One of the latest trends on Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu is for women to share complaints about pushy government inquiries on whether they are pregnant or plan to be soon. The Chinese government has responded to two straight years of population decline with a pro-natalist push. On Xiaohongshu, women have been sharing stories of receiving calls from local government officials asking deeply personal questions such as: “Are you pregnant? Do you plan to be? Do you have a boyfriend?” Some even report officials demanding they stop raising pets and focus on child-rearing instead. A WeChat essay sharing screenshots of the Xiaohonghsu posts derided the phone calls and said economic support, instead of hectoring, might encourage Chinese women to get pregnant:
When the planned birth policy was being forcefully pushed, they gave one-child parents a laughable 5-10 yuan stipend per month. Now that they want to raise the birthrate, they’re again resorting to pressure and coercion.
Why don’t they learn anything from the place across the Strait that offers high bonuses for childbirth and rearing, including a childcare subsidy and free kindergarten?
Why don’t they learn anything from the place across the Pacific where they offer a $6,000 child tax credit and $25,000 of assistance to lower- and middle-class first-time home buyers? [Chinese]
(These last measures are proposals from Kamala Harris’ campaign, not actually current policies.)
During the one-child policy, the Chinese countryside was plastered with slogans threatening fines, abortions, and sterilization for those who have more than one child. Today, reports the lawyer Zang Qiyu, similar banners demand the opposite—that villagers have three children. In an essay ruminating on a recently announced nation-wide study of low birthrates to be conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics that will survey 30,000 individuals across 150 counties on their desire (or lack thereof) for children, Zang expressed skepticism about its utility. The government survey is aimed at understanding the “sentiments of reluctance and fear” surrounding childbirth. Zang wrote on WeChat that low birthrates come down to three simple reasons: economic pressure, increased education, and changing perceptions around marriage.
Along the road to Baimakang, an ancient village in Ningguo County, I saw huge banners blazoned with slogans demanding locals “fully enact the three-child policy.” It’s the sticks out there. All the youth have already left and the only people remaining are the old, weak, sick, or disabled. That’s a lot to ask of them … it really seemed like a practical joke.
[… National leaders] can hold meetings and conduct surveys, but their findings are a foregone conclusion: they will issue a report full of absurdities that scrupulously avoids any mention of hardships. Instead of spending all that money they could’ve hosted me for dinner. I could’ve told them all they needed to know over a few cups of wine:
One, too much pressure. Social progress and economic development have increased the pressure on average people. Wealth disparity has become extreme and the vast majority of average people have no money. If we can’t give our kids a prosperous and happy life and instead are signing them up for a life of laboring in poverty, not having kids is the obvious humanitarian choice. When an environment is inhospitable, the strong choose to leave and the weak choose to stop reproducing—the same concept is at play here.
Two, increased education. Traditional beliefs about having children to carry on the ancestral lineage are completely gone. Conceptions of the self as a unit within a family have been completely replaced by individualism. Today’s youth care more about their personal material well-being and seek out lifestyles that are freer and more relaxed. Blood ties—let alone children—no longer work to restrain people. There will be even more single youths in the future. At a fundamental level, this is a silent protest against the state of society.
Three, the lessening importance of the concept of “marriage.” At first, human society had no system of marriage. Matriarchal societies don’t have “fathers,” nor do they have organized family units. Marriage was born of rulers’ needs to protect social stability. It will thus, of necessity, one day be eliminated. In big cities, many [unmarried] people live together without the bonds of marriage. It’s simply a love relationship that will naturally dissolve if the feelings fade. This type of relationship suits human nature.
Every era’s values differ. In the future, people will not flaunt their social status, their power, or their bank accounts. Instead, everyone will see who is most free, and most happy. [Chinese]
Pushy phone calls and nation-wide surveys are just the latest solutions to falling birth rates proposed by the government. Earlier this year, the Chinese government ended international adoptions—a system that had given many children new opportunities but was also increasingly beset by abuse and trafficking. Other policy changes include making divorce more difficult, promoting mass marriages, and providing greater financial support for in vitro fertilization. While the government of China treats falling birthrates as a vexing problem, a simple solution looms large: welcoming immigrants. At The Washington Post, Keith Richburg wrote an opinion column arguing that immigration could solve China’s demographic crisis, though it is unlikely to be adopted due to widespread racism and political paranoia:
China, Japan and South Korea are surrounded by countries with growing populations and people looking for work — the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia. Further afield, Africa is growing. The median age in China is about 39, as well as in the United States; in Africa, it’s 19. By about 2035, Africa’s working age population is expected to be greater than the rest of the world’s combined. These people will need to work somewhere and will be needed everywhere. But they probably will not be moving to China.
In Northeast Asia, and especially China, the idea of a racially pure bloodline runs strong. President Xi Jinping, giving then-President Donald Trump a tour of Beijing’s Forbidden City in 2017, said Chinese civilization was a “unique lasting culture in the world.” Xi explained through an interpreter, “People like us can be traced back to 5,000 years ago, red hair, yellow skin, inherited onwards. We call ourselves the descendants of the dragon.”
[…] About four years ago, when China’s justice ministry proposed allowing foreigners to get residency more easily, an online backlash erupted. A post reading “China is not an immigrant country” received more than 4 billion views. Last year, Human Rights Watch urged the Chinese government to combat the anti-Black racism that is widely prevalent on Chinese social media platforms. Many of the more objectionable posts warned of contaminating the Chinese bloodline through intermarriage with foreigners, especially Black foreigners. [Source]
