the Chinese government to describe the policy, while "planned birth polcy" is seldom, if not ever, used.

Bobby fletcher (talk) 05:53, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

I have un-bolded "planned birth policy" and left in family planning as per your request; "planned birth policy" is being maintained in the article not as another name for the policy, but as the translation of the Chinese name (it is standard to give a Chinese translation in these kinds of articles, and to give a translation if the English name is not a literal translation of the Chinese name). The article is not attempting to claim that "planned birth policy" is the official title, so there is no need to mark it as {{dubious}}. Also, the title in Chinese really is 生育计划 or 计划生育, see zh:中国计划生育. —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 06:21, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

I disagree:

1) "planned birth policy" is not a litteral translation of the term "生育计划", as it ommited the word "育" which means "to raise". This is OR.

2) According to below Google searches the above term is predominately translated as "family planning policy", not "planned birth policy":

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%E7%94%9F%E8%82%B2%E8%AE%A1%E5%88%92%E6%94%BF%E7%AD%96+family+planning+policy

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%E7%94%9F%E8%82%B2%E8%AE%A1%E5%88%92%E6%94%BF%E7%AD%96+planned+birth+policy

(Matter of fact this article is the only place with such translation, see result #1 of second search.)

Bobby fletcher (talk) 06:31, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

生育 is a compound word. Anyway, fine, leave the {{dubious}} tag there, we'll wait and see what other editors think of it. —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 06:43, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

More the reason to be careful about the semantics. Contexually the term "birth-raise" is by definition more than just "birth". Bobby fletcher (talk) 07:18, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

[unindent to follow-up with more search result evidence]

Further refinement of above Google survey shows while there's little reference to 生育计划 as "planned birth policy", comparatively reference to 生育计划 as "family planning policy" is predominately used:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%E7%94%9F%E8%82%B2%E8%AE%A1%E5%88%92%E6%94%BF%E7%AD%96+%22planned+birth+policy%22

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%E7%94%9F%E8%82%B2%E8%AE%A1%E5%88%92%E6%94%BF%E7%AD%96+%22family+planning+policy%22&btnG=Search

Please note both the search result counts, as well as notable English sources contextually referencing the original Chinese term. Feedback is appreciated, thanks! Bobby fletcher (talk) 20:06, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Discrimination against Han Chinese not supported by fact

There's already a comment to merge with affirmative action. I think that's a good idea; I believe this section as is, is POV and OR:

1) none of the cites in the section (56-61) has anything specific to discrimination against Han Chinese. (56 and 61 are actually identitcal article)

2) The Chinese-language articles are actually about diversity, not reverse discrimination.

3) Affirmative action safegarding minority interest isn't necessarily discriminatory towards mianstream population. Such argument in America against diversity, for example, are often controversial, forced, and not widely accepted.

Bobby fletcher (talk) 21:57, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

keep it, the policies is based on ethnically differences which is basically a form of discrimination. this policies does not HELP the disadvantaged, it is instead putting limits on the majorities, this is like saying white people should be allow 1 child because black people has a smaller population, is this affirmative action to you, will the black people do better if there is less white people? 218.186.12.216 (talk) 18:15, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

I think this whole section is expressive of an American politics interpretation about affirmative action being reverse discrimination (I recommend deleting the section). I've spent some time in China including several minority areas and never heard the policy criticized as reverse discrimination even among Han. In one area (Yanbian) Koreans there, though apparently eligible to have a second child under the policy, chose not to in order not to "stand out."--Mack2 (talk) 15:40, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

As for the idea of "affirmative action," in the early 1990s, right after the 1990 census came out, Chinese authorities became aware of the differential population growth rates of Han and the minorities (I attended one conference in Beijing devoted to minority issues). They attributed that differential more to a process of "reidentification" or "resurgent self-consciousness among minorities" than to the different fertility rates ("natural increase") between Han and the minorities. The prime example I heard was that of the Mongolians: only a small proportion of the population of Inner Mongolia are Mongolian by self-identity; between the 1982 and 1990 censuses, however, there was a rapid increase in that proportion, well in excess of natural increase (fertility - mortality). Still far from enough of an increase to make Mongolians a majority in their region but apparently a source of alarm in some circles.--Mack2 (talk) 15:40, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

