One Child (30 page)

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the United States has less than 5 percent of the world’s population
: United States Department of Energy, Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, 2010 CO
₂
Emission Data,
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/top2010.tot
.

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all governments should “adopt a one-child policy”:
Charles R. Clement, “Is the World Ready for a One-Child Policy?,”
Science
, November 12, 2010.

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“a planetary law”:
Diane Francis, “The Real Inconvenient Truth,”
Financial Post
, December 14, 2009,
http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=2314438
.

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“one of the most important social policies ever”:
Interview with the author, November 5, 2013. Potts later expanded on his viewpoint, saying the policy was “motivated by a sincere if mistaken belief that, difficult as it would be to implement, the one-child policy was the only way to lift people out of poverty” (e-mail correspondence with the author, August 13, 2015).

1. After the Quake

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95 percent of couples there had pledged to have only one child:
Susan Greenhalgh,
Just One Child: Science and Policy in Deng’s China
(Oakland: University of California Press, 2008), 202.

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where over two-thirds of families are single-child families:
Jianmin Wen, “Shifang, China’s First City, Exercises Family Planning, Becoming an Aging Society in Advance with Reduced Population of 400,000 in 30 Years,”
Sichuan Online
, January 6, 2014,
http://sichuan.scol.com.cn/dwzw/content/2014-01/06/content_6713125.htm
.

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a license plate with the number 18:
Bettina Wassener, “Vanity Plates a Perfect Match for Flashy Hong Kong,”
New York Times
, September 24, 2012,
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/25/business/global/vanity-plates-a-perfect-match-for-flashy-hong-kong.html?_r=0
.

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about a third of the population faced strict one-child limitations:
Avraham Ebenstein, “The Missing Girls of China and the Unintended Consequences of the One Child Policy,”
Journal of Human Resources
45, no. 1 (2010),
https: //scholars.huji.ac.il/sites/default/files/avrahamebenstein/files/ebenstein_onechildpolicy_2010.pdf
.

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“slipping into irrelevance”:
Leslie T. Chang, “For Many in China, the One-Child Policy Is Already Irrelevant,”
Chinafile
, March 19, 2013,
http://www.chinafile .com/many-china-one-child-policy-already-irrelevant
.

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pension funding shortfalls could be as much as:
“China Pension Fund Gap to Top 80 Pct of 2011 GDP by 2050,” Reuters, December 13, 2012,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/13/china-economy-pension-idUSL4N09N2QH20121213
.

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The number arrived at was 338 million:
Wang Feng, Cai Yong, and Gu Baochang, “Population, Policy and Politics: How Will History Judge the One-Child Policy?”

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people’s reproductive habits would roughly trend the same from the 1950s to the 1990s:
Martin King Whyte, Wang Feng, and Cai Yong, “Challenging Myths About China’s One-Child Policy,”
The China Journal
no. 74 (2015), 1324-9347 /2015/7401-0009, Australian National University.

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An estimated 13 million people share her predicament:
Stephanie Gordon, “China’s Hidden Children,”
The Diplomat
, March 12, 2015,
http://thediplomat.com/2015/03/chinas-hidden-children/
.

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“like black butterflies flying low”:
Zhang Qingzhou,
Revelations from the Tangshan Earthquake
(Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 2006).

2. And the Clock Struck 8/8/08

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Dr. Li pioneered a surgical technique for vasectomies:
“History of No-Scalpel Vasectomy (NSV),” Weill Cornell Medical College, Department of Urology,
https://www.cornellurology.com/clinical-conditions/no-scalpel-vasectomy/history/
.

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wide use of this sterilization technique:
Bing Xu and Jinbo Zhu, “An Analysis of Sichuan Province’s Success in Promoting Male Sterilization Operation,”
Chinese Journal of Family Planning
, no. 5 (1993).

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Fewer than 1 percent of China’s schools provide sex education:
Jeremy Blum, “Babies Do Not Come from Rubbish Dumps, Chinese Sex Education Video Says,”
South China Morning Post
, November 7, 2013,
http://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/family-education/article/1350056/babies-do-not-come-rubbish-dumps-sex-education-video-says
.

