China's "one-child (and kill all the rest)" policy has resulted in there being "32 million more boys under the age of 20 than girls."
The Times dances around the truth a bit, but finally has to admit that researchers "attributed the imbalance almost entirely to couples’ decisions to abort female fetuses." The researchers observe, “Sex-selective abortion accounts for almost all the excess males.” So there are millions of Chinese men who simply will have no available women in China. This is just one of the reasons China is a big concern to me.
For centuries, China has had a Gospel witness. Yet China has worked hard to crush it out, though reportedly Christianity now thrives underground. Regardless, there are always dire consequences when men feel they know better than God. Though they do not understand it, they are experiencing the truth: "it is evil and bitter for you to forsake the LORD your God" (Jeremiah 2:19).
Coming soon to an arrogant, Gospel-hardened superpower very near you... barring the gracious hand of God in revival.
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It will be sadly interesting to see how this population disparity plays out over time. There are no nations with a corresponding level of “extra” girls, so these guys are out of luck. What kinds of pressure, I wonder, will this place on the Chinese government? They’re going to have to do something to control and pacify all these men.
~Squirrel
...OR channel that male aggression the State created into endeavors that serve the State...
...AND/OR tailor such endeavors in ways that would "acquire" more women.
How's the population balance in Taiwan, for starters, I'm wondering?
Do we place our trust in headlines, or do we obey the commandment of God?
The Word of the Gospel will only increase in China. Christ makes a public display of rulers and authorities, as we celebrated yesterday. Christ commanded us to make a disciple of all nations. Of, not in. And if God is for us, who can be against us?
Yep, that's what I was thinking. Nothing like military aggression to occupy these men, and military adventurism to, at the same time, reduce their numbers...
~Squirrel
Squirrel — actually, you make my ominous idea ominouser. Was the State deliberately creating "spare" males?
David — yeah, but... huh?
Radio talk show host Michael Savage has been talking about this for some time now. He reported this number a long time ago. His assertion has always been that China will ultimately become militarily aggressive because the unmarried men will have nothing better to do. Could you imagine an army of 32 million? Yikes!
Of course, this fits perfectly into the dispensational eschatological beliefs.
That I'm thinking the same thing as Michael Savage doesn't make me feel good about myself. But I still agree with me, anyway.
(c;
I believe it was Jerry Bridges in one of his books that talks about a visit to China where he mentioned to someone ( I think perhaps a tour guide)about some tragedy that cost many lives. The man looked at him with a blank stare and said basically "So what? We have billions of people."
It's a renewable rescource.....
If he hasn't seen this yet Michael Spielman of Abort73.com should check this out.
:(
Seems to be right in line with a long-term military buildup.
Here's a headline, although I question the credibility of the author:
China Preparing for War and Few Notice
Dan: LOL. Just look at this way. Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and then (no offense to The Squirrel).
Nolongerblind: I'm not a big fan of WorldNetDaily or their ilk since they tend to be conspiracy theorists...but China's view is similar to that of Iran's with respect to Israel. Iran has said it is perfectly willing to engage in nuclear war with Israel because after it's over, Iran will still have some people left whereas it will be easy to annihilate Israel.
China doesn't have much to worry about with respect to our intervention now. Unless they are concerned about being talked to death. The reality probably is though, that without intervention by God, we couldn't take on the Chinese if they really wanted to become a military superpower. They simply have too many people.
Another issue that will play into this is that many of the men who have survived the infanticide have been spoiled and catered to their entire lives.
The documentary Up the Yangtze chronicles the story of young people working on a riverboat traveling up the Yangtze on a farewell cruise, right before the Three Gorges Dam floods the whole region. It shows the abject poverty of a family scraping out an existence in the country, their livlihood about to be destroyed by the dam. The daughter goes to work on the riverboat.
"Yu Shui toils in the galley down below, vying with workmates for the few permanent positions. A shy country girl, she must compete with young show-offs like Chen Bo Yu, an urban kid with the over-confidence typical of single sons, the "little emperors" of China's one-child-only policy."
Chen Bo Yu is eventually fired for his dishonesty and poor work ethic, which is portrayed as typical of his class of young men from the city.
It seems to me, based on history:
a) The poor peasants are ripe for the military picking. Poverty, hopelessness, no prospects for upward mobility. Communism at its finest.
however,
b) Those young urban sissy-males would be first to be shot on the front lines in a real military. But with so few males in the country, what leader in his right mind would put those precious few on the front lines?
BIG sociological dilemma. Solution: nukes.
Aaron you cracked me up...
China doesn't have much to worry about with respect to our intervention now. Unless they are concerned about being talked to death.
The 32 million 'extra' men did lead my mind in another direction (besides the military)... homosexuality.
These reports started popping about a year and a half ago that China was feeling the results of their abortion policies. If I'm not mistake there were some similar reports about the current male/female ratio in Russia as well.
Coming soon to an Obamanation near you...
Julie:
My thoughts went that direction, also.
~Squirrel
Do you really think a Communist government will allow homosexuality? Who knows, I guess. But historically, oppressive governments have not been exceptionally tolerant of these practices since it does not normally support the interest of the state.
I don't know about Russia. I went to Russia a few years ago. There were single women galore there.
The one-child policy leads to unsustainable social conditions, even before considering the gender disparity. If it's strictly adhered to for just two generations, you wind up with one child to support two parents and four grandparents. That is simply unworkable, and would lead to things economic collapse, mass euthanasia, or empire-building aggression to enslave neighboring nations.
Throw in the gender disparity, and a ruthless government willing to pull a Zapp Brannigan (sending wave after endless wave of his own men until the killbots reach their pre-set kill limits and shut down), and you have a recipe for military conquest.
