Comments (95)

Okay,guys do ya'll think that something as serious as a direct violation of human rights and the inhumane treatment of women and your masochistiic views of how to solve problems are something to be laughed at and solved with homosexuality.?! I am aware that the chinese have a different mindset than the western world. However, the fact that any civilized people or people who know what its like to have a choice can accept this behavior from a suposedly advanced government is just laughable. the women over there have no rights, they can't say I doon't want an abortion or I'm old enough and it's my first. it's a serious problem, between the forced abortions and sterilizations, gender selection, deliberate degration of women and female children and their rights and any other social issue that may be a sprout from the chinese atrocity. honestly i don't thint that it is our right to tel somenone they can't have children or that the world is overpopulated so go ahead and shoot him anyway. you people forget that 70 percent of the land in china is not used. you also forget that no one breeds like rats. if people want a large family it is their right. if people want a girl, go for it. when the government gives people the right to try for a boy if their previous child is a girl, they are enforcing the women is a second class citizen view and that is not acceptable. we are equal and if people want to try to say otherwise, i will fight you and i wil win. I don't care who you are, the enforcing of the theory that men are better and more practical is atrocious and is helping no one. the whole that the chinese government has gotten themselves into is quite large and there is no easy fix. abortion is wrong, forced abortion is wrong, forced sterilization is wrong, deliberate disregard for human rights is wrong, deliberate disobedience of human equality is wrong. chinese government official, of the state and federal systems need to get their acts together and realize tht their citizens are people and that the consequences for their actions equate to much mor ehtan a few million unmarried men in the next few years.

There is one other disturbing statistic that must be taken into consideration when looking at the +32,000,000 unmarriagable men; and that is the amount of prostitution that goes on in China.

I don't have solid numbers for this but I recall reading that there are about 20,000,000 ladies of the night in China. If that is indeed true then we need to add approx twenty million to the male figure of unmarriagables because lets face it, few people are going to marry prostitute. Thats roughly 52,000,000 now who will by no act of god ever get a wife withn their borders.

A few people mentioned the possible rise in homosexuality, rape, and wife trafficing which can lead to major instability and they are right. I suppose that the governments soft solution to this is to allow the worlds oldest profession to function freely with all but the occasional crackdown in this or that district every few months.

Seriously, one walks the streets of China and notices these ubiquitous, ominously pinklit "hairsalons" in plain view, sometimes next to elementary schools; with Johns ( not you Mr. Pomfrett ) walking in and out in regular succession. The men that frequent these places are usually the minggong or gongren ( migrant workers or labourers ), or the forever wifeless.

It is so common, and yet shocking to see sex for sale in plain view at all hours of the day, but I would submit that it is the lesser of the two evils. Clearly men have basic needs that do not neccessarily have to be met with monogomy. These unfortunate men would surely be driven to far worse deeds were it not for the paid sexual services availiable, which the government wisely turns a blind eye to.

Purposely ignoring women's rights and the moral dubiousness of regarding prostituion as invisible hand of stability, can anyone think of better solution?

Connor35,

A few minutes after I posted my first comment, I did notice that it was a hasty mistake and I apologized. You can see the apology 4 comments above the first one. In any case thank you for checking the math. The way I see it, 50% will have a boy, 25% a boy and a girl and 25% with 2 girls which balances out.

There was a talk regarding homosexuals, but it looks like no one considers that they include both genders. Would that balance out also?

Russian's population is declining, especially male population. According to latest WHO data, average life expectancy is 59 years, and there is already a surplus of Russian women. Given the vast land and resources and unmarried or widowed Russian women, I think there will be a growing migration of Chinese men to Russia. It will solve the gender gaps in both countries, stimulate Russia's economy, and ease the political pressure in China. Definitely a win-win solution.

In fact, there is already recent Chinese migrant populations in major Russian cities. Cross-marriage has always been common in Northeastern China cities, especially Harbin.

@lostintranslation,

This topic? To you?

Why I bother to write seriously?

I as long as I make people like you embarrassed, then I am happy.

So think I am serious on this post, no. I am just playing.

Have some fun:)

Thanks, General Yuefei goupi, for a comment that makes no sense at all and further shows how right my own message was. You write like a virus-infected computer's word processing program.

General Yuefei, I am pleased to say, does not represent all Chinese people, even if he's taken the name of a hero for himself (like the cheap knock-off Gucci bags etc that can be found everywhere). He only represents the share of the Chinese population that are total idiots. It's not a higher share than in most countries, but with such a large population that is an awfully large number of Chinese idiots out there.