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Huang Qi, a Chinese cyber-dissident:
Michael Bristow, “China Activist Huang
Qi Sentenced to Three Years,” BBC News, November 23, 2009,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8373573.stm
.

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Liu Shaokun, a schoolteacher, was sentenced:
Tania Branigan, “Chinese Teacher Sent to Labour Camp for Earthquake Photos,”
The Guardian
, July 30, 2008,
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jul/30/chinaearthquake.china
.

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Environmentalist Tan Zuoren, who coined the phrase “tofu dreg project”:
“Chinese Earthquake Activist Tan Zuoren Released After Five-Year Prison Term,”
The Guardian
, March 27, 2014,
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/27/chinese-activist-tan-zouren-released-five-year-prison-term
.

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been a prizewinning entry in a competition:
Mei Fong, “A Deformed Doughnut? No, China’s TV Tower!,”
Wall Street Journal
, November 7, 2007,
http://www.buro-os.com/a-deformed-doughnut-no-chinas-tv-tower/
.

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“how small you are, and how big the state”:
Mei Fong, “CCTV Tower Mirrors Beijing’s Rising Ambitions,”
Wall Street Journal
, November 7, 2007,
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB119438152241184281
.

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A multitude of mistranslated English signs:
Mei Fong, “Tired of Laughter, Beijing Gets Rid of Bad Translations,”
Wall Street Journal
, February 5, 2007,
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB117063961235897853
.

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The mascots were collectively dubbed
fuwa: Haishan Zhang, “Lucky Dolls Become Witch Dolls, Olympic Mascot Blocked on Opening Ceremony,”
Dajiyuan
website, August 10, 2008,
http://www.epochtimes.com/b5/8/8/11/n2224032.htm
.

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The Weather Modification Bureau had deployed:
Zheng Yu, “Beijing Uses High-Tech to Prevent Rain from Dampening Olympic Opening,”
Xinhua
website, July 28, 2008,
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-07/28/content_8787 101.htm
.

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They’d wanted more Yao champions:
Brook Larmer,
Operation Yao Ming: The Chinese Sports Empire, American Big Business and the Making of an NBA Superstar
(New York: Gotham Books, 2005).

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the one-child policy fostered selfishness:
Klaus Brinkbäumer and Bernhard Zand, “Basketball Great Yao Ming: ‘Never Underestimate Strength of Character,’”
Spiegel Online
, January 23, 2014,
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/spiegel-interview-with-former-chinese-basketball-star-yao-ming-a-944567.html
.

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“Olympics marked a beginning”:
Peh Shing Huei,
When the Party Ends: China’s Leaps and Stumbles After the Beijing Olympics
(Singapore: Straits Times Press, 2013).

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The quantities of water conduits and power lines:
“China: 5,335 Students Killed or Missing After 2008 Quake,” CNN website, May 10, 2009,
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/05/07/china.quake.deaths/index.html?$NMW _TRANS$=ext
.

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an estimated 1 million
shidu
parents:
Beibei Bao, “Shidu: When Chinese Parents Forced to Have One Child Lose That Child,”
Atlantic
, May 9, 2013,
http://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/05/shidu-when-chinese-parents-forced-to-have-one-child-lose-that-child/275691/
.

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shidu
parents have trouble:
Yuanfei Niu, “Shidu Parents Facing Problems When Getting into Nursing Home,”
Dazhong Web
, February 21, 2013,
http://paper.dzwww.com/dzrb/content/20130221/Articel11002MT.htm
; and Ke Ji and Qiong Wu, “Afraid of No Progeny to Pay Tribute at Tomb, Shidu Parents Refuse to Buy Burial Plot,”
Mingzhu News
, May 23, 2012,
http://news.thmz.com/col89/2012/05/2012-05-231124828_2.html
.

