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China allows couples to have three children

bbc.com

271–280 of 339 posts

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to have some sour grapes about criticism of China and some kind of twisted, paranoid presumption about Western attitudes toward non-Western policymaking. The point was not to make fun of the word choice “harmonious”, but rather to point out that CCP-led China is functionally an ethnostate that bluntly prefers and privileges one identity over the others.

> paranoid presumption There is no "paranoid presumption", that's literally what the comment I'm replying to was doing. So, look at reality instead of sitting on your high horse, believing that all defenses of China are "paranoid". > The point was not to make fun of the word choice “harmonious”, but rather to point out [..] Again, read the comment. You are denying reality. They literally said nothing concrete, only i…

There was no indication whether that poster was Western or not. Only you read that aspect into the comment. The poster was ripping on China specifically. And then you magnified it into higher stakes: that the presumably Western poster must be skeptical of or hostile to all non-Western policymaking. That says more about your presumptions about Westerners than it does about the comment.

And yes, the poster ribbed on the word harmonious, but again, that wasn’t the point. The meat of the post was about being ruled by big brother Han. Interestingly, you didn’t object to that bit at all!

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very curious - why was she selected for this?

She was a poor rural village woman. Of course, forced sterilization is not going to work in the cities. Because people with some form of certain degree of intellect understand the use of contraception and can just forgo their job or certain possession to pay the fine. Forced sterilization was never an explicit policy. Everyone with decent intellect knows that's ridiculous. It was practiced, of course, out of middle a…

Well I am glad that she was able to avoid it for your sake. Unfortunately, I am sure many women were not able to do so. It is very much a terrible thing.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#273
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My direct experience contradicts your direct experience. I'm Chinese, grew up in China until I was 5, and visit it every now and again. > I have been told over and again (by Chinese people) that China is Han. You are either selectively reporting, or selectively misremembering things based on your own existing prejudices. I have certainly talked to more Chinese people than you, and nobody has ever said this. I lived i…

These days, I find that there is little point in discussing anything China-related in Western internet forums. There's an overwhelming amount of ignorance, misinformation, prejudice and propaganda about China from tons of different parties. People largely post to get their standpoints confirmed, and nothing you post will change anything. As a fellow Chinese raised in the West, I know it's hard to resist getting drawn…

As a Brit (though I have travelled and worked a bit in China), I'm constantly dismayed by the thinly-veiled (and sometimes overt) racism, biases, prejudice and ignorance that are on display in just about any HN thread about China - the comments for this article are particularly shocking.

Yes, the Chinese government has done some bad things in it's time, but plainly not everything they do has bad intentions. And bejesus, people in glass houses and all that.

It seems very much like the USA's anti-China propaganda machine is working well - particularly telling since I would have assumed that the average US HN reader was educated.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#274
post #15

Won’t be long before three children are mandatory.

I don’t really see this as a controversial statement. All countries are likely to face the issue of shrinking population this century, and they’re going to have to try all sorts of schemes to keep the wagon on the road.

When China faced a population explosion, it didn’t create a complex mix of incentives and marketing to nudge people into having smaller families: it outlawed larger families. It seems reasonable to suggest that is a policy lever they will reach for again in the face of another demographic crisis. What am I missing?

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Abortion is not the same thing as killing infants. The racism that's tolerated on this site is very telling.

While I agree that abortion isn't killing infants, I don't get the racist part about this.

The racist part is the simple unchallenged assertion that Chinese people are so inhuman as to kill their infant children en masse.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m a pretty staunch critic of China, but population control seems like a pretty good thing. I suppose ideally it would be promoted but ultimately voluntary, but I don’t think their single child policy was the worst thing they’ve done by far.

[flagged]

Godwin's Law was quick this time

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not american.

I didn't say only America used slave labor.

What you are implying is that the wealth of western nations in the present is in a significant way the product of slavery (by whites, of blacks; ignoring the universality in time and space of slavery) which is not the case. In the counterfactual, western nations without slavery, colonialism today would look roughly the same—except, of course, whiter.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Abortion is not the same thing as killing infants. The racism that's tolerated on this site is very telling.

For some people killing a foetus is the same as killing an infant. Please respect different opinion on a subject that has no definitive answer. Calling people racist as soon as you disagree is indeed very telling.

The anti-Chinese racism on this site is fairly evident on anything having to do with China. dang even had to tell people to tone down the rhetoric recently. This is just another case in point. Just because you’re not aware of it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#279

There is some question on whether the one-child policy was even needed. If you look at a graph of "children per mother" chart before and after the original policy went into effect, it's quite evident that rates were dropping for more than a decade beforehand: * https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2016/october/china... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Birth_rate_in_China.svg * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O…

> There is some question on whether the one-child policy was even needed. > The ghastly human rights violations that led from the policy were completely unnecessary. No, this was entirely intentional. That was the whole point. This is "the big lie theory" taken to its extreme. It was done to keep people, and party cadres preoccupied. If you were to speak to an adult Chinese at around late eighties, the 1 child policy…

How is the crisis artificial? The amount of agricultural land China needed to sustain its population is totally calculable. the Chinese population grow threefold from 1912 to when the policy was introduced, had it been growing like that, today China would have HALF of the world's population. it's understandable to think it might an ecologically unsustainable growth.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#280

A lot of people are asking why a policy is even still needed - why not go for no limit at all? 1) There is an entire family planning bureaucracy within the CCP setup to manage this; would do you do with all those people if they are not needed anymore? 2) China is more strict on population planning for certain minorities - not officially, but in the background; think Muslims in western China or Tibet or Mongolians, or…

I wouldn't call at least 1 million uighurs interned and reportedly forcibly sterilized or put on other types of birth control a small number. Though given the huge size of China out of 1.3bb it's a rounding error.
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