Before anyone gets too worked up about one child policy, abortions, etc., pause a moment to think how much better the world would be if this clown's mother had aborted him. Oh well, wudda, shudda, cudda...

what is your worries? now our american have legal right same sex couple, and that is solve all problem, right?

We need to take China extemely seriously.

Or they'll teach us the true meaning of the word "hungry'

One-child policy causes a great variety of social problems: stupendously rapid aging, worstening gender-selective abortion, soaringly mounting costs for children's socializing (being lack of siblings). In 1980 when Chinese government decided to implement this policy, it was literally stipulated that the policy was expected to last for 30 years. So this policy will expire in the next year. A new policy ought to take place it.

Several points to make here:
1. To those who just wanted to show they are racists and religious zealots: the hell with you!

2. If anyone gets to read the original paper (linked in Pomfret's article), the paper's focus is solely on the sex-ratio. By shifting the topic to marriage, Pomfret (and many of the commenters) has made some unsubstantiated assumptions and innuendo, the extremely of which claims that China therefore will be a nation of aggressors and international exploiters.

3. China had (still has) an intractable population problem. It resorted to arguably one of the most draconian measures to control the debilitating population growth. But this solution was forced upon them. If they wanted any hope of raising the standard of living of the country, it had to do something drastic. One-child policy is woeful, but its a lesser evil.

4. Chinese government has known for a long time that the one-Child policy is causing problems such as imbalance of sexes and age groups. But they feel they have to take the hit in order to deal with the bigger problems brought by mushrooming population. This is why they made "family planning" a "基本国策“, or "fundamental policy". For what I know, China is probably the only country on earth that has a cabinet level "Reproductive Planning Commission", with corresponding bureaucratic structures in every level of government.

4. There were a lot of forced abortions and related human rights violations in carrying out the one-child policy. I think it was the worst in the 80's. Back then, both the government and society were much less sophisticated and much more prone to cruelty. In recent years, the policy has moderated somewhat with permissions of a second child in some cases or lobbing fines rather than violence on violators.

5. Thirty-two millions projected "excess" males does not mean 32 millions "unmarriageable" men. Thirty million is 2-3% of the population. If we learn anything from history, human societies are very elastic and adaptive. Possibly, while it may mean that some men will face additional hardship in finding a mate, it may also mean some of them may have to be older to marry a woman from a younger group. Devastatingly disruptive to the society? It all depends on how the country will be managed.

I don't know about you but I can see a service for mail order grooms who would want to marry western women and immigrate to the west like Filipino women have done in the past.

"...Think of that. An army of 32 million essentially unmarriageable men..."

Think of this. An army of 32 million murdered girls.

Expect:

1) boys will marry into their wife's family.
2) Women will command huge bride prices
3) Rape will climb
4) there will be bride wars against the Phillipines, Mongolia, Korea, Japan and Indonesia.
5) AIDs will be endemic
6) China will collapse
7) Maybe America won't have anyone to pay its debts to and the deficit problem will be solved. :):)

Solutions:

1) Same-sex marriage.

2) Playboy better set up more magazine stores in every cities, and will become richest corp in the world.

3) Ladies can make a fortune in one week in China than works whole their life at other places.

Problem solved.

I offer a point for thought past the idea of aborting females. To what end would it accomplish to have millions more males than females in society? It may be their culture to desire males in the family, but the problem of having such and inappropriate balance indicates a moral problem that can lend creedence to establishing impearlism as a way of life.

China's one child policy is a recipe for disaster. What will become of these tens of millions of young men who cannot find a bride? Their future is inconceivable to me. Will they become criminals or turn gay? What happens when you want to find a wife and none are available ? Social Scientists please give us your opinion.

To SunnyChen1,

That is reason US should take those Chinese idiots that want have more than 5 children?

The earth and nation is not your house only!

Save some space for others! Will ya!

Maybe your mom should abort you, so you won't bring her disgrace!

How idiotic you are! Can you see our earth is full of people?

If anyone truly think for his child and others, they would see how difficult to live well with full packed people every where?

Are you blind?

This world is screwed by those people who live and think and produce like rats!

I do think the writer is anti-human,what is fetuses? over three months old embryo is humanbeing! In china,even serval days before the baby is born can be force abortioned by gov

The mistaken assumption is that millions of unmarried men will create political instability.

To benjaminstewart,

Do you swear to God that General Macarthur did not give proposal to your president and openly threatened at that time that He picked 21 cities in China to nuke?

Do you swear it never happened?

It is truth!