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more prone to depression:
Yuanfei Niu, “China Will Have 10 Million Shidu Families in Future,”
Tencent Web
, April 10, 2013,
http://news.qq.com/a/20130410/000084.htm
.

3. Cassandra and the Rocketmen

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“We could hold our heads high”:
Interview with the author, August 2013.

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Liang warned that the policy would be a “terrible tragedy”:
Greenhalgh,
Just One Child
, 181.

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Susan Greenhalgh:
Ibid., 182.

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the Chinese Association for Population Studies was founded only in 1981:
Thomas Scharping,
Birth Control in China, 1949–2000: Population Policy and Demographic Development
(Oxford: Routledge, 2003), 51.

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“only rather crude numbers”:
Ibid.

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“a legless man teaching running”:
Saying attributed to Channing Pollock.

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dazzled the Italian traveler Marco Polo:
Mike Edwards, “Marco Polo, Part II: In China,”
National Geographic
, June 2001,
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/print/features/world/asia/china/marco-polo-ii-text
.

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“There’s nine hundred million of them in the world today”:
Monty Python, “I Like Chinese,” 1980.

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“three are too much”:
Scharping,
Birth Control in China, 1949–2000
, 49.

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In that decade, the average woman in China went from having six children to three:
According to World Bank figures.

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“Economic development is like a cake”:
Ted Alcorn and Bao Beibei, “China’s Fertility Policy Persists, Despite Debate,”
The Lancet
378 (October 29, 2011),
http://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736%2811%29 61661-9.pdf
.

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“adjust women’s average fertility rate in advance”:
Song Jian, “Natural Science and Social Science Scholar’s Population Study First Predicts the Domestic Population Development in the Coming One Hundred Years,”
Xinhua
, February 13, 1980.

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aging and fertility dialed up or down, like levers on a machine:
A similar analogy was employed by Susan Greenhalgh in
Just One Child
, 228.

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“In thirty years, when our current”:
Malcolm Moore, “Thirty Years of China’s One-Child Policy,”
The Telegraph
, September 25, 2010,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8024862/Thirty-years-of-Chinas-one-child-policy.html
.

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bestseller
, The Population Bomb: Paul R. Ehrlich,
The Population Bomb: Population Control or Race to Oblivion?
(Rivercity, MA: Rivercity Press, 1975, republished from the 1968 version by special arrangement with Ballantine Books), prologue.

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published
The Limits to Growth: Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jørgen Randers, and William W. Behrens III,
The Limits to Growth
(New York: Signet Books, 1972).

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many hands reaching for one loaf of bread:
Ironically, Singapore today is desperately trying to raise its birthrate, which is one of the lowest in the world, through pro-natalist policies and setting up of government-sponsored matchmaking agencies. One was initially named Social Development Unit, or SDU, an unfortunate acronym that soon earned the label “Single, Desperate, and Ugly.”

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rationing children:
Tyrene White,
China’s Longest Campaign: Birth Planning in the People’s Republic, 1949–2005
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006).

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“He seemed like a regular guy”:
Interview with the author, August 4, 2014.

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Song was given access:
Evan Feigenbaum,
China’s Techno-Warriors: National Security and Strategic Competition from the Nuclear to the Information Age
(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003).

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controlling China’s birthrate:
Mara Hvistendahl,
Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys over Girls, and the Consequences for a World Full of Men
(New York: PublicAffairs Press, 2011).

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the paper disappeared from view:
Greenhalgh,
Just One Child
, 228.

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It would be twenty long years before he was politically rehabilitated:
Ma Yinchu did not live long to enjoy his new status as Father of the One-Child Policy. He died three years after the launch.

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would continue to balloon:
Greenhalgh,
Just One Child
, 218.

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“How did you calculate”:
From interviews and collected writings of Liang Zhongtang.

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“it’s absolutely correct!”:
Zhongtang Liang, “My Autobiography,”
Netease
(blog), August 23, 2009,
http://liangzhongtang.blog.163.com/blog/static/109426508 20097230340812/
.

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“using science as a disguise”:
Ibid.