"When Communist Party leaders adopted the one-child policy in 1980, they hoped curbing birth-rates would help lift China's poorest and increase the country's global stature. But at what cost? Now, as China closes the book on the policy after more than three decades, it faces a population grown too old and too male, with a vastly diminished supply of young workers. Mei Fong has spent years documenting the policy's repercussions on every sector of Chinese society. In One Child, she explores its true human impact, traveling across China to meet the people who live with its consequences. Their stories reveal a dystopian reality: unauthorized second children ignored by the state, only-children supporting aging parents and grandparents on their own, villages teeming with ineligible bachelors, and an ungoverned adoption market stretching across the globe. Fong tackles questions that have major implications for China's future: whether its 'Little Emperor' cohort will make for an entitled or risk-averse generation; how China will manage to support itself when one in every four people is over sixty-five years old; and above all, how much the one-child policy may end up hindering China's growth. Weaving in Fong's reflections on striving to become a mother herself, One Child offers a nuanced and candid report from the extremes of family planning."--
With China in the news so often these days, and with the recent announcement that the country has now rescinded its One Child Policy, the timing on this particular book could not have been better. Particularly since the author is herself Chinese and lived in Asia for many years, her perspective is a much more fully-fleshed one than most.
Overall, I found the book fascinating and heartbreaking in equal measure. The stories of forced abortions, most have heard. The fact that there are vastly more men than women, also a known fact. But it's the details in this book that really stand out. What happens when people follow the law and then their only child is killed, leaving no one to help take care of them? What about the required sterilizations on women after they've had their allotted child? Or the crazy marriage market where families are paying thousands of dollars as a bride-price - and many of them losing that when the bride disappears? And frankly, as posited on the book, what happens when you've "taught" your populace so well that they are reluctant to change?
So many ramifications tied to one mass social experiment where the ends will not be able to justify the means. It remains to be seen exactly where China will go from here, but unfortunately, much of the damage is already done.