Go check your historical tapes!

If all Chinese people at time knew that US dared to nuke them, so Mao was preparing for it, so government mandated Chinese must produce more to survive!

It is truth!

That time Chinese to US government were like cockroaches, that they even used most evil plot to threat us.

Where the hell was US human rights?!

Go back to your US history? Stop playing less War Craft! So may learn how evil were some of your leaders. But as Chinese we forgive, but don't deny it like Japan government denies Nanking massacre.

Your US 'Pro-Liberty and Human Rights' government did a lot of dirts! Not American people, American and Chinese and people around world are all been played by US politicians!

Have you watched the tape how cool General Macarthur was on the land of Korea? Like God!

With his smoke pipe and ordering the killing of Korean and Chinese... to him was like his show and his art!

Mao on the other side, very like the same, composing poems of revolution!

But only poor people die, both side!

Now who visit those poor families!

No both our government built landmark stone to brainwash people that those poor idiots were heroes!

1980 population poll Chinese were 1.3
1950 only 550 Million.
Within 40 years population doubled, all my parents generations, every family has 7 children, that they were produced in the period of fearing of war, that US gonna drop nuke on them.

within 30 years, you do the math and check for history record to find out the truth.

It is history. it hurts people when they see truth, but truth sets them free, free of bondage of those really bad guys!

I remember reading in the past few years about a spate of wife-stealing and kidnappings in the Chinese countryside since many villages have a severe lack of marriageable women. Is that an actual trend or was it just a case of a sensationalized few then?

General Yuefei,

China's population in 1950 was already in excess of 550 million.... so what the hell are you talking about?

I suspect that China will export the problem. Many of those 32 million will emmigrate. And I hope they don't come here, he have too many people as it is....

It is immoral to have a one-child policy, but it is just as immoral as to allow the Chinese population to grow and create famine and social unrest. The CCP is doing the right thing to control the population.

I am Chinese but I preferred to have a daughter, actually the duaghter do take care of their elders in a better and detailed manner.

Given that in absolute terms this problem seems most serious in China and India, perhaps the outcome will be a long and bloody war between them, correcting both countries' sex ratios, eventually. Poor Tibet will be caught in the middle.

Some here have commented that it is wrong to attribute China's sex ratio problem to the one child policy. But the article that is cited makes clear that there is a strong link, and that the wish for a male child leads to much, much greater sex ratio problems precisely because of that policy.

thanks for an interesting blog post!

--Let’s see what can naturally happen with a one child policy that gives a second chance to parents with a daughter. If the first born is a boy, parents stop there. Let’s say that is 50% of the times. If it is a girl then they try again with 50% chance that the second one is a boy (25% extra chance for a boy right there.) So a ratio of roughly 125 boys to 100 girls can happen without selective abortion.--

Please think this thought through.

100 families have a child, 50% each per your assumption. You now have 50 boys and 50 girls. The 50 families with a boy stop. The 50 with a girl have another kid, again 50% each. So you get another 25 boys and 25 girls, or a total of 75 each boys and girls. You do NOT get more boys than girls this way.

You DO get more families with a boy than families with a girl. You have 50 families with one boy, 25 families with one boy and one girl, and 25 families with two girls, so you have 75 families with at least one boy and only 50 families with at least one girl. But you still have 75 boys and 75 girls. And they are talking about ratio of boys to girls, not the ratio of families with sons to families with daughters.

My sympathies for the Chinese men who might be left out in this numbers game.

As a man with Asperger, our own numbers game with average women is grim. The noted autistic professor Temple Grandin has recommended adults on the autistic spectrum date one another. I guess this is because neurological parity means the same perception of stimuli, information processing, similar thought processes, and therefore, a close sense of mental intimacy. My guess is when I was at Equally Yoked and the manager blamed my Asperger for my poor results, that is probably the theory she meant.

There is some dispute over the gender statistics of autism spectrum as well. We used to think four men for every woman. Now we wonder if diagnosticians miss Asperger symptoms in women because they resemble the behavior expected among women (quietness, for example).

I live, work, and worship in the average people's world, but not dating their women, plus what Dr. Grandin suggested, makes me often feel like a human sub-species. It is the only way I can rationalize not being in a relationship with an average woman without comparing myself to average men.

To the 30 some million Chinese who have to lose, I feel sorry for you. We saw this coming in demography class in 1993.

A war with Taiwan could make many women on both sides of the strait widows, but I don't think Taiwanese women would want to even see a Chinese man after the war is over.

