China’s one-child policy is over, but its legacy is a bitter one

AS THE rapidly expanding China ditches its controversial one-child policy, the urban middle class say it has come at a price.

Qin Wuyue, who was born in 2010, poses for a photograph in Shanghai August 22, 2014. When asked if he would like to have siblings, Wuyue said: "No they're noisy." REUTERS/Carlos Barria/FilesPICTURE 7 OF 38 FOR FROM THE FILES STORY 'CHINA'S ONE CHILD POLICY'SEARCH 'BARRIA CHILD' FOR ALL PICTURES

CHINA has finally abandoned its troubled one-child policy but decades of strict enforcement may have left scars that won’t easily heal.

The extreme birth control measure, introduced in the late 1970s, was intended to give the economy a chance to catch up with spiralling population, and the authorities credit it with assisting in the nation’s rapid development in a superpower.

But as state news agency Xinhua announced on Thursday couples would be allowed two children each, some say the experiment has done irreparable damage, creating huge problems for China as it moves forward with a shrinking workforce, ageing population and the families coping with deep psychological trauma.

FORCED ABORTION AND STERILISATION

Forced abortions were considered an acceptable way of enforcing China’s population limits. In the 1990s, the government banned such practices, but with local and provincial officials finding their promotion depended on a low birthrate, the brutal episodes never fully stopped.

Many mothers have harrowing stories of being made to get rid of their babies well into their pregnancies. Gong Qifeng from Hunan province said she begged for mercy while several people pinned her head, arms, knees and ankles to a hospital bed before driving a syringe of labour-inducing drugs into her stomach.

The 25-year-old was seven months pregnant with what would have been her second boy: he was stillborn after 35 hours of agony. “It was the pain of my lifetime, worse than the pain of delivering a child. You cannot describe it,’’ said Ms Gong. “And it has become a mental pain. I feel like a walking corpse.’’

She was later diagnosed with schizophrenia and when she asked for help paying for her treatment, she was arrested.

Tang Leqiong, 44, was eight months pregnant in 2005 and had a permit to have second child — which was allowed in some districts if the first child was a girl, you’re a farmer, or you’re from an ethnic minority. Family Planning officials said her permit had expired (which later turned out to be false), and forced her to have the injection, and pay for it herself. “When it came out, I could see it was perfectly formed,” she told Public Radio International. “I was heartbroken. I asked for the body, to bury it — but they wouldn’t let me have it. They wouldn’t even let me touch it.”

The draconian policy led to all human rights abuses that have left psychological scars.

VIOLENCE AND ABANDONMENT

Families who defied the policy faced “social compensation” fines they often couldn’t afford, leading to desperate acts. In 2013, a Chinese farmer with five children reportedly drank a fatal dose of pesticide at a communist chief’s house after officials seized his family’s annual food supply for violating the one-child policy.

That same year, a father stabbed two officials to death and injured four after Dongxing family planning staff refused him a residency permit for his fourth child because he hadn’t paid the fee. Sympathisers wrote on Weibo (the Chinese Twitter): “As long as family planning serves as a means to persecute the people, the people must resist. How many more people will turn to crime because of this terrible law?”

In Rui’an, a 13-month-old boy was run over during an altercation after 11 officials visited a village to request $4575 from his parents.

Perhaps the most distressing and well-known consequence of the distressing laws was the frequency of female infanticide, as parents who could only have one child wanted a boy, who would have a far greater capacity for earning and independence than a girl in China’s traditional society.

The other option for families who had girls, disabled children, or couldn’t afford a fine, was to abandon them — either on the street, at hospitals or at infamous “baby hatches” introduced in 2012, where parents could deposit a baby in a small room, ring a bell and leave.

Inside is an incubator, a cot and an alarm so no baby is left for more than 10 minutes before workers from an orphanage behind collected the child. The 25 facilities across China caused heated debate for relieving parents from guilt, but others say the children might otherwise have died. Other children born in violation of the policy were abducted and sold into adoption in the US and the Netherlands.

China’s future may rest on the successful reversal of the controversial policy.

GENDER IMBALANCE

The preference for male heirs has led to a skewed male-to-female ratio, with nearly 34 million more men than women at the end of 2014. This has caused all sorts of problems. Not only has the birthrate declined far more sharply than planned but it’s estimated that 12 to 15 per cent of men will now be left alone into their old age with no one to care for them.

The country’s media has begun advertising foreign wives and men known as guanggun, meaning bare branches, are hiring professionals to help them find a partner before it’s too late. This has the greatest impact on bachelors from poor, rural families, with the competition based largely on wealth and status. The lack of eligible women has also led to more disturbing trends, including prostitution, trafficking and “kidnap marriage”. Some predict bachelor ghettos and a rise in HIV.

Chinese economist Xie Zuoshi suggested that wife-sharing could be the solution for this lonely generation of men.

AGEING POPULATION

Meanwhile, the population is ageing even more dramatically than in the Western world, with society facing increasing pressure to support Mao-era baby boomers in their retirement.

One child is often now taking financial responsibility for elderly parents and four grandparents, placing a potentially unsustainable burden upon a generation of only-children once considered pampered and spoiled.

The future workforce is shrinking and what once seemed very good for the economy is now looking as though it could destroy it. This is the main reason the authorities are anxiously trying to reverse the one-child policy, but has it come too late?

Analysts have long urged Beijing to embrace further liberalisation to avoid falling into the stagnation of the “middle income trap”, when developing countries fail to fulfil their full potential.

Yong Cai, a sociology professor at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and expert on the one-child policy, said the change announced Thursday was “at least 10 years later than it should be.”

What’s more, people do not look ready to drastically change the views on reproduction hammered into them over the past few decades. Couples have increasingly delayed having even one child as they devote more time to other goals, such as building their careers. Starting a family is seen as expensive.

And with a limit of two still remaining, human rights organisations have expressed concern that cruel practises will continue.

With crisis just around the corner for the world’s biggest population of 1.37 billion people, has the change come in time to save the Communist government and stabilise the wobbling economy? Or is it too little, too late?

— With wires