One Child (31 page)

[>]
“we have been the victors, we have mastered the world”:
Song Jian and Yu Jingyuan,
Population System Control
(New York: China Academic Publishers, Springer-Verlag, 1988), 1.

[>]
a variety of questionable assumptions:
Greenhalgh,
Just One Child
, 159.

[>]
“countless heroic assumptions”:
Ibid.

[>]
half the rate of the previous decade:
“The Most Surprising Demographic Crisis,”
Economist
, May 5, 2011,
http://www.economist.com/node/18651512
.

[>]
“no good theory to explain”:
Matthew Connelly,
Fatal Misconception: The Struggle to Control World Population
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard Belknap Press, 2010).

[>]
between 8 billion:
Margaret Besheer, “UN: Global Population Expected to Top 8 Billion by 2025,” Voice of America, June 13, 2013,
http://www.voanews.com/content/un-africa-to-drive-rise-in-world-population-in-2050/1681300.html
.

[>]
13 billion:
Sarah Williams, “Experts Be Damned: World Population Will Continue to Rise,”
Science
, September 18, 2014,
http://news.sciencemag.org/economics/2014/09/experts-be-damned-world-population-will-continue-rise
.

[>]
as many people as there were on Earth in the 1950s:
Floyd Norris, “Population Growth Forecast from the U.N. May Be Too High,”
New York Times,
September 20, 2013,
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/21/business/uns-forecast-of-population-growth-may-be-too-high.html
.

[>]
“science fiction”:
E-mail exchange with the author, June 29, 2015.

[>]
“social, economic aspects were not factored in”:
Interview with the author, August 4, 2014.

[>]
Song had risen:
http://www.chinavitae.com/biography/Song_Jian/career
.

[>]
“the kindness of humanity is limited”:
Song and Yu,
Population System Control
, 2.

[>]
Yicheng and its sisters:
Gu Baochang and Wang Feng,
An Experiment of Eight Million People
(Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press, 2009).

[>]
weren’t really representative of China:
Gu Baochang, Song Jian, Liu Shuang, Wang Jinying, and Jiang Lihua, “Practice and Inspirations of Two Child Fertility Policy Areas,”
Journal of Population Research
32, no. 4 (July 2008).

[>]
“it was still the same reaction”:
Interview with the author, September 10, 2014.

[>]
“He was treated like a god”:
Interview with the author, September 10, 2014.

[>]
Too Many People in China?: Liang Jianzhang and Li Jiangxin,
Too Many People in China?
(Beijing: Social Science Academic Press, 2012).

[>]
China had become “like an armored car”:
Interview with the author, August 20, 2013.

[>]
officials caught her:
Hannah Beech, “China: Forced-Abortion Victim Promised $11,200, but Family Fears for Life,”
Time
, July 13, 2012,
http://world.time.com/2012/07/13/china-forced-abortion-victim-awarded-11200-fears-for-life/
.

[>]
“I could feel the baby jumping around inside me”:
Malcolm Moore, “China ‘Forced Abortion’ Photograph Causes Outrage,”
The Telegraph
, June 14, 2013,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/9331232/China-forced-abortion-photograph-causes-outrage.html
.

[>]
Stanford anthropology student Steve Mosher personally witnessed several:
Steven W. Mosher,
Broken Earth: The Rural Chinese
(New York: Free Press, 1984).

[>]
“Chinese women have made huge sacrifices”:
Frank Langfitt, “After a Forced Abortion, a Roaring Debate in China,” National Public Radio website, July 5,
2012,
http://www.npr.org/2012/07/05/156211106/after-a-forced-abortion-a-roaring-debate-in-china
.

[>]
a new baby boom:
Sui-Lee Wee, “Investors Look to Nappies, Pianos as China Drops One Child Policy,”
Independent
, November 20, 2013,
http://www.inde pendent.ie/business/world/investors-look-to-nappies-pianos-as-china-drops-one-child-policy-29768127.html
.

[>]
Shares at Japanese diaper maker:
Danielle Demetriou, “Japanese Companies Relish China’s One-Child Policy Reform,”
The National
, January 14, 2014,
http://www.thenational.ae/business/industry-insights/economics/japanese-companies-relish-chinas-one-child-policy-reform
.

