Good News From China. Sort Of.
It looks like the current one child policy may be coming to an end.
The bad news is that this lessening of the restrictions still sounds like it’s not going to be providing much additional breathing room. The communist government remains devoted to controlling population through coercive means.
What strikes me as most odd about this piece is that China is one of the rare nations (Russia is the only other that comes to mind) that is showing an interest in fixing their declining population rate, which has fallen below replacement levels. I suppose some aspects of communism are nothing if not brutally practical, but it’s a shame we don’t see Western nations wising up to this devastating trend.
We’re extincting ourselves, and China won’t compromise on that sort of thing if it means a loss of power, relevance and economic growth. Why shouldn’t Italy, France, Germany, and the rest of Europe demonstrate the same concern?
Filed under: Brave New World, China, Glimmers of Hope, World News
Here’s your handy TFR guide:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2127.html
France has taken note and acted, actually. They’ve had a policy of paying families for having more children, and it’s had some effect at nudging the rate upward, right now being just a shade under replacement levels (1.98). What I haven’t been able to see with the French policy is who’s having the kids.
The problem with the total fertility rate is that you literally reach a point where it is too late to pull out of the spiral. I think it’s at 1.5 and below.
While the article is correct when it states that China is at 1.8, this disguises a serious problem resulting from the one-child policy: the imbalance of boys to girls is the steepest in the world (the “little Emperor” problem). Currently, there are 106 men for every 100 women. That includes women well past childbearing age, which is the only segment of the Chinese population where women outnumber men. In the youngest age cohorts, it’s 111/113 men to 100 women.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2018.html
In short, it’s one thing to want to change the policy, but it’s another to have the “material” with which to do so. It is, in all likelihood, too late for China to try to roll the rock back up hill.
As much as one can hope otherwise, it’s even worse for Russia, which is at 1.3. More startlingly the nation as a whole continues to see net population declines. Barring some kind of fertility miracle or inrush of assimilable friendly immigrants, Russia is past the point of no return.
The immigrant aspect is what opens the doors for Muslims to swoop in and gain major footholds in these countries. I have a feeling that we’re going to be seeing some new Islamic republics before we’re on our deathbeds, and they’ll be former pillars of Christendom.
This just in from SPUC
it’s propaganda.
But of course, Reuters and the Guardian would never have published something unreliable now would they?!