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Gendercide and the cultural context of sex trafficking in china

Susan Tiefenbrun

in Decoding International Law: Semiotics and the Humanities

This chapter shows how failures in China's One-Child Policy, the inadequate enforcement of Chinese laws protecting women, and the longstanding cultural preference for males have led to discrimination ... More

This chapter shows how failures in China's One-Child Policy, the inadequate enforcement of Chinese laws protecting women, and the longstanding cultural preference for males have led to discrimination against women and an increase in forced prostitution and trafficking in China. Millions of women are missing in China because of female child abandonment and infanticide. The scarcity of women has resulted in a major increase in the trafficking and sale of foreign women into China. As China shifted from a planned economy to a market economy in 1979, the price of women in China increased in accordance with the market economy principle of supply and demand. The One-Child Policy has caused women to become a high-cost commodity.Less

Family Planning During the Economic Reform Era

Weiguo Zhang and Xingshan Cao

in Transition and Challenge: China's Population at the Beginning of the 21st Century

This chapter reviews the development and implementation of China's family planning policy and its impacts. It shows that China's family planning programme has gone through several stages since the ... More

This chapter reviews the development and implementation of China's family planning policy and its impacts. It shows that China's family planning programme has gone through several stages since the early 1970s, characterized by noticeable policy shifts in response to changes in socio-economic conditions, public support, and international efforts to promote family planning and women's reproductive rights.Less

Introduction: An Anthropology of Science Making and Policymaking

Susan Greenhalgh

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

This chapter introduces the one-child policy in China, which is considered as one of the most troubling social policies of all time, first examining the epistemic approach to policymaking and then ... More

This chapter introduces the one-child policy in China, which is considered as one of the most troubling social policies of all time, first examining the epistemic approach to policymaking and then studying the micropolitics and anthropology of sciencemaking and policymaking. It also presents three stories on the making of modern China in the early Deng years, and the different narratives about the one-child policy in scholarly literature.Less

Authoritarianism and Democracy

Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu

in Unfit for the Future: The Need for Moral Enhancement

Robust authoritarian governments are better placed than democratic governments to implement unpopular reforms effectively, so it might seem that they have a better chance of tackling human induced ... More

Robust authoritarian governments are better placed than democratic governments to implement unpopular reforms effectively, so it might seem that they have a better chance of tackling human induced climatic and environmental deterioration. The fact that it is easier for authoritarian governments to implement unpopular policies can perhaps be illustrated by China’s one-child policy which has enabled this nation to curb population growth more effectively than for instance India. However, history shows that the unpopular policies implemented by authoritarian regimes more often serve to consolidate the power of the ruling elite, or to enrich it, than promote the interest of societies overall. Therefore, a shift from democracy to authoritarianism is not an acceptable way to come to terms with human induced climate change and environmental destruction.Less

Conclusion: Why an Epistemic Approach Matters

Susan Greenhalgh

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

This chapter explains the value of the epistemic approach for the understanding of policymaking more generally, first defending it against some institutional-minded critics, and showing why a ... More

This chapter explains the value of the epistemic approach for the understanding of policymaking more generally, first defending it against some institutional-minded critics, and showing why a state-based institutional approach is insufficient. It then outlines the contributions, dangers, and larger productivities of this scientific mode of policymaking, and explains how the science behind the policy had significant responsibility not only for the terrible human suffering that occurred, but also for other, longer-term effects. The chapter also suggests how this approach can be used as a tool to critique the one-child policy and introduce two-child policies that have less damaging effects.Less

China’s Population Policy in Historical Context

Tyrene White

in Reproductive States: Global Perspectives on the Invention and Implementation of Population Policy

The year 2014 marked the de facto end to China’s “one-child policy,” the most extreme example of state intrusion into the realm of reproduction. Deng Xiaoping’s 1979 initiative built on earlier, ... More

