In my 2023 blog, I wrote that Margaret Atwood’s 1985 futuristic dystopian novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, will become reality. First in China, and then in USA. The 2024 SCMP article (below) arrived much earlier than I expected.
The reason is quite simple: a collapsing society due to China’s disastrous one-child policy over a 35 year period (ie, 1979 to 2015).
China’s demographic collapse started in 2022. Financial Times, 16 January 2023: “China’s population falls in historic shift. First decline in 60 years set to have long-term consequences for domestic and global economies.”
To some extent, other countries, with very low birthrates, face a similar dilemma.
“Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan have the lowest-low fertility, defined as TFR at or below 1.3, and are among the lowest in the world.”
Source: Wikipedia, Total fertility rate
Outrage as scholar asks how can China make women ‘obediently, submissively have children’ (SCMP)
SCMP subtitle: Professor Wang Xianju was speaking to Kazakhstan’s Erlan Qarin, who said women in his country had free will regarding fertility
By: Phoebe Zhang
Date: 18 December 2024
“A Chinese professor has sparked a public backlash after he asked a visiting Kazakh diplomat how to make Chinese women “have children obediently, early and in large numbers” at a think tank event.
Wang Xianju, a professor at Renmin University and a former counsellor at the Chinese embassy in Belarus, was speaking to Erlan Qarin, the state counsellor of Kazakhstan, who visited the university in November.
Qarin had given a speech on Kazakhstan’s domestic reforms and relations between the two countries at an event hosted by the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, a think tank based at the university.
The institute published Wang’s remarks on its We hat account in November but the article only gained online traction – and criticism- this week. It has since been deleted.”
Note LO: no more SCMP text visible in this article.
Source:
Related articles:
- SCMP, 28 October 2024: Chinese government workers call up women to urge them to have babies;
- SCMP, 1 November 2024: After outcry, Chinese health body takes down propaganda aimed at boosting birth rate.
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