Okay, so sue me. I’m not politically correct. I correlate a civilization of 1.3 billion souls — 20% of all humans alive today — with fried omelets and gravy. But China is definitely weird as hell, from rampant retail counterfeiting to sneaking 11-year-old girls with fake birth certificates onto their women’s gymnastics team at the 2008 Beijing Olympics to the way the government enforces its long-standing “one-child” birth control policy. Please bear with me while I lampoon this last point for a minute, okay?
According to China’s national Communist Party newspaper the government is implementing a new program to “soften” its abrasive rhetoric where forced birth control is concerned. For instance, the government will no longer use the following slogans:
- If you don’t receive tubal ligation surgery by the deadline, your house will be demolished.
- We would rather scrape your womb than allow you to have a second child.
- Kill all your family members if you don’t follow the rule!
- Once you get captured, an immediate tubal ligation will be done. Should you escape, we’ll hunt you down. If you attempt a suicide, we’ll offer you either a rope or a bottle of poison.
Over the years China’s one-child policy has always faced international criticism. Aside from obvious concerns about civil liberty and human rights, the policy has had the unintended outcome of many families aborting female fetuses until a male is conceived, a trend that’s resulted in 118 boys being born for every 100 girls. Males currently outnumber females in China by an estimated 40 million.
For your possible interest, China’s new, softer birth control language will be: 1) Caring for a girl means caring for the future of the nation; and 2) Please get rid of alcohol and cigarettes before you plan to be a father.
What a country.
Pass the soy sauce.
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