Why, exactly, are people assuming that the author is concerned about only Chinese men in an army of 32 million unmarried? He's only speaking of Chinese men because this happens to be about China - ANY group of 32 million unpartnered adult males is potentially a social threat. I say potential, because research has not conclusively shown that problems will occur, only that they are more likely.

As for those of you who are raging against abortion, I ask you not to judge a place you have not visited. China's overpopulation problem is epic. I am pro-choice, although anti-abortion, and I am also the mother of two girls left to be found in China, likely because of the preference for boys and the one- or two-child policy. We in the West cannot fathom a government telling us how to build our families or limiting our options, but not only is their population bursting at the seams, the mindset in a country like China is very different. We are all about individual liberty, and they are all about what is best for the state. That is not to say that individual Chinese people are not concerned about their own rights, but many of the Chinese people I've met are baffled by our culture unwillingness to make choices that would benefit the most people, even as it might not be what we individually want.

I think Pomfret glossed over the most important part of this whole problem, and only mentioned briefly at the end of his article--the reason that boys are more desirable in China (especially in the countryside) is because traditionally, the male children take care of their aging parents, who often move in with them. You can argue that girls begin taking this duty, but remember, between each heterosexual couple, there is a man and a woman, which means that they are taking care of SOMEONE's parents. Given many of the economic issues that people in agriculture face, they simply cannot afford to take care of both pairs of parents, and so they adhere to tradition. Unfortunately there are not fancy retirement homes that they can ship them off to... Having worked in a nursing home, I think it is is the most shameful thing, dumping your aging parents off to be someone else's problem and then never visiting--but I digress. The only reasonable way to end this excess of male babies is for China to increase their social benefit programs to take care of the old and the invalid so that they aren't forced to rely on their possible male children. But, the United States has Social Security, and it hemorrhages money, so I'm not sure if that would be entirely efficient. I disagree about the one child rule being wrong...China has less land area than the US and has 3-4 times more people. Perhaps China can allow two children, and it may even be necessary for the government to offer monetary and governmental incentives to have females.

I would like to express some thoughts about a few comments I've read on this page. Comments suggesting that the Chinese are somehow a dangerous plague that need to be suppressed are extremely ignorant sounding and I think are very revealing about the reader's...quality.

Also, I understand why feminists are upset by this marked preference for male children. Please keep in mind that this is not the same kind of sexism that silence women's voices. It simply stems from two factors--that it was traditionally a man's job to take care of his wife and his parents (which is not a terrible ideal, and promotes family unity), and the mainly agrarian background of China--that at least in some regards, women are simply not as physically strong as men at some forms of farm work. Women are very much valued, but in the minds of many, having a girl simply isn't practical.

Not to worry--this traditional mentality will pass, give it some time. Don't forget, less than 100 years ago, China still had an emperor. I don't think all of this fearmongering is necessary.

To cloudyone,

US can take care themselves, especially guy, maybe we Chinese should learn from their guys:)

The "One-man, one-woman" is not the only mating policy that humans have ever developed. Legalize prostitution and brothels and things should quiet down in the 'need to mate' department. Also, abortions are great considering that the world is facing a catastrophic human overpopulation crisis. But I know this culture prefers war to abortions, which is ridiculous.

This way American women can have more choices too,

China have better guys! and lots of choices!

oops Take 2

i meant To say 'polygamy'

China should adopt bigamy where The WIFE gets To have MORE THAN 1 Husband

she also can have 1 child per husband

They can rotate (in more Than just 1 way) literally
1 works while one sleeps in, at home, Then exchange

for a week or so

This way can Travel To find work, work, come home (in more ways Than 1) and have a domestic Life

yes Women are more precious Than Men?
because Men can NOT conceive or reproduce

They just make LOTS of WARS
it is literally a World of War craft

China will have To have a standing policy of invading other countries just To control Their excess male population

Pomfret,

The study confirms the terrible gender gap, but not necessarily the cause of it.

The hepatitis B virus has been said to cause a male/female birth ratio similar to what you see in China. In a previous study involving Alaskan native populations, the effect was just as what we see in China, and the vaccinations that were applied thereafter eliminated the gender gap entirely!

I will say that some studies to replicating this phenomenon in China, where the hepatitis B presence is just as rife, has had results that didn't conclusively point to the virus as the culprit. So while other research contends that the virus can explain away 75% of the China gender gap, clearly this is still an ongoing focus to be reviewed in the future.