[>]
the baby boom’s been a bust: Shan Juan, “Fewer Couples Want Second Child,”
China Daily
, October 30, 2014,
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2014-10/30/content_18825388.htm?utm_source=The+Sinocism+China+Newsletter&utm_campaign=1d33689d9e-Sinocism10_30_1410_30_2014&utm _medium=email&utm_term=0_171f237867-1d33689d9e-29619965&mc_cid =1d33689d9e&mc_eid=a85f130e96.
Shan Juan, “Fewer Couples Want Second Child,” China Daily, October 30, 2014,
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2014-10/30/content_18825388.htm?utm_source=The+Sinocism+China+Newsletter&utm_campaign=1d33689d9e-Sinocism10_30_1410_30_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_171f237867-1d33689d9e-29619965&mc_cid=1d33689d9e&mc_eid=a85f130e96.

4. The Population Police

[>]
a bloated behemoth:
Scharping,
Birth Control in China, 1949–2000
, 164.

[>]
births must be spaced at least five years apart:
Ma Shipeng, “Despite Two-Child Policy in Yicheng, Villagers Prefer to Have Second Child, Financially Better Off,”
Dong Fang Zao Bao
, November 12, 2013,
http://epaper.dfdaily.com/dfzb/html/2013-11/12/content_834806.htm
.

[>]
Nonpermanent barrier methods like condoms, the Pill, and IUDs:
Betsy Hartmann,
Reproductive Rights and Wrongs: The Global Politics of Population Control
(Boston: South End Press, 1999), 164.

[>]
China sterilized over 20 million people:
China Health Statistics Yearbook
(Beijing: Peking Union Medical College Press, 2010).

[>]
marched off in handcuffs:
Scharping,
Birth Control in China, 1949–2000
, 55.

[>]
“just a piece of meat”:
Cheng Xiaowei and Zhao Yejiao, “Fine Determined by Personal Discretion, Said Wenzhou Family Planning Official,”
China News
, April 8, 2010,
http://www.chinanews.com/sh/news/2010/04-08/2213437.shtml
.

[>]
a “crisis in birth planning
”
:
Scharping,
Birth Control in China, 1949–2000
, 72.

[>]
had already breached population targets:
Ibid., 73.

[>]
publicly pee in cups:
Ibid.
, 176.

[>]
“The doctor injected poison”:
“Forced Abortion and Sterilization in China: The View from Inside,” hearing before the Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights of the Committee on International Relations, US House of Representatives, 105th Cong. (June 10, 1998),
http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/intlrel/hfa49740.000/hfa49740_0f.htm
.

[>]
wanted for suspected fraud:
Daniel Kwan, “Birth Control Couple Accused
of Swindles,”
South China Morning Post
, July 1, 1998,
http://www.scmp.com/article/246563/birth-control-couple-accused-swindles.

[>]
harsh enforcement of the one-child policy to be rare:
“Flap over 1-Child Policy Stirs,”
Washington Times
, February 18, 2009,
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/feb/18/revival-of-us-aid-stirs-unease-on-beijings-one-chi/?page=all.

[>]
turn enforcers into parenting counselors:
“Enforcing with a Smile,”
Economist,
January 10, 2015,
http://www.economist.com/news/china/21638131-enforcers-chinas-one-child-policy-are-trying-new-gentler-approach-enforcing-smile
.

[>]
a mass sterilization campaign:
Amnesty International, “China: Thousands at Risk of Forced Sterilization,” April 20, 2010,
https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/asa17/016/2010/en/
.

[>]
“‘Big cities depend on land’”:
Pang Jiaoming,
The Orphans of Shao: A True Account of the Blood and Tears of the One-Child Policy in China
(New York: Women’s Rights in China Organization Publishers, 2014), 60.

[>]
an estimated 13 million people:
Gao Haoliang, Wang Haiying, and Wu Shuguang, “Illegally Born Children Could Register Without Fine,”
Banyuetan Magazine
, June 3, 2014,
http://www.banyuetan.org/chcontent/jrt/2014531/102874.html
.

[>]
Beijing began a crackdown on human rights lawyers:
Andrew Jacobs and Chris Buckley, “China Targeting Rights Lawyers in a Crackdown,”
New York Times
, July 22, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/23/world/asia/china-crackdown-human-rights-lawyers.html?_r=0
.

