One Child Quotes

“For Americans, the car is the American way. Jay Gatsby roars through capitalism, individual freedom, and the good life. For China, the train is the metaphor. Everyone's on board, there's no chance to steer, and it's clickety-clack to collectivism's dreams.”
― Mei Fong, One Child: The Story of China's Most Radical Experiment

“As a bookish child, I would come to see the one-child policy as one of the most fascinating and bizarre things about the land of my ancestors, equal parts Aldous Huxley and King Herod.”
― Mei Fong, One Child: The Story of China's Most Radical Experiment

“The man who once advocated a two-child plan no longer believes there should be any restrictions at all. “I gradually realized it is not about giving birth to one or two children. It is about people making their own decisions.”
― Mei Fong, One Child: The Story of China's Most Radical Experiment

“In 1995, China passed the National Maternal and Infant Health Law, forbidding couples who had “genetic diseases of a serious nature” to procreate. The conditions listed include mental retardation, mental illness, and seizures. These couples were required to undergo a mandatory premarital medical exam. It was hugely controversial, reviving international criticism that China practices eugenics. Actually, the wording of the national law was considered mild. Some provinces had more explicit regulations. In 1988, Gansu Province passed local regulations prohibiting “reproduction of the dull-witted, idiots, or blockheads.” Gansu abolished that law in 2002. Similarly, the National Maternal and Infant Health Law was defanged when requirements for the premarital medical examination were quietly dropped in 2003.”
― Mei Fong, One Child: The Story of China's Most Radical Experiment

“But it’s hard to make the case that the one-child policy advanced Chinese women’s rights when, balanced against urban women’s advancements, one considers the huge numbers of females killed at birth or abandoned, as well as aborted female foetuses. Nobel Prize–winning economist Amartya Sen estimates that infanticide and gendercide have contributed to a missing 100 million women in Asia. Roughly half of those would have been Chinese. With the current gender imbalance, women are certainly more valuable, but not necessarily more valued. In addition to a rising anti-feminist backlash, the female shortage has resulted in increasing commodification of women. Prostitution and sex trafficking in China have been on the rise for the past decade, though nobody has precise figures, for enforcement is lax and transparency low. In 2007, the US State Department estimated that a minimum of ten to twenty thousand victims are trafficked domestically within China yearly, earning traffickers more than $7 billion annually, more than selling drugs or weapons.”
― Mei Fong, One Child: The Story of China's Most Radical Experiment

“China’s one-child policy was crafted by military scientists, who believed any regrettable side effects could be swiftly mitigated and women’s fertility rates easily adjusted. China’s economists, sociologists, and demographers, who might have injected more wisdom and balance, were largely left out of the decision making, as the Cultural Revolution had starved social scientists of resources and prestige. Only the nation’s defense scientists were untouched by the purges, and they proved not the best judges of human behavior.”
― Mei Fong, One Child: The Story of China's Most Radical Experiment

“the work force shrinkage happened faster than anticipated. The one-child policy sharply accelerated a drop in fertility. China’s massive 800-million-person work force—larger than Europe’s population—started to contract in 2012 and will continue doing so for years to come, driving up wages and contributing to global inflationary pressures.”
― Mei Fong, One Child: The Story of China's Most Radical Experiment

“Jenova”
― Mei Fong, One Child: The Story of China's Most Radical Experiment

“As he explains it, the basis for parental power was the concept of enqing—that children owe their parents a debt that can never be repaid because their parents gave them life. Parenthood also had an elevated status because of village kinship systems and religious rituals like ancestor worship. Communism and 1980s materialism basically eroded these beliefs, leading to what Yan calls the “demystification of parenthood.”
― Mei Fong, One Child: The Story of China's Most Radical Experiment