This process of ethnic resurgence was related, perhaps, to affirmative action "advantages" that minorities might have in access to certain schools and jobs, which made having a minority identification useful. Officially before the early 1990's one could claim minority national/ethnic identity if one of one's grandparents was a member of that nationality. So if you sought administrative advantage from your minority heritage you had, in effect, 4 chances to get it (any of your grandparents would do). But then, in the early 1990's it's my understanding (can't verify this) that they changed the rule: 2 of your grandparents hd to be a minority in order for you to claim minority group membership. The intent was to slow down the nominal growth of minority identities.--Mack2 (talk) 15:40, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't know much about that demographic stuff (and actually, it's very interesting!), but I will say that I share your experience when it comes to general impressions about reverse discrimination—I've never heard someone in China complain about it or even mention it. —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 15:50, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't think any of what I just described belongs in an article about the One-Child Policy. To put this there -- or even to have the current section there -- is just "piling on" of arguments against that policy, and is, I believe inapt and ahistorical.--Mack2 (talk) 15:49, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

I've actually heard many people complain about reverse discrimination in China. They don't use that word, and they complain differently than Americans, but it is essentially the same thing. When I talk to younger couples who want more than one baby, they feel it is unfair that minorities have a pass on the one-china policy. When I talk to older couples about colleges, they're pissed that their kids couldn't get into X school and Y kid ( a minority) got in. Finally, and most often, when I talk about discriminationa and racism in China, I am almost invariably told that racism doesn't exist and then they point to the positives that Chinese minorities get (and then the complain about it). I actually find it surprising that when talking about college, kids, or racism people here haven't heard the same complaints.

However, the issue here is what is supported by reliable sources, and that is what should be in the article.LedRush (talk) 16:30, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps we could rename the section to "AFfirmative Action for Minority Groups" or "Uneven Application of the Policy" or something that isn't as loaded a term as discrimination?LedRush (talk) 16:33, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

A renaming is definitely in order, I think. Regardless of what we do with the section, the current title is loaded and probably giving people a negative opinion of the article before they even read the section. These two alternate titles, I think, are also a bit loaded ("affirmative action" is a pretty polarizing term here in the US, although I don't know how it is abroad)...I would suggest something more like along the lines of "Differential policies for minority groups" or something? That's just off the top of my head; I'll have to take a closer look later. —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 16:36, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

I suppose some of my objection is to the terminology, and some to the way this article has developed, with people piling on pros and cons often in an undocumented, or should I say "argumentative" way. Perhaps there should be a separate article on "affirmative action in China" that could be linked here; but the case against the one-child policy hardly hangs importantly on this issue (I'm sympathetic to some of the other arguments against; but also try to take a balanced POV, because I think I understand the rationale for the original policy, even if, as Susan Greenhalgh and others have pointed out, the goals could largely have been achieved without such a policy, and avoided some of the negative consequences). In the case of the one-child policy, the setting of different "quotas" for Han and minority groups (with further differentiation by urban and rural residence) was, I believe, motivated by a desire of China's leaders NOT to be labeled as "Han chauvinists." So they moderated the policy in minority regions. For this subsection to focus on the sense of resentment by some Han toward affirmative action policies (note, that's not the same as resentment toward the different fertility quotas as such) just takes the discussion off in another direction, and certainly out of context.--Mack2 (talk) 17:50, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm fine with that solution; if you choose to split the article, then all we need in this article is a single-sentence mention of how the policies differ between groups, and a link to Affirmative action in China or whatever the article will be called. —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 17:54, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps it's because I'm late to the party, but I don't see the negative part of this section (other than the ridiculously negative name). It seems like a bunch of facts supported by citations about the effect of the policy on the demographics of minority groups in China. I think it's good to be included, quite honestly. That doesn't mean an affirmative action in China article is unwarranted, but it seems that this policy could be an example in that article, but this text would not belong. Again, I'm late to the party so I may be missing an essential part of this conversation (and I do agree that the article does have a very argumentative flow).LedRush (talk) 18:02, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I should probably also make full disclosure here, I haven't totally read the section (other than a quick copyedit a long time ago, not paying close attention to the actual argumentation). I should probably take the time to sit down and read through the whole thing before I make any further recommendations about it. —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 22:01, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Differing numbers

I noticed that in the lead-in we have

"According to Yu Xuejun, spokesperson for the National Population and Family Planning Commission, 35.9% of China's population is currently subject to the one child policy."

and later in the main article we have a source giving "11% or more" instead of 35.9%.

