
Can China recover from its disastrous one-child policy? - laphony
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/02/china-population-control-two-child-policy
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wcoenen
There seems to be a dogma that the population must grow, and any sign that it
might stop growing at some point is bad. "Go Forth and Multiply" as it were.

Personally I believe that population growth can't go on forever in a finite
world. But even if it could, I think we should prefer quality over quantity
when it comes to human lives.

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throwawaay94904
>There seems to be a dogma that the population must grow, and any sign that it
might stop growing at some point is bad.

Well, when you have most nations in the world making Keynesian policies that
assume future economic growth (China included), then yes it's a bad thing. In
that case, you're left with an ageing population who previously planned for
their retirement investments to carry them, but instead must rely on
government services funded by a much smaller, younger working population.

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forkLding
Thing of note should be that the One-Child policy itself actually has many
supporters in China with 76% of people approving of it in 2008 in a Pew Global
Survey, they likely saw it as necessary as anybody in China can attest to the
fact that cities in China are overpopulated even under One-Child Policy. The
survey I've cited is below and the finding is in the Additional Findings
section.

[http://www.pewglobal.org/2008/07/22/the-chinese-celebrate-
th...](http://www.pewglobal.org/2008/07/22/the-chinese-celebrate-their-
roaring-economy-as-they-struggle-with-its-costs/)

~~~
schuke
It’s like they are also likely to genuinely support the Communist Party.
Propaganda works.

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nine_k
Not just propaganda. Likely there's no one else serious to support, and
supporting a fringe group is outright dangerous.

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Noumenon72
This is what it looks like to be on the defecting side of a prisoner's
dilemma, the same as saying 'look how much it hurt the economy for those
dummies who tried to fight climate change by not using coal!'

We had a huge push in the 1970s to cut down on overpopulation for the common
good, China did more than its part, and now everyone else is like "Hey, if I
encourage people to think having children is good, my economy will get bigger
and I'll start winning the game!"

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nine_k
The economy can only get bigger with mote people if there is enough food,
shelter, and jobs for those people.

China, especially when it was anti-capitalist in 1970s, had trouble with food,
shelter, and gainful employment. They had to curb the population growth, or
face famine and riots down the line.

After China has in fact embraced private property and market economy, the
situation has improved drastically, food self-sufficiency has been achieved,
economy kept growing like mad, etc.

After enough people have completed the transition from poor countryside, where
you make mote children to have helping hands, to urban settings, the birth
rates have _naturally_ plummeted. So they were able to repeal the one-child
policy.

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gumby
The title is bogus for what's actually a good article.

People are having fewer kids where the economic future for their kids is poor.
This factor applies to the US as well: e.g. fewer kids are born during
recessions. The article even says so, and merely asserts the "problem" of the
OCP.

Just look to countries that suffered devastating wars to see how this has been
handled in the past: immigration or simply abandoning a segment of the
population. Germany imported many _Gastarbeiter_ from Turkey (neutral in WWII)
in the 1950s. As for abandonment: look at the number of never-married women in
Europe and the US among the cohort born between 1890-1910, or the fact that in
the US poverty among the elderly became acutely visible, and addressed, in the
1960s due to the combo of the earlier never-married and those who'd lost
children who could have supported them.

If china really comes to suffer from the demographic overhang of the elderly,
as Japan does already, they can turn to automation and immigration. Automation
looks like a boon compared to abandonment! Not to mention the huge
unemployment problem in china which could be solved by the "shift to services"
(i.e. elder care) which doesn't require as much specialized training.

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DeonPenny
A good saying is that once a country gets used to a low amount of children it
usually stays that way. So no they can't

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im3w1l
China is much better than western countries at getting shit like this done,
because they have fewer scruples. For better and worse. But one consequence of
that is that if they really want more children they will figure out a way to
make it happen.

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DeonPenny
What about korea and japan which also have had this problem, aren't western,
and still can't fix the problem. The West doesn't have this problem because
the found the solution a long time ago. Immigration

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im3w1l
(South) Korea and Japan are completely different from China. Like they aren't
as brutal and they are not dictatorships.

You could maybe try to make a comparison with North Korea and some Arabic
countries.

~~~
DeonPenny
But those country whether it's qatar or the UAE with high GDP capita don't
have replacement birthrates. As far as the dictator angle I think it's going
to hard to toe that line. Because you push to hard to cause social unrest
which is the one thing the CCP doesn't want.

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entity345
The one-child policy saved China and the world. China might have hit 2
billions by now without it.

The issue is that is has been too effective, especially for the level of
development of the country, so that China is hitting a "first world problem"
before having first world resources.

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benjaminl
Read the article. It includes a graph that show that fertility was already
drastically dropping before one-child was introduced.

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gdpgreg
Hans Rosling did a lot of work on communicating birthrate in the developing
world and how in general they trend towards the replacement rate ted talk
where he goes over it:[https://vimeo.com/79878808](https://vimeo.com/79878808)

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dannykwells
The scariest part here is the acknowledgement that the Chinese government
will, at some point, turn to coercive measures to increase the birth rate.

When it looks like Handmaiden's Tale and talks like Handmaiden's Tale...

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redisman
They could always turn to immigration. Large swaths of developing Asia and
Africa would love those salaries. Immigrants are easy to track too since you
get all their biometrics and can scare them with taking away visas if they do
any counterrevolutionary activities.