If scarcity generates value, then the relative lack of females should make them a more valuable gender than (oversupplied) males. Presumably this should result in more competition for wives, with the ladies picking the better (wealthier?) matches, and the single males at the bottom of the economic ladder 'out of the bidding'. --- What may prove more fascinating is to see how long it will take before couples begin prizing valuable girls over over-supplied males... One can expect a pendulum or oscillating effect (technically a 'chaotic' effect to use the mathematical nomenclature....). BUT, to make it even more 'strange', one may expect to see flows of both men and women to different areas of the world in search of spouses, depending on over- or under-supply of 'potentials'. What has been for all time a static ratio has now become part of the feedback loops that govern most human activities.... The 21st century promises to be -- at the very least -- 'dynamic'!

Here's a thought (though certainly not a pleasant one). China holds most of our debt. When their population becomes discontented, or ages to the point that the young can no longer sustain the elderly, or runs out of oil and other resources, all they have to do is call the notes they hold. Then their millions can simply come over here to New China, marry our daughters and enjoy our resources.

The Bible speaks of a 200 million man army that will march into the Euphrates valley. A coalition was formed in 2001 called the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). This took place in Shanghai,China. It is, above all, a cooperation between China and Russia, with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as members. More significantly, however, is the SCO "observer status" of IRAN, PAKISTAN, India and Mongolia. All enemies of the west or communist regimes.

We have much more to worry and think about here than the implications of the future of China. The dominoes are being set. It won't be long till one little flick of a finger brings them all down.

You all should really get prepared. Got a food supply? Have means to grow your own? Have access to a fuel and water supply? Hmmmm?

Actually if anyone have read history, that today's China population problem is rooted by US in 1950, that during the Korean War, General Macarthur threaten that he would invade Manchuria and he even picked 21 cities in China to nuke, and Mao at that thought US was going to treat us like how they dropped bombs on Japan, so Mao called all Chinese to give birth more kids so that Chinese were have chance to survive.

These are stories, maybe, anyone should go to check your history tape.

We are all live in our own shadow.

Thanks to General Macarthur China have population problem.

To see the problem clearly, find out the root.

I getting a feeling of de javu. Coming from India where there is a similar problem, more in North India than South. In India, it's more of infanticide rather than abortion. The politicians have thrown some cash at it hoping that it will get better (money for families with single girl child). Antenatal sex determination, which is illegal in India goes on in most clinics and the authorities turn a blind eye to it. In Punjab the ratio of boys to girls is 1000:750! and worse, homosexuality in India is a crime and punishable by imprisonment!! The country is supposed to be one of the top three economies of the world in 20 years!

SHIVEH, your math isn't correct.

Let's just say 50% chance for boy or girl (even though it's really 103:100 -- the article says 105:100).

Let's say all family follow the rules (1 Boy then stop, and 2 kids if you have a girl first). And let's assume all family have the maximum number of kids.

There is a 50% chance a family has a Boy then stops.
There is a 25% chance a family has a Girl then a boy.
There is a 25% chance a family has a Girl then a girl.

So the average family has 1.5 kids:
1x0.5 + 2x0.25 + 2x0.25 = 1.5 kids per family.

And the average family has 0.75 boys:
1x0.5 + 1x0.25 + 0x0.25 = 0.75

and the average family has 0.75 girls:
0x0.5 + 1x0.25 + 2x0.25 = 0.75.

So even with the current law where families with girls first may have another child, the gender balance should be 1:1.

Another thought,

I quote:

"Wife like cloth, Brother like arm."
- Liu Bei, Romance of Three Kingdom

Maybe China should support Same-sex marriage to solve this problem, otherwise what we should do? Exchange US debt for American women?:)US have more women than men, or go to UN file for help, that 'Chinaman' in crisis of needing woman and sex?

what kind man don't?

And maybe our guys should spend more time work on poetry, music, art... as our ancestors, it is another good idea too.

I am confused here because I think this author is against the one child policy. I am confused because how could anyone belive a country of over one billion should be allowd to continue to grow at an even faster rate than it already is. I think human population growth is sinhle biggest problem we face right now. Everything else - poverty, hunger, disease, war, global warming, energy costs, natural resources... - is caused by it. I don't see why its really a problem for China to have so many more men. So maybe that will help reduce the birth rate then by limiting the number of couples there are to reproduce. Sounds like a perfect solution to me! The idea that people are required to reproduce, in this day and age, is just ludicrous. Not only that, its going to lead to our extinction as the planet simply cannot handle so many of us (I think thats becoming painfully obvious).

China do have population problem.

As a Chinese guy, I don't want to have baby, get married, okay.

There are too many people in China and in the world, that no one can live happily, if there are too many people.