The source for the 35.9% figure is a 11 July 2007 article from China Daily. The source for the 11% and up figure is a 10 July 2007 article from Sina.com. They are both talking about the same spokesperson (于学军). The China Daily article does also give the 11% figure, with the difference being that 35.9% of people are "restricted to having one child," while 11% are "free to have two or more." So I'm just curious about what the difference is—is the difference between the numbers in the "or more" nuance, or does it have something to do with the so-called "one-and-a-half child policy" (ie, does the 35.9% figure apply to people who can have another child under those special circumstnaces, whereas the 11% applies to people who can have two or more no matter what, regardless of special circumstances?).

After this is sorted out, it might then be useful to be more specific in the article about what we mean by "is subject to the one-child policy." —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 15:50, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Human rights abuses?

Why the article is included within Category:Human rights abuses? If population control is human rights abuse, then we have to redefine "human rights" and "abuse". It is a blatant anti-China propaganda. The purpose of one-child policy is not political, it not targeted against any political group, the purpose of one-child policy is to control the population explosion and it is a social policy aimed to alleviate social, economic, and environmental problems. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 13:03, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Also while there are some human rights concerns regarding the effects of this policy, it is not the policy itself. Every government policy may have some side-effects, that does not mean we will put all that policies under human rights abuses category. Arguments by economic right wingers like Stephen Moore that One child policy is "an ongoing genocide" is a misleading fringe view. Even USA PATRIOT Act is not included in human rights abuses category. Hugo Chávez has described Israeli actions against Palestine as a "new Holocaust", does that mean we will put Israel Defense Forces in genocide category? Keep it neutral. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 13:10, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree. —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 14:40, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I understand the point, but many, many people think of the One-Child Policy in this context. I guess I would want to know more about the list of articles in the Human rights abuses. Does the list include only uncontroversial claims (and therefore is exceedingly short) or does it include articles for which there is a large group of people believe the subject of the article is defined thus (in which case this article would obviously be included). Seeing as "REligiously motivated violence in the US", "Capital punishment in ____", "Human rights abuse by the US", "Persecution of Christians in Mexico" and so on are included, I don't see the problem with this controversial topic being in there. While I am in favor of the policy, it's not hard to argue that it is worse than capital punishment for hardcore convicted criminals.LedRush (talk) 16:26, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Again, aim of the policy is not human rights abuse or political repression, its aim is alleviation of social problems. It may has some side-effects as all government policies may have, but calling it as a whole "human rights abuse" is not neutral. It is also not hard to argue that the situation of the uninsured in the United States are worse than capital punishment for hardcore convicted criminals where the only saviors of the uninsured are charitable organizations. We do not call something which is really controversial, the USA PATRIOT Act, human rights abuse. One-child policy may have certain human rights concerns as a side-effect, but categorizing the entire policy article as "human rights abuse" is naked cold war-style propaganda against China. The policy is not created with the motivation to repress a particular political group. After all the policy has support from majority of China's population. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 17:56, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I am sorry, but I think your statements are over-the-top and inaccurate. It is possible to believe that the One Child Policy itself as the denial of the basic human right to have children. The intended goal of the policy (or more accurately, the only means of achieving the goal) is to limit people to one child and this practice itself is considered by many, many people to be a human rights abuse. To call criticism of the policy "naked cold war-style propaganda against China" is just absurd, though obviously some groups and countries may use this policy as a pre-text for anti-China sentiments. However, the simple fact remains that you can love China, be pro-China, and still abhor this policy and consider it a human rights abuse.LedRush (talk) 18:21, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Source problem

• Chen Wei (2005). "Sex Ratios at Birth in China" (PDF). Proceedings of CEPED-CICRED-INED Seminar on Female Deficit in Asia. Retrieved 2 March 2009.

