Starting in the 1970s, China introduced a policy that limits families to one child per couple. This includes criminal sentences and forced abortions for parents who violate the policy. Ostensibly, this was done because China was facing an over population problem -- although China’s population was actually declining at the time the policy was put into place.
As an interesting consequence of this policy, China is now facing two of the world’s most extreme demographic problems. First, the elimination of several generations of young has left China with the world’s worst retirement problem, as China’s elderly population far outweighs its productive population (4 retirees per worker) -- this is much worse than in the United States (3 workers per retiree). Secondly, because the Chinese prefer boys over girls, this meant that mostly girls were aborted or killed as infants. Thus, China is about to face the problem that there are 40 million more eligible bachelors than there are wives. To get a sense of how large this problem is, consider that this is the same number of marrying age males in Britain, France and Germany combined. It is also the entire population of California.
China’s single-child policy is largely responsible for both of these problems and there is serious pressure to end the policy. Even China’s official press is questioning the policy, which is highly unusual. Moreover, last month, one entire province demanded a waiver of the policy. It seems that the policy will soon end.
So what does this have to do with us?
American liberals were initially big fans of China’s one-child policy. Why? Well, the 1970s was the age of the next Global Ice Age, the Population Bomb, and fantasies of global famine. We were all going to starve by 1992. And let’s face it, liberals have always loved Eugenics.
But at some point, most liberals realized that forced abortion was not a very defensible thing. So they decided that China’s policy was not something they could publicly praise, even though many continue to support it in private. Indeed, even now, you will occasionally find liberals who openly defend the policy. For example, there was a laughable AP article last month that claimed that girls had it better under the one-child policy than they did before. Of course, that’s only the girls who aren’t killed as children or fetuses and aren’t imprisoned or forced to abort their own children. Moreover, the article failed to grasp that economically, the whole premise of its argument was crap. But hey, these are liberals, what do you expect?
Enter Slow Joe Biden.
Biden is in China for reasons unknown, possibly to get him out of town until the election or maybe as collateral for our bonds or maybe he just got lost on his way to see Santa? And let me tell you, the Chinese are not pleased. They have already had to cut off one of his speeches because it was too idiotic to be translated. Then they asked him what he thought about China’s one-child policy. Here is what Joe said:
“The Obama administration strongly opposes all aspects of China's coercive birth limitation policies, including forced abortion and sterilization. The vice president believes such practices are repugnant. He also pointed out, in China, that the policy is, as a practical matter, unsustainable. He was arguing against the one child policy to a Chinese audience.”Oops, sorry, that’s what Biden’s spokeswoman Kendra Barkoff said (and no, I did not make that name up). Here’s what Biden actually said:
“Your policy has been one which I fully understand--I'm not second-guessing--of one child per family.”Feel free to compare the quotes, you may find a slight discrepancy. Either Barkoff is lying or Biden is “not second-guessing” China’s “repugnant” policy. . . or both. Who keeps letting this idiot out of his rubber room? Seriously, if I were Obama, I would have Biden shot to the moon and then get Huntsman to run as my VP.
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