People are not rats, that require less resource and unable to control their production rate.

Abortion, is last result to end the tragic for the tragic for he baby and the parents who only know about giving birth, but have no ideas to raise a child, those babies dragged up like dogs and never educated can cuase trouble for himself and his family and whole society, if every parents only give birth but have no money and education to raise their child, the society will be a mess, as China right now.

I agree with Dalai only on this thing, the only problem for all of us that we are 6 billiion people.

Too many!

And in future, the world going to learn like China, birth control, otherwise it's raining peoples.

If we have only 2 billion in the world now and 0.3 billion in China, the world is much better place, people have to learn from those animal, stop producing more.

It's okay, that China only have guys, at least, after my generations all die off, our future generation live a better life, and live easier.

I support my government control birth, if those people who wants human rights to produce like rats, then they better go to America, lets see after 30 years, how US going to deal with this problem.

Human right is not about do what you like, it is about to respect others by restraining your selfish desire and acts, we live under one roof now.

I suggest US who supports Human Rights of baby producing machine, then they should give citizenship to all Chinese who want to have more babies, let's see how US going to take it.

A serious problem, indeed. At some point in the future it may become necessary to export our unmarried women--tattoos and all, to China to improve our balance of trade.

hey girls on earth, do not marry Chinese guys and leave them extinct. Otherwise, they will make the world population become chinese, seriously!!

hey girls on earth, do not marry Chinese guys and leave them extinct :D

The authors reasoning is laughable. The Chinese would be aborting girls even if there were no one child rule. (see India) Instead of 32 million excess males there would be 64 million excess males plus 300 million more people. Does that sound better to you? What is needed is a valuing of female life, education and swift punishment for those that break the rules by preforming and getting selective abortions. Like no rights to leave your children anything, sterilization and even removal of any current children with a tax on your income for the cost of fostering and adopting the child out. The situation there could swiftly become dire without proper cultural adjustments.

There are a number of issues here that should be addressed. One I am American, African American to be exact. Let's not underestimate the Chinese. I am quite sure that they know there is an inherit issue with one sex abortion and put policies in place to address the issue. Next, there would be a number of highly intelligent, healthy Chinese males needing wives, sign me up!!(It's a small world after all, LOL). On a more serious note, we should not be so judgmental of others (Americans, Humans). I agree with a women’s right of choice but this choice still comes with responsibility. Women should not be having abortions as birth control and this is what it seems that some Chinese families were doing, selective birth control. Lastly, the Chinese may be creating a far greater problem for themselves than they realize. Extinction. All the factors are there, an aging race, not enough females, a society that has a number of human rights issues. Eventually, they would have to get women into their society to survive, where will they come from? Other cultures?

This is what the so-called feminists have caused with their unfettered support for the killing of unborn babies: the deaths of millions of baby girls. It would be quite ironic if it wasn't so tragic.

I can imagine the lyrics to Thirteen Men....

"I was the only girl in town
and I said thank you Lord
with thirteen men around
I knew I wouldn't get bored"

Many of the responses display a profound ignorance of human sexuality. It is a consensus among psychologists that human sexuality is immutable. SO SHUT UP ABOUT HOMOSEXUALITY, MORONS.

China's gender imbalance will not be resolved with brothels, imported wives, or sexual abstinence, but only with a monumental shift away from the chauvinistic value system and the implementation of a social safety net to care for the elderly. END OF CASE!

BOUF1: "What does an authoritarian regime do with an army of 32 million males in high heat?"

Let them troll internet forums and farm gold on World of Warcraft? You make it sound like Chinese men are a bunch of rapists or potential rapists. Like we are manly enough to get on boats and pillage our way across the Pacific like a bunch of vikings (though that would be cool). Most of us are content just trolling the internet and playing MMORPGs. Google "Chinese internet users" and see if I'm right or if you're right.

Defend your liberty. Learn to troll harder.

China has the One Child Policy because it presumes it is a closed system like the planet Earth. It is possible the rest of the world could feed China. I'd like to see China's goals accomplished with forced sterilization and not abortion. But that does not address the horse after it leaves the barn. You can close the barn door, but I suppose China feels the need to have the after-conception option too.

1. We should be concerned for the entire planet.

2. We should be concerned for the developed world and especially America. Disproportionately the USA consumes perhaps fifty times the resources of poor people in poor parts of Asia (Sociology, Ian Robertson, 1988). The oil consumption alone is easy to see. The metals that go into a TV set, computer, or telephone are less obvious. Until the techno junk winds up in Ghana or India and someone is smelting it for junk metal to sell (National Geographic magazine).