This source specifically says it's only a draft and shouldn't be cited. Can someone track down the final version of it so we can cite that instead? I'm not familiar with this literature so I'm hoping maybe someone else will have an easier time finding it. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 19:20, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Note: When somebody presents a paper at a public conference, they cannot demand that the paper not be cited. They can request that it not be QUOTED, since they want to reserve the right to revise or improve the writing. So yes, you can cite, just don't quote it.--Mack2 (talk) 15:19, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Surrogate mothers

Just found this interesting article, somewhat relevant to one-child policy:

• Pomfret, James (30 April 2009). "Forced abortions shake up China wombs-for-rent industry". Reuters. Retrieved 4 May 2009.

rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 18:25, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Surrogate mothers

Just found this interesting article, somewhat relevant to one-child policy:

• Pomfret, James (30 April 2009). "Forced abortions shake up China wombs-for-rent industry". Reuters. Retrieved 4 May 2009.

rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 18:25, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Neutrality

The"criticism" section looks like "personnal resarch" to me. This article should just describe one-child policy. This is a goddamn encyclopedia not some anti-chinese rallyMitch1981 (talk) 15:24, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Citation Update Needed

The link in reference 49 (should link to an article on the State Department website) is dead. It should probably be removed or updated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.71.156.233 (talk) 06:20, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Fixed. Thanks for the notice. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 15:14, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Semi-protected incorrect source references

Beautiful.

If you want something fixed, it would help if you actually state what is wrong. Otherwise this post is not very useful. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 01:28, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Updated one-child policy

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/10/28/f-rfa-germain.html

Parents in cities are allowed to have two children given that they are both only-child. There's low take-up, but two children families are now national policy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nabeshiniii (talk • contribs) 00:45, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Recent source of information

sorry, I am not an advanced user and hope someone could include this article from March 2010 issue of "The Economist" into references. Its quite complex with several useful graphs: http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15636231 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.220.226.211 (talk) 07:30, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Interracial relationships?

What happens to interracial relationships? For example, if your mother is born and raised in China, and then she marries a non-Asian man who is born and raised in America. He has moved to China and decided to have kids with her. Does this mean that the couple is still limited to one child? 75.4.241.82 (talk) 16:10, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't mater where are you born, or grow up, or whatever. If you are a citizen of PRC, then the laws of PRC apply to you. I don't see how race has anything to do with it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.222.168.202 (talk) 11:41, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

PRC does allow exceptions for other minorities living in the country. OCP has never applied to those. What if his wife is an only child and he has so many brothers and sisters in the USA, yet is the only Chinese citizen? ★Dasani★ 19:53, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Incorrect in the description of the first image

The picture says that the propagation is signed by the Tangshan government. Tangshan is located in Jiujiang rather than Nanchang. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.226.43.35 (talk) 13:33, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

File update requested

Could someone update the "Age pyramid" file used in this article? It's based on 2005 data, but 2010 data are now available at http://esa.un.org/unpp/index.asp?panel=2 (select "Pop. by 5-year age group" and "China"). Thanks!--Roentgenium111 (talk) 20:08, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Suicide?

The Suicide section has some issues. First of all, it's based on a single source (the other source there was a newspaper editorial, which is not really WP:RS, and I'm pretty sure it was parroting the same statistic that the Kane article there is citing) and it's making a claim that is not really stressed in the source. The source only mentions this in passing; here is the entirety of what it says about suicide:

China has one of the world’s highest rates of suicide of women in the reproductive years.19 Increased pressure to produce the desired child, and a perceived reduction in the value of females, can only have exacerbated the problems of rural women.

So the author never says she thinks family planning policy caused a significant increase in suicide. She might imply it, but the paper certainly doesn't research this question in a controlled way, and I don't know if it's appropriate to use a one-off remark buried somewhere in a paper to synthesize an argument in this WP article, especially if that argument is not made anywhere else in the published literature. rʨanaɢ (talk) 12:37, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Your rephrased version does reflect what the sources say, but off-the-cuff speculation, even by a professor, does not justify the section's existence. It should be removed if nobody backs it up with a proper source within the next few days. – Smyth\^talk 13:23, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Removed. – Smyth\^talk 16:14, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Good edit.~Mack2~ (talk) 02:02, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Eugenics section

I changed the Eugenics section significantly under human rights as it does not reflect laws that have been in place since 2003 (including the repeal of a requirement to get a physical and genetic exam before marriage) as well as China's accession to the UN's CRDP treaty which compels the country to revise its eugenics laws. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.142.54.147 (talk) 09:45, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Jiangsu women

Removed the tidbit about how most Jiangsu moms would only want to have an only child. What does this have to do with the paragraph, or the article as a whole? Based on a single source, I don't find the desire that women from a single province want to have only children so important. If it were several provinces or the whole nation, maybe. It's too bare and irrelevant as it stands. Estheroliver (talk) 03:16, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Rules overview?

