China's disastrous one-child policy is starting to kick in

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China's disastrous one-child policy is finally starting to kick in

December 28, 2021

By Andrea Widburg


If you're not familiar with Daniel Greenfield, who writes at FrontPage Magazine and at his own site, I am not exaggerating when I say you're missing one of the most astute thinkers on the internet. Most recently, he's turned his gimlet eye on the terrible effect on China of the one-child policy, when combined with urban affluence and nascent feminism.



I've long known that China's one-child policy, which resulted in the abortion of up to 40 million female babies, was going to have far-reaching consequences. My assumption was that women would become more valuable and be better treated, but I didn't realize that their increased value might spell the beginning of the end of the Communist Party.



Greenfield, however, suggests that the massive demographic imbalance, with men far outnumbering women, paired with a rising yuppie class that's materialistic and creates women who have no interest in marriage and children, is causing a slo-mo collapse in China. This is true despite Xi Jinping's bluster and military expenditures.



Greenfield does a deep dive into the subject, but I'll share a few of his insights. I strongly urge you to read his entire essay.



As was obvious all along, the absence of women means they're at a premium in the marriage market. In rural China, only the richest men can afford a wife.



However, that's not the real problem:



But what really has the Communist elite worried is not the high price of marriage, but the growing number of professional women who aren't interested in getting married at all.



China thought it could avoid the Soviet Union's fate by avoiding liberalization, something it squelched with the Tiananmen Square massacre. Nevertheless, it willingly opened itself to some market forces to fund the communist state. That created materialism dangerous to any communist-based nation:



Despite the outward allegiance to Xi and the Communists, the country's rising middle class is westernized, individualistic rather than collectivist, intent on having fun and stocking up on all the latest consumer gadgets, instead of sacrificing and laboring in the cause of Communism.



Women, especially, don't want to be sacrificed to marriage or children. The birth rate is 1.3%, leading China, a nation of over a billion people, to add only 12 million babies in 2020 — and China, unlike Western countries, isn't getting immigration to augment its declining population.

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