Population Control

We heard yesterday that the magnanimous Chinese central government has decided to allow each family to have two children instead of one.  I think we miss something in accepting that it is a good change of policy.   How many countries have population control with the kind of monitoring it takes to do that?  None.

Mao believed in controlling every aspect of the life of his people, and that included marriage and raising the offspring, but that was in the days before computers and the Internet.  These were poor rural populations trying to live.   Now, they really can control every aspect of a person's life and keep records on it too.

There is an office that does population control.  It is used to consider when exceptions to the policy were to be granted, like the death of an only child, and extensions granted to rural populations centers.  Everyone in China must understand birth control and abortion, because both are essential to the quality of life that comes from living under the hand of the Central Government.  They decide what is best for you.

China has a way of believing that any order will be followed by a dutiful public, but that order must be a little difficult.  Anyone who has raised a child knows how difficult it is to control their behavior, especially in the area of sex.  Abstinence used to be a popular method of trying to control youthful enthusiasm, but the one thing that was missing was the inability to say "no" at the all the right times.  They don't always know what birth control methods actually work.   People who believe in abstinence problem need a government agency looking over their shoulder to make sure they did.  China does.  Thus, China has 400 million abortions talked about so eloquently in today's Wall Street Journal [China's New Two-Child Policy and the Fatal Conceit] by Nicholas Eberstadt.  His context is the impact on a country where generations have produced one-child families who produce one-child families.  That means the family ties, so important to China's businesses, are not there.

Sometimes, we wonder what it would be like to live under a centrally managed government, doing what the government wants - for our own good.  We can look at population control as a good example of why we should not.  China is built on a thin layer of government control at every level, something we don't want or need.  The local party official stops by to check on you.  The central government has a central database of every citizen that includes a lot more than just how many children they have.  People are arrested for speaking out against the central government.  Harmony is essential to progress.  These are the things revolutions come from.  Mao knew it.  Xi Jinping does too.