Does someone have access to the exact rules of China's birth policy (i.e. which people may have how many children, depending on "race", rural vs. urban, sex of first child, parents' single-child status, ...)? A table of these rules would be a great addition to this article IMO. --Roentgenium111 (talk) 15:16, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Chart

There is a chart included in the article rendered in blue and pink to show something about the population size of China. However, there is nothing showing what the vertical axis means. Is each layer-cake-like tier of the chart supposed to represent a specific decade? Or the age of the population in ten-year breaks at a specific point of time? Can anyone who knows what it represents add a better explanation? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.221.45.194 (talk) 14:49, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

The link to age pyramid in the caption explains it. As for the precise scale, it appears to be listed on the file description page. rʨanaɢ (talk) 18:59, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

The same diagram is in China_population with the following explanation underneath it:

"Age pyramid for China. Each box denotes a five-year age group, starting with 0-5 years in the bottom box. Effects of the one-child policy result in smaller age cohorts in recent years." Maybe that caption could be moved to this page as well? ... Cheers, Neil. 71.198.172.68 (talk) 19:13, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

I logged in to make the same request - add the same caption here to explain an otherwise obtuse graphic. Thanks, Bill Billz2208 (talk) 22:59, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Concerning 'related benefits'

The section on non-population-related benefits includes three examples of peripheral benefits of the policy, but provides very little evidence. For instance, the sub-section dealing with economic benefits contains reference to the original goals of the policy, and (for some reason) Marx's view of Malthus, but does not include any actual figures or information on the economic impact of the policy since it has been put into practice. The section dealing with health benefits provides unsourced (and, in my view, dubious) claims that the one-child policy has improved womens' health and reduced deaths and injury related to pregnancy. This is counter-intuitive; certainly forced, late-term abortions don't reduce deaths and injury. I would ask that a source and additional evidence be added to these sections. If none are provided in a reasonable amount of time, I may remove them. —Zujine|talk 17:15, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

The article needs a history section

Here are some possible starting points for anyone so inclined:

http://www.pop.org/content/chinas-one-child-policy-1455

China's One-Child Policy

By Steven W. Mosher

I have been a student of China's one-child policy since the late 1970s, when I became the first American social scientist to conduct a full-length study of a Chinese village. From 1979 to 1980, I lived in rural Guangdong.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1912861,00.html

A Brief History of China's One-Child Policy

By Laura Fitzpatrick Monday, Jul. 27, 2009

http://www.amazon.com/Just-One-Child-Science-Policy/dp/product-description/0520253396/ref=dp_proddesc_0?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books

Just One Child: Science and Policy in Deng's China

"First, it is by far the most detailed study of the origins of one of the most controversial, significant, wide-ranging, and as the study makes clear, least understood decisions of the post-Mao China political system. China's one-child family policy is rarely treated with detachment, and its origins have been obscured. This book is likely to be the definitive study on their origins. "--David Bachman, University of Washington

ISBN-10: 9780520253391 ISBN-13: 978-0520253391 ASIN: 0520253396

http://www.amazon.com/Mothers-Ordeal-Womans-Against-One-Child/dp/B000HM55KG/ref=sr_tc_2_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1301107513&sr=1-2-ent

A Mother's Ordeal : One Woman's Fight Against China's One-Child Policy

by Steven W. Mosher ASIN: B000HM55KG

CountMacula (talk) 02:55, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Change request

< It officially restricts the number of children married urban couples can have to one

> It officially restricts the number of children that married urban couples can have to one

Still hard to read, but cannot think of anything better. 79.40.88.59 (talk) 20:47, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Done as "It officially restricts married, urban couples to having only one child". Feel free to reopen the request if that's no good either. Cheers, — Bility (talk) 21:30, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Twins