The year 2014 marked the de facto end to China’s “one-child policy,” the most extreme example of state intrusion into the realm of reproduction. Deng Xiaoping’s 1979 initiative built on earlier, short-lived “birth planning” campaigns. The 1979 policy set an absolute population limit of 1.2 billion and tied this number to the goal of achieving modernization by 2000. A 1980 “Open Letter” defined the “one-child policy” as an absolute priority, and the government’s strict reinforcement of the policy in the early 1990s finally reduced rates of reproduction. This chapter chronicles the stages of policy implementation between 1979 and 2014 and places these developments against the backdrop of politics and the economy in the PRC and in the context of shifts in global population discourse over the same period. Even with the end of the one-child policy, China will feel its deep social, political, and demographic consequences for decades to come.Less

A Chinese Marxian Humanism of Population

Susan Greenhalgh

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

This chapter introduces Liang Zhongtang, one of the specialists who, during the late 1970s, voiced concern about what might happen if the one-child policy became political reality. The first part ... More

This chapter introduces Liang Zhongtang, one of the specialists who, during the late 1970s, voiced concern about what might happen if the one-child policy became political reality. The first part focuses on Liang's life story, tracing the imprint of Maoist politics on his intellectual training, professional location, and personal experiences. This is then followed by a study on the practices whereby he created a distinctive Marxian humanism of population. Finally, the chapter compares the three sciences of population, as well as the larger intellectual frameworks, political values, and visions of state–science–society interrelations that these embodied.Less

The Peasantization of the One-child Policy in Shaanxi

Deborah Davis and Stevan Harrell

in Chinese Families in the Post-Mao Era

A crucial component of China's development strategy is the control of population growth. For a regime that once prided itself on its deep understanding of the Chinese peasantry, the one-child policy ... More

A crucial component of China's development strategy is the control of population growth. For a regime that once prided itself on its deep understanding of the Chinese peasantry, the one-child policy was appallingly out of touch with rural reality. Virtually every policy goal—from restricting the number, thus also the sex, of children, to delaying family formation, to lengthening birth intervals—flew in the face of Chinese tradition and threatened to hobble one of the few reliable resources peasants had left after thirty years of socialism: the family. Chinese peasants follow essentially the same strategies employed by the oppressed everywhere: evasion, deception, manipulation, bribery, and all the rest. An understanding of how reproduction has evolved in the era of the one-child policy must start instead with the state, its goals, and how they are pursued.Less

Social Backgrounds of China and Taiwan

C. Y. Cyrus Chu and Ruoh‐Rong Yu

in Understanding Chinese Families: A Comparative Study of Taiwan and Southeast China

This chapter provides some macro statistics and a review of historical events to help the reader understand the pace of social and economic development in Taiwan and China. In general, Taiwan had a ... More

This chapter provides some macro statistics and a review of historical events to help the reader understand the pace of social and economic development in Taiwan and China. In general, Taiwan had a relatively stable development path, from poor to rich and from traditional to modern. The Chinese society in Mainland China was more volatile, mainly due to upheavals of the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, and the impact of the one‐child policy. It is explained when these events happened, how they affected the macro social background, and how micro family decisions were influenced.Less

History: The “Ideology” before the “Science”

Susan Greenhalgh

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

This chapter presents some historical detail on the “Maoist ideology” that would eventually lead to the one-child policy in China. It first introduces Chairman Mao, a virtual dictator whose opposing ... More

This chapter presents some historical detail on the “Maoist ideology” that would eventually lead to the one-child policy in China. It first introduces Chairman Mao, a virtual dictator whose opposing stances on population created the strained linguistic context where population work had to proceed and whose mass campaigns blocked the sustained development of birth work for twenty years. The chapter then describes how the party subordinated, silenced, and finally abolished the field of population studies, while depriving itself of the best source of advice on population governance. It also emphasizes the accomplishments of the moderates associated with Premier Zhou.Less