This would alleviate both the "not enough women" and the "not enough workers" problems. They conquer a nation, enslave their men, and take their women. This could get real ugly. Make that uglier.
And yet, capitalism is growing and the younger generation is growing up with post-Communist on their doorstep. In 2007 MSN Money had an article called What Do Chinese Teens Want?"In their teens and 20s and making a sharp break from the culture of their parents, the members of China's "youthquake" are ambitious, energetic, modern and individualistic -- at least up to a point. Democracy? Fine when they are voting for a singing idol, but otherwise a distraction from the main business of life: snagging a great, creative new job. Consumer choice? They have no recollection of the days when navy blue cotton jackets and trousers were the de facto national uniform, or when Coca-Cola and McDonald's weren't available....Born after China opened to the West and experiments in capitalism began, the biggest Me Generation ever known has few memories of political strife or turmoil. In their experience, each successive year has brought more prosperity, more personal and professional options and an ever-wider array of consumer choices.
"Those who study the shifting sands of the Chinese consumer landscape believe that as long as China's one-child-per-family policy remains in force, developing products aimed at relatively affluent young consumers is likely to be a winning strategy.
"This is the 'have' generation, the single children who carry the expectations of their whole family with them and who are going be groomed from an early age to compete and win," says Jixun Foo, a Shanghai-based partner at Granite Global Ventures, a venture-capital firm."This stands in stark contrast to the China we've come to know as a dark communist regime with no freedom or individuality.
Not having any first hand knowledge of China, I have no idea how true the account above is, however, the marketing perspective is interesting. Certainly, if companies like McDonalds are sinking $ into China, it's hardly a communist wasteland - I suspect they're not exporting Big Macs for philanthropic reasons.
If I were an entrepreneur and well versed in Chinese culture and a person without many scruples, I would be starting a chain of "finishing schools" for Chinese peasant women, funded by the families of rich "Little Emperors."
I'm going to try this one last time. (Yes, those deleted comments were mine.) Hopefully this time it will work right!
This is what I had:Dan: "How's the population balance in Taiwan, for starters, I'm wondering?"
Well, there is no "one-child" policy in Taiwan. And based on this Wiki entry, there are more women than men as of 2006.
(I don't know how accurate this is. I tried the official website of the TW/ROC gov't. but was not able to look up the demographics in terms of gender. Maybe someone else out there can find it.)
I don't really know how strictly they enforce the "one-child" policy in China. Reportedly some of the rich and famous there have managed to bypass this policy, and this has not escaped public scrutiny. (Then again, many of the well-to-do have the option to emigrate to other countries where no such policy exists.) The problem, perhaps, isn't so much it's a "one-child" policy (even though it is far from God's divine mandate in Eden) but that it has instead resulted in a "because-of-this-policy-we'll-have-to-make-it-a-boy" mentality among many people. This selectivity in terms of gender (whether by aborting female fetuses, abandoning baby girls, or by consulting fertility experts) is of course driven by the traditional Chinese obsession over having a son to carry on the family name. It is "playing God", but few realize it. There is supposedly an exception to the "one-child" policy: If their first child is handicapped/disabled, then the couple may have another child. (You do realize, however, the horrific possibility inferred here if the first child were a girl--and, yes, I've heard of stories about that. Just hope they're only stories.)
(My word verification is "unkin". How strangely befitting for our topic.)
(Correction to my comment on the Wiki entry: In 2006 there are slightly more men than women in Taiwan.
I was going to delete my previous comment for this correction, but I give up. It's just not my night.)
I was attempting to sleep just now when it dawned on me that I was flawed in my reasoning, so I got out of bed hoping that I can delete my comments (yet again--sorry), only to realize that the trash can icons have disappeared (because I had closed my browser, maybe?). This really isn't my night....
My flaw was this: I failed to see that the "one-child" policy shouldn't be implemented in the first place. That in itself is "playing God".
There's a lot of food for thought here.
The relationship between the West and China is a superficial one of convenience. The strategic relationship that China has already forged is with Russia, and other nations in the Sino-Russian orbit. The two nations are closer allies now than they ever were during the Cold War.
Susan: Go to the Blogger home page, log in, then navigate back here, and you should be able to delete your comments.
Susan, sorry it was so rough for you. I just wanted to say I appreciate you and your contributions.
China's "one-child (and kill all the rest)" policy has resulted in there being "32 million more boys under the age of 20 than girls."Makes it easy for them to keep their army filled. :-(
Thanks, Stefan for the tip, and thanks, Dan for the appreciation and above all, your deleting all traces of my failed posting attempts from yesterday! (I was so frustrated, you don't even know....)
(1. Oh, I've messed up again. I should've thanked Dan for his appreciation above his deleting my empty comments. It didn't come out right. Sorry, Dan, and thanks again.
2. And you know, I've decided to keep my comments, warts and all (at least for now). We'll see how I feel about them in a few days.
Yes, Susan, good, please. DON'T try for "The Stefan Ewing Award" for post, delete, repost, delete, repost, delete, repost....
As an administrator for TWO blogs he blessed with his presence, I'm glad he's relaxed.
(c:
:)
Dan:
Now that I've repented of all the other besetting sins in my life, I need something to cling to!
Susan:
If it's any consolation, you can see the dog's breakfast I made here this morning. (You may have to jump about a quarter of the way down the page to find my first real comment.)
I couldn't let you take the crown away from me.
Well, Stefan, if I got really crazy one day, I just might usurp your throne. But then that will probably get me into a lot of trouble with the Pyro bigwigs--they might even ban me....
I'll perish the thought....
Addendum: According to this FoxNews story on the Chengdu earthquake last year, there are other exceptions, but not the one that I mentioned previously. (I heard about the one I mentioned a long time ago. I did do a search on it and found this as warrant.)
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