I don't see anything in here about what happens if a family has twins. Tad Lincoln (talk) 17:20, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

BBC stated that any children born from a single birth are exempt. Though this should be placed somewhere in the article (ideally with 2+ sources), the reader should have the sense to infer that the government would allow this exemption because it was mostly, if not completely, out of the control of the mother. –HXL's Roundtable and Record 23:14, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps, but people shouldn't really have to infer. They should just be able to find the answer. After all, if they chose to, the Chinese government could presumably penalize parents with twins, despite it being outside their control. Tad Lincoln (talk) 02:50, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

It's actually stated in the article under "Fertility medicines". --Roentgenium111 (talk) 13:03, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Total population

I came here hoping to find a graph that showed how China's population had changed over time, to see how effective China's one child policy was. So if anyone's looking to expand the article - I'm sure I'm not the only one who'd like that.

Cheers, Neil. 71.198.172.68 (talk) 19:03, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Enforced not only through fines

I read "The policy is enforced at the provincial level through fines...", I also read about forced abortions. Could a section be added stating the various methods used over time and in the various regions? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.78.165.203 (talk) 14:16, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Forced Abortion?

The article does not make clear whether or not the state forces abortions of a second child. It briefly talks about abortion in the into, but later it just talks of fines and garneshment of wages. This needs to be made clear. 97.91.176.159 (talk) 21:33, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I think the following paragraph from the "Human Rights" sections more or less makes it clear:

"In 2002, China outlawed the use of physical force to make a woman submit to an abortion or sterilization, but it is not entirely enforced.[33][43] In the execution of the policy, many local governments still demand abortions if the pregnancy violates local regulations."

Though maybe it should be moved to a more prominent position... --Roentgenium111 (talk) 15:25, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Risk of death from birth

The article says that one-child policy reduces the risk from death from birth-related injuries. Is this common in China (and therefor relevant)? A citation would be good in section "Impact on health care". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.103.217.106 (talk) 08:51, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Clear Bias in Article

I'm not Chinese, but there appears to be a clear bias in the article from perhaps countries with no population controls. Look at the 'benefits' vs. 'criticisms' sections. The benefits section is tiny, despite there being a clear problem with overpopulation in the world. It seems like this was done deliberately with a POV. 81.97.120.96 (talk) 14:31, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

A Wikipedia article is meant to reflect the information available in published reliable sources. If you think there are more benefits that should be listed, feel free to add them, making sure to cite reliable sources. The population-related benefit is, I think, obvious (in that it is the whole point of the policy, as stated clearly in the second paragraph of the introduction section) and there's not much more that can be said about it. rʨanaɢ (talk) 16:25, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Proposed Update

Forecast of China's Population pyramid from International Futures

Hi all,

I wanted to see if anyone would be opposed to an update of the population pyramid for the page.

I believe this image is an upgrade, because it shows the longer term implications of the One-child policy. Additionally, it displays age cohort years on the left. This more easily informs those interested on the timing of the one-child policy historically and its implications on today's population structure.

I've spoken with editors on the WikiProject Countries and the Reliable sources pages, and they've approved of the use of International Futures as source on country pages -- provided that consensus is met with other editors. I'd just like to see if any of you have any thoughts on the matter. I look forward to hearing from you. (Shredder2012 (talk) 20:36, 6 February 2012 (UTC))

It looks like you already did this in the absence of opposition. I think it's very helpful.—Zujine|talk 22:32, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

It's very nice. It would be perfect if you could add past years from 1980 onwards as well, in order to show the policy's consequences in full. --Roentgenium111 (talk) 13:24, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

It's an interesting graph, but it's impossible to interpret unless we know what assumptions its projections are based on. In particular, is it assuming that the current policy will remain in place until 2030? That seems unlikely. – Smyth\^talk 06:39, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Possible addition

Just a small note: perhaps someone with a bit more knowledge than I can add something about the phenomenon of many mainland men of marriageable age being unable to find brides due to the skewed sex ratio? Apparently it's a growing concern (see article: http://www.china.org.cn/china/2011-12/03/content_24065440.htm), and has led to things like increased prostitution, violence against women, and a rise in foreign (sometimes 'mail-order') brides. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.176.4.161 (talk) 02:08, 18 July 2012 (UTC)