[>]
fifteen out of a hundred students recognized the photo:
Robin Young and Jeremy Hudson, “How the Tiananmen Square Massacre Has Been Largely Forgotten,” National Public Radio website, June 4, 2014,
http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2014/06/04/tiananmen-louisa-lim
.

5. Little Emperors, Grown Up

[>]
100 million only children:
“Single-Child Population Tops 100 Million in China,”
Xinhua
website, July 7, 2008,
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-07/07/content_6825563.htm
.

[>]
a guilt-ridden Zhang published:
Tania Branigan, “China’s Cultural Revolution: Son’s Guilt over the Mother He Sent to Her Death,”
The Guardian
, March 27, 2013,
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/mar/27/china-cultural-revolution-sons-guilt-zhang-hongping
.

[>]
a group of Chinese and Japanese children on a camping trip:
Sun Yunxiao, “The Contest in Summer Camp,”
Reader Magazine
, November 1993, Gansu People’s Publishing House.

[>]
singletons tended to be more self-centered:
D. Y. Chen, ed.,
The Only-Child Declaration
(Shanghai: Hainan Publishing Company, 1997).

[>]
less self-control:
X. T. Feng and X. T. Zhang, “Discussion of the Special
Environment of the Socialization of the Only-Child,”
Quarterly Journal of Social Sciences
5 (1992): 33–37.

[>]
academic achievements and sociability:
D. L. Poston Jr. and T. Falbo, “Academic Performance and Personality Traits of Chinese Children: ‘Onlies’ Versus Others,”
American Journal of Sociology
96, no. 2 (September 1990): 433–51.

[>]
poorer eyesight:
Hao Keming,
An Empirical Study of China’s Only Child Population
(Hong Kong: Guangdong Education Press, 2010), 207.

[>]
differences are a result of family structure:
L. Cameron, N. Erkal, L. Gangadharan, and X. Meng, “Little Emperors: Behavioral Impacts of China’s One-Child Policy,”
Science
, February 22, 2013.

[>]
a series of letters from only children:
Mei Zhong, “The Only Child Declaration: A Content Analysis of Published Stories by China’s Only Children,”
Intercultural Communications Studies
14, no. 1 (2005).

[>]
“all my classmates gave me a nickname, ‘Baby’”:
Ibid., 20.

[>]
“
we don’t have our independent future”:
Ibid., 21.

[>]
coined the term
ant tribe: Lian Si,
Ant Tribe: A Record of College Graduates’ Crowded Life
(Guangxi: Guangxi Normal University Press, 2010).

[>]
they make poor hires:
China Railway Construction Engineering Group, recruitment advertisement, February 3, 2015,
http://www.buildhr.com/company /bfo6j/
.

[>]
“We don’t hire two kinds of persons”:
Jiang Xiaochun, “Employer Rejected Job Seekers from One-Child Family or Well-Off Family to Make Recruitment More Efficient,”
Jinling Evening News
(Nanjing City), June 24, 2014, E06.

[>]
slang for “loser”:
Josh Chin, “China’s Communist Party Tells Kids Being a Loser Is Nothing to Be Proud Of,”
Wall Street Journal
, December 3, 2014,
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/12/03/communist-party-paper-warns-youth-on-dangers-of-self-deprecation/
.

[>]
over 1.5 billion times:
“China’s Losers,”
Economist
, April 16, 2014,
www.econo mist.com/news/china/21601007-amid-spreading-prosperity-generation-self-styled-also-rans-emerges-chinas-losers
.

[>]
“youth cannot be ignored”:
Chin, “China’s Communist Party Tells Kids Being a Loser Is Nothing to Be Proud Of.”

[>]
put toothpaste on their child’s toothbrush:
Vanessa Fong,
Only Hope: Coming of Age Under China’s One-Child Policy
(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004), 164.

[>]
test-taking pressure does take its toll:
Zhao Xinying, “School Tests Blamed for Suicides,”
China Daily
, May 14, 2014,
http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2014-05/14/content_17505294.htm
.

[>]
one in five Chinese marriages ends in divor
ce:
Louisa Lim, “‘Lightning Divorces’ Strike China’s ‘Me Generation,’” National Public Radio website, November 17, 2010,
http://www.npr.org/2010/11/09/131200166/china-s-me-generation-sends-divorce-rate-soaring
.