We are God damned lucky. Agricultural output is a function of adequate fresh water, adequate top soil, favorable climate, and energy to do the work. Fresh water and top soil can be depleted. Top soil can be lost to erosion by mismanagement. The climate can change due to climate change (up due to carbon dioxide levels, or down due to glaciation caused by breakdown of ocean currents), supervolcanic eruption, gamma ray burst, or small nuclear war. Right now we have enough petroleum and petrochemicals to drive tractors, harvester-combines, crop duster aircraft, create pesticides and fertilizers, create packaging, and transport finished foods. It is estimated 10 heat calories worth of petro energy in all is needed for each calorie of food.

This can't go on. Without oil, with a climate disaster, or with degradation of water or soil, billions will die.

They will probably die of war first, fighting for food. The children are most susceptible to starvation and everybody loves their kids. Next they could die of illness, as hungry people have less defenses against illness. Finally, those who do not die of battle against combatants or civilians will either die of illness or hunger.

Is this how the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse ride?

The Eskimos would put their elderly on ice floes when the food ran out. The problem is, we are on an ice floe in space orbiting the sun. We need to take care of our planet, we do not have another.

Chris Marsh
M.A., sociology
Marshall University

Sorry, my math is wrong.

You correctly point out the real problem that exists here but you fail to develop it.

The Chinese have an ARMY (your word) of men who _arithmetically_, not statistically, will not find a Chinese woman with whom to have children.

What does an authoritarian regime do with an army of 32 million males in high heat? "You want hot American wife? Go fight for one."

Don't forget that Manifest Destiny is originally a Chinese concept called "The Middle Kingdom."

The question is not "Do we have enough ammunition?" The question is "How many rounds can you fire before you burn the rifling off the inside of the barrel of your weapon?"

Defend your Liberty. Learn to shoot.

People, people, people the solution is simple. Promote homosexuality in China!

As long as a society devalues and selectively terminates a segment of its population, it loses half of its intellectual power, economic, scientific, and cultural richness. It is a doomed society.

Let’s see what can naturally happen with a one child policy that gives a second chance to parents with a daughter. If the first born is a boy, parents stop there. Let’s say that is 50% of the times. If it is a girl then they try again with 50% chance that the second one is a boy (25% extra chance for a boy right there.) So a ratio of roughly 125 boys to 100 girls can happen without selective abortion.

What can millions of extra men do for china? Probably extra pressure makes some of the girls looser! Expect a lot of pre-marital and extra marital sex in China’s future. Also the law of survival of the fittest suggests that China’s future generations will be born from smarter fathers. So expect smarter Chinese in near future too.

In a couple of generations the extra premium that will be put on girls because of their scarcity will cause more parents to want them and much of the ripple flattens.

Unfortunately a shortage of women in the context of patriarchy does not seem to translate into any appreciation of women - there is data from some parts of rural China that show that it simply results in more violence against girls/women with an increase in the incidence of rape, forcible abductions/marriage.

Males will have to compete for those previously unappreciated females. Females will realize the power that they have acquired and demand their true place in society.

The real problem is the scourge of abortion in the first place. This is the predictable outcome of not only an "abortion on demand" society like ours, but a de facto "forced abortion" society. Disgraceful, but unsurprising given China's abysmal human rights record. As Pope John Paul II said, "a nation that kills its own children is a nation without hope."

The writer misses the main story here...that the so-called "right" to abortion that we have in this country can produce the same results. When a unique human life is reduced to a choice made by the individual, and when the unborn does not have an inherent right to be born, then we cannot complain to the Chinese that they use that "right" to chose which of the unborn gets to live based on their sex. The Chinese are reflecting our own sad values back at us. How can we say that it's wrong for a Chinese to kill their unborn based on their own choices, and then tell Americans that it's alright to kill their own unborn based on our own choices? Abortion is always wrong and all of the unborn have a right to live.

Right on Emily_MO!!

I couldn't agree more.

From what I read they are solving the problem by buying and/or kidnapping girls in SE Asia and smuggling them into China.

Mr. Pomfret,

You forget about homosexuality. Ten percent of any male population is homosexual. Ten percent of one billion is one hundred million. Assuming greater sexual orientation flexibility with women, that thirty-two billion imbalance can be absorbed because certain segments of the population would not be seeking marriage. Although, then there exists family pressure and social demands leading to a demand in beards . . .

