CHINA AS AN “EMERGING” NATION

• Lindsey Grant
• April 1, 1996
• Forum Papers
• Forum Paper
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 CHINA AS AN “EMERGING” NATION
An NPG Forum Paper
by Lindsey Grant
April 1996

China is not just an example of an industrializing nation. Alone, it is one-fifth of the human race, and every nation has a stake in its future. The Chinese are cursed if they try to master their problems, damned if they don’t, in trouble if they succeed and in worse trouble if they fail. And what is happening to China is happening, in varying degrees, in other nations just now in the process of modernizing. Let me explain.

The Race Against Hunger

The Chinese have a massive population program underway epitomized in the slogan “the one-child family ” Unlike most poor countries, they are financing most of it themselves. The program involves very intense social pressures not to become pregnant after the first child, and to abort if they do. There are various exceptions involving minorities, twins, and peas-ant families with labor shortages. The program — like most campaigns in China — is not so totally effective as propaganda would suggest. (UN figures give total fertility — the average number of children a woman may be expected to have in her lifetime — in China right now as 1.95 children.) The program has been bitterly criticized abroad, particularly in the U.S., for coercion. It has in fact had its excesses, as have many of the campaigns launched in China.’ Yet they cannot afford to give it up.

Let’s look at their problem.

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