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China allows couples to have three children

bbc.com

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Re: China allows couples to have three children

#221

Post by throwaway894345 »

lolinder wrote: post #175
throwaway894345 wrote: post #133

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.

How about forced sterilization, forced abortions, and the interplay between the one child policy and culture that led to massive numbers of sex-targeted abortions and infanticide? Calling it "population control" euphemizes away the horrible human cost of the enforcement methods and the collateral damage. I'd agree it's not the worst thing they've done so far, but given that they're actively committing genocide that's…

Agreed. The comment I was responding to took issue with China dictating a number of children—I don’t have a problem with that. The specific enforcement (sterilization, abortions, etc) are grotesque. Conceivably you can enforce population control without resorting to those measures.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#222

Post by mahkeiro »

faitswulff wrote: post #211
kube-system wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not exactly “killing infants” but abortion. https://www.npr.org/2016/02/01/465124337/how-chinas-one-chil... https://www.bmj.com/content/338/bmj.b1211

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.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#223

Post by HDMI_Cable »

simbas wrote: post #114
jp555 wrote: post #65

Good luck. With a shrunken generation of family to help due to 30+ years of one-child policy, and almost no social support (China does not really have socialized healthcare in practice) there's no one to help take care of larger families. But there is a HUGE number of rapidly aging parents and grandparents to take care of. Add a culture that puts accumulating wealth as the #1 virtue, and it becomes nearly impossible…

Your comment is a bit bigoted, the government has been paying families, not "french families", to have more kids. This isn't segregated by language at all. Everyone gets their child allowance payments, whatever their origin.

It had its basis in the anglification of Montreal and other cities. After 1763, Quebec was a French province ran by the Brits, and due to immigration policies and family sizes, cities like Montreal became more English than French. When the French came into power after Dominion, they and the catholic church incentivized French people to have more children. After a few generations of very high birth rates (think 4 or 5 children per women), Montreal was once again more French than English. Nowadays, that policy is extended to all families, regardless of language.

Source: Something we learn in Canadian History classes.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#224

Post by adrian_b »

unnamed76ri wrote: post #76

Gotta love HN comment section on a story such as this. People here solving math problems more than questioning the power of a government to tell people how many children they are ALLOWED to have.

I wonder if you also question the power of a government to forcibly take money from the people with no or few children and give the money to those with many children.

This (allocation per child) is a policy very frequently encountered in a large number of countries.

It is also frequent in those countries to raise the level of the allocation per child immediately before elections, which leads to quite an inflated level after many election cycles.

Unlike with China's population control policy, I have not seen any questioning of these allocation per child policies from other countries, even if in that case the state also intrudes in the individual rights by extracting money from them.

That policy also results in some kind of reverse eugenics, because the more responsible people delay having more children until having the financial means to raise them, but because they are forced to pay higher taxes they must delay even more, while some of the least responsible people choose to have as many children as possible, with the hope of sustaining the family only or mainly from the state aid.

In my opinion all kinds of potential abuse from a government must be questioned, not only those for which there exists a tradition to be criticized.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#225

Post by ikerdanzel »

stanrivers wrote: post #214

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…

They already failed at 2 as very few Han Chinese bother to have more than 1 kid. Now they double down to 3. Good luck realizing it is not working and they will have to either go for 19th century expansionist policy, or cloning. There is the force mandate they can try, hard to see people doing it and then sustain to full term and birth with the threat lingering. Chinese are herd mentality sheep. If just a few decide no go than 1, entire billion people will do so. They will have to start executing people for failing to have 3 by 40yrs old, dystopian imagination which I don't see getting implemented in modern times.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#226

Post by OminousWeapons »

ginko wrote: post #2

It feels strange to me why they're not just getting rid of the limit at this point. Especially since they already seem to have trouble getting couples to have two children.

I agree. From what I understand from Chinese friends, this is sort of an irrelevant move. Chinese culture demands fully supporting your children financially throughout their adult lives, including fully financing education, purchasing homes for them, and purchasing vehicles for them. As you might expect, this is extremely expensive and difficult to scale up to 3 kids.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#227

Post by oreally »

em500 wrote: post #115
infinity0 wrote: post #64

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…

A culture of ostracizing what's perceived as 'the dumb and uninformed' is what got the US Trump. Putting up a wall against them didn't get the US to a better place. Like it or not, there's a substantial amount of misinformed and misguided people and if you do not at least interact/counter-argue there's a real chance that more people get misinformed to the point something goes horribly wrong, they're in support of it and you can't do anything against them.

As chinese there's a sense that we should keep our head down in favor of the harmony. But I've come to realize this isn't enough we should let the truth speak louder. Keep fighting the good fight.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#228

Post by rainworld »

Westerners so enthusiastic about “China’s demographic problem” would be well advised to worry about their own, local sub-replacement birth rates, in particular for natives (you know, the ones who built the countries everybody else seems so hell-bent immigrating to), as well as for the educated, the middle classes.

Also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19095925

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#229

Post by oreally »

unnamed76ri wrote: post #76

Gotta love HN comment section on a story such as this. People here solving math problems more than questioning the power of a government to tell people how many children they are ALLOWED to have.

Ok, seems like you'd like no birth controls. Would you be willing to support the excess births in China with your own money then? As a US citizen? Because the excess births are going to put a burden on China's infrastructure and you're pushing for no birth controls.
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