China’s population control a sensible measure

There have been a number of rumors circulating in U.S. newspapers throughout the last few… There have been a number of rumors circulating in U.S. newspapers throughout the last few weeks that the Chinese government was about to abandon the one-child policy that it introduced in 1979.

But according to The New York Times, these rumors are unfounded. On March 11, 2008, the Times reported that Zhang Weiqing, minister of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, said “China would not make any major changes to the overall family planning policy until roughly a decade from now.”

And while I don’t agree with the Chinese government on most things, I have to say that I admire their resolve in maintaining this policy.

China is one of the few nations that has recognized overpopulation as the threat that it is and taken steps to address it, and for this they deserve praise.

In 1970 the total fertility rate (births per woman) in China was about 5.8, and the population was 820 million. Nearly 29 years after the implementation of the one-child policy, the total fertility rate is estimated to be at 1.8, and the population is slightly more than 1.3 billion.

By introducing the one-child policy in 1979, the Chinese government estimates that it has prevented between 350 million and 400 million additional births.

Although estimates by nongovernmental sources are often lower, the policy has been a clear success by any measure.

In contrast, the total fertility rate in India in 1970 was 5.7, and the population was 553 million. In 2007 the total fertility rate had dropped to 2.8, and the population had more than doubled to about 1.1 billion.

India has attempted to reduce births through socioeconomic measures such as attempting to financially empower women.

While it is true that the total fertility rate is tied to socioeconomic status, the passive approach of the Indian state has failed and the one-child policy of China has succeeded.

Of course, this one-child policy has drawn quite a bit of criticism both internationally and domestically. Much of the criticism focuses on the early implementation of the policy in the ’80s that was reported to have involved forced abortion and sterilization.

Now obviously I’m not writing a column in support of forced abortion or sterilization. The criticism levied against the policy’s early implementation is legitimate, and it is just this sort of healthy international scrutiny that helped prompt the policy to change gradually over the years to the more humane and reasonable government initiative it is today.

The modern policy relies on fines for its enforcement, and it also includes exemptions for rural families and ethnic minorities.

In 2002, the Chinese explicitly banned the physical coercion of women to submit to sterilization or abortion, and although such a law should not be necessary in any society, it is an important step for China to have taken considering the history of the one-child policy.

International scrutiny is still important today, but much of the criticism directed against the Chinese government and its one-child policy these days is unwarranted.

The Bush administration has been especially vocal in its condemnation of this policy and the Chinese State in general citing the right to “found a family” as a basic human right.

The United States even dropped out of the United Nations Population Fund, or UNFPA, during the Reagan administration in opposition to the funds policy of supporting population control in developing nations such as China.

And while preventing women in the developing world from having access to birth control or abortions may soothe the consciences of some in this country, I find the prospect of unwanted, malnourished children to be more troubling than the proliferation of condoms.

The United States needs to become more engaged with the rest of the world in a peaceful way, especially when it comes to the issue of preventing overpopulation, because this is a threat to our entire species, not just to one country or region.

In 1999, Stephen Moore, an economist and conservative columnist, wrote in the Washington Times that overpopulation wasn’t a threat and that “every prediction of massive starvations, eco-catastrophes of biblical proportions and $100-a-barrel oil has been discredited by the global economic and environmental progress of the past quarter century.”

It has been nine years since Moore advocated against funding the UNFPA and nine years since he dismissed fears of overpopulation as “hysteria,” and we have now witnessed famine throughout the developing world, eco-catastrophes like Hurricane Katrina and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, and oil is at $100 a barrel.

Ignoring the problem is no longer a viable option.

E-mail Giles at gbh4@pitt.edu