China: leave and population policies

Shirley Gatenio Gabel, Wen-Jui Han, and Xiaoran Wang

Peter Moss, Ann-Zofie Duvander, and Alison Koslowski (eds)

in Parental Leave and Beyond: Recent International Developments, Current Issues and Future Directions

China’s recent abolition of its one-child policy has provided a major impetus to formally restructure its Maternity Leave policy. Confronted by shifting socio-demographics and changing roles of ... More

China’s recent abolition of its one-child policy has provided a major impetus to formally restructure its Maternity Leave policy. Confronted by shifting socio-demographics and changing roles of government and employers as a result of a transition to a market economy, China needed to adjust the demographic structure of the country and address social expectations of family composition and caring. To motivate parents to have more than one child, Maternity Leave has been lengthened nation-wide and Paternity Leave introduced in some areas. This chapter reviews the evolution of modern Maternity Leave policy in China beginning in 1951 and traces how Maternity (and most recently Paternity) Leave policies have unfolded in response to changing political, socio-economic and demographic goals. In its earliest period, China’s leave policy was driven initially by socialist ideals, then largely by economic reasons and women’s rights from the 1980s into the new century. The most recent shift in family policy was primarily led by social research raising concerns about demographic changes and economic growth. The chapter ends with a discussion of how current changes may affect future directions.Less

Future People

Nancy S. Jecker

in Ending Midlife Bias: New Values for Old Age

Chapter 11 explores the future of population aging, asking if aged societies will become a permanent fixture or are fleeting and unique to our time. It approaches this question by looking at the ... More

Chapter 11 explores the future of population aging, asking if aged societies will become a permanent fixture or are fleeting and unique to our time. It approaches this question by looking at the effects of controlling fertility rates by means of reproductive policies designed to balance ratios between young and old age groups. Using historical examples of China’s one-child policy and Romania’s Decree 770, the chapter argues that both pro- and antinatalist policies produce population aging and can exact a heavy toll on individuals’ capabilities to be healthy, have bodily integrity, and determine a plan of life. The chapter examines future societies with aged, super-aged, and extremely aged populations and gives guidance for intergenerational justice that is dignity-based. It considers the objection that reproductive choices do not make future persons worse off because they change the identities of future persons (the nonidentity problem). We counter this objection by drawing on the dignity framework developed throughout the book. After examining evidence of the effects of pro- and antinatalist reproductive policies, the chapters conclude that the longer-term effects on population aging must temper any assessment of the putative shorter-term good of raising or lowering fertility rates.Less

China’s Progress

Khalid Malik

in Why Has China Grown So Fast For So Long?

This chapter assesses the achievements of China, after three decades post the 1978 reforms. The most obvious result of the reform was the phenomenal growth rate of income. This led to certain ... More

This chapter assesses the achievements of China, after three decades post the 1978 reforms. The most obvious result of the reform was the phenomenal growth rate of income. This led to certain remarkable social outcomes, like a dramatic fall in income poverty, increase in the road network and electricity, and rise in China’s relative share in world GDP. The chapter discusses the transformation of the Chinese economy through increase in urbanization, restructuring of the shares of industry and agriculture in GDP, the expansion of the role of the private sector, and the consequences of the much-debated one-child policy norm. The lesser noticed consequences of rising inequality, challenges of environmental sustainability, and the impending problem of the demography skewing towards an older population are also analysed.Less

Conclusion

Michelle T. King

in Between Birth and Death: Female Infanticide in Nineteenth-Century China

While 1950s and 60s the balancing out the national sex ratio owing to high fertility and state policies promoting gender equality, recent decades however have seen childhood sex ratio imbalances ... More

While 1950s and 60s the balancing out the national sex ratio owing to high fertility and state policies promoting gender equality, recent decades however have seen childhood sex ratio imbalances increasing, owing in great part to China’s One-Child policy. Implemented in 1980, this policy demonstrates the tremendous capacity of the Chinese state to devise, implement, and monitor population policies affection the reproductive decisions of all citizens. In the years following its establishment, coercive enforcement coupled with an undiminished social preference for sons, particularly in rural areas led briefly to a resurgence of actual cases of neonatal female infanticide. Now, however postnatal infanticide has been largely superseded by sex-selective abortion. This technological change represents the most significant difference between nineteenth-century and twentieth-century expressions of son preference in China.Less

The Birth of Assisted Reproductive Technology in China

Ayo Wahlberg

in Good Quality: The Routinization of Sperm Banking in China

This chapter chronicles the difficult birth of assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) in China through the 1980s and 1990s, showing how ideas of improving population quality acted as a persuasive ... More

This chapter chronicles the difficult birth of assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) in China through the 1980s and 1990s, showing how ideas of improving population quality acted as a persuasive alibi for those pioneers working to develop fertility technologies under crude conditions and at a time when contraception rather than conception was at the core of family planning. From difficult beginnings in the 1980s and following legalization in 2003, ARTs have now settled firmly within China’s restrictive reproductive complex as technologies of birth control—which, in turn, has allowed it to grow into a thriving, sector as China is now home to some of the world’s largest fertility clinics and sperm banks.Less

The Goujian Story in a Privatizing China

Paul A. Cohen

in Speaking to History: The Story of King Goujian in Twentieth-Century China

This chapter discusses the widespread privatization of the Goujian story in China at the turn of the twentieth century in response to a rapidly expanding arena of individual concerns and aspirations. ... More

This chapter discusses the widespread privatization of the Goujian story in China at the turn of the twentieth century in response to a rapidly expanding arena of individual concerns and aspirations. It looks at two structural developments that profoundly shaped the dissemination of the Goujian story: the proliferation of new print outlets accompanying the extraordinary growth of the country's tertiary educational sector in the post-Mao era and the dramatic expansion of television from the early 1980s on. The chapter also considers the implementation of patriotic education and the appropriation of the Goujian story in writings directed at reforming the attitudes and behavior of Communist Party members, as well as in countless instances for the purpose of individual and collective motivation. Finally, it describes the “little emperor” syndrome, a by-product of the one-child policy that had been adopted early in the Deng Xiaoping era to slow China's population growth.Less

Troubling Boys Becoming Men

Magdalena Wong

in Everyday Masculinities in 21st-Century China: The Making of Able-Responsible Men

The chapter describes, with two ethnographic cases, how hegemonic masculinity exerts influence during teenage boys’ formative years and their responses. There is a focus on failure or inadequacy, ... More

The chapter describes, with two ethnographic cases, how hegemonic masculinity exerts influence during teenage boys’ formative years and their responses. There is a focus on failure or inadequacy, rather than the usual accounts of hard work and academic success in related Chinese literature. The boys' perceived docile and unmanly characters concern their parents, but the boys choose to exercise their agency to develop alternative masculinities, including interpreting androgyny and effeminacy as desirable male models, rather than conforming to the hegemonic ideal. The one-child policy and volatility created by the countrywide rural-to-urban labour migration are identified as affecting the lives of boys in 21st century China and leading, amongst other things, to large numbers of left behind children and only sons.Less

The Autobiographical Self in Prospective

Qi Wang

in The Autobiographical Self in Time and Culture

Starting with the one-child policy in China as an example, this chapter discusses the development of the autobiographical self in a historical context and highlights the dynamic, transient nature of ... More

Starting with the one-child policy in China as an example, this chapter discusses the development of the autobiographical self in a historical context and highlights the dynamic, transient nature of culture in shaping this development. Through examining the phenomena of living-in-history effect, flashbulb memory, and reminiscence bump, it argues further that the autobiographical self is shaped by the social, political, and economic characteristics of a society. Then by analyzing the distinct characteristics of the autobiographical self constructed in social media such as blogs and Facebook, it discusses the implication of Internet technologies for the modern self.Less