This will become problem only the following assumptions are true,
1). Assume all humans are heterosexual.
2). All couples will stick to “only death will do us apart”.
In reality, none of above is true. So just mind your own business.

One unintended consequence of this will be that the next generation of Chinese men will learn to respect women a bit more than has been the case in "traditional" China. I'm a teacher here and I have suggested in class that maybe in the near future Chinese women will need to have more than one husband and that always gets a laugh. Wait until the women here actually realize just how much power they have. As far as China's foreign policy becoming more "aggressive" well, that simply won't happen. Chinese, when it comes right down to it, are not going to risk their only son's life in a war. Who will take care of them then? Certainly not this government.

I want to preempt this discussion before someone makes the implicit or explicit argument that somehow an unattached, young Asian bachelor is more susceptible to violence and sociopathic behavior. There is simply no correlation between Chinese virgin males and violent or criminal behavior, none. Would we have this conversation if it was white caucasian males? Does anyone here feel threatened in a Star Trek convention? 30 million Chinese bachelors DOES NOT equal 30 million Cho Seung-hui.

Hmmm, why is this a problem....

Maybe part of the problem is the author and many others focus on the problem of unmarriagable men -- instead of the selective aborting and infanticide being committed against females. Killing targeted at only one segment of the population fits nicely in with a definition of genocide.
I am pro-choice. I do not think that women choosing to terminate a pregnancy is anything to be scandalized about. But the one-child policy of China leaves no room for choice -- it is coercion, and the penalties for families that violate this policy are real. Mix in a little gender bias, and you have a very sad picture indeed.
China's "traditions" around preferring male children are a symbol of entrenched patriarchy that devalues girls and women generally.

executorzz, nothing is perfect. China may have had 2 billion or more people by now if not for its one child policy. If you don't want to help them with their education, employment, and other welfare, then you better stop complaining. Sometimes I feel Americans should spend more time taking care of our own business instead of deciding how other people and countries should lead their lives.

Time for American women to learn Mandarin. They should expect competition from Thailand and other Asian countries though.

Now let us not forget we have been told the Chinese rich were "different"... above all younger than usual!

As the depression deepens... who knows?... might be worth a look... and a try?

This is just a suggestion, of course...

If that acme of accuracy Wikipedia is to be believed, the one child policy in China has meant between 200 to 400 million fewer people in 2008 than it would otherwise. Split the difference and call it 300 million. That is roughly the population of the United States.

The question then becomes - would be which would be more destabilizing? 32 million "extra" males or 300 million extra people overall?

China should allow city dwellers to have a second child. They are hampering the development of their country by not allowing their educated citizens to have a second child.

People who support this one child policy have not been to china or are not opening their eyes while there.

In the US it is common to see several children at a table in a common diner. In china you see one surrounded by six adults. It's actually a very depressing scene.

So true factschecker. China is progressing. But the brains of some people around here refuse to do the same. I'm not saying that China doesn't have its own problems. We just expect a little bit more from the American main stream media.

John:

Don't worry about the sex ratio in China; the 38 million Chinese males will find the comfort in the hearts of 38 million of young American white females.

Six words: Mother Thumb and her four daughters.

This is a non issue.

It has never been an issue in urban area. People don't know in advance and they don't care.

It has become less of an issue in the rural area. They don't rely on farming as much as they used to. Girls can earn just as much as migrant workers. Girls have less social issues and do better in school than boys.

We should appreciate China's efforts in curbing its population. We consume a quarter of the earth's resource with just 3% of the population.

That is one way of population control, a Chinese contribution to reduce human contamination of the earth. Other countires without birth control have serious social problem too: starvaton, aids, drug addition, gay, poor health car, air pollution.

That is one way of population control, a Chinese contribution to reduce human contamination of the earth. Other countires without birth control have serious social problem too: starvaton, aids, drug addition, gay, poor health car, air pollution.

Hey John,

I'm a Chinese American so I know China a thing or two. My younger brother is expecting their first and perhaps only child in the summer. They visited their OB doctors many times and did ultrasounds. But they don't know whether they will get a boy or girl. Because the policy doesn't allow that! It's the same in the rural area. In the rural area, couples with a daughter may choose to have another child several years later. That may contribute to the imbalance between females and males. But there is NO ABORTION involved any more!!! At least not as far as I know. Your article may be true in 2004. But it looks so out of date right now. China is making some positive progress in this regard.

Why is this a concern? If it is Western countries whose male population is significantly higher than the female one, are we going to assume all the extra men will become criminals?
If it is the other way around, when more females are born in China than males, are we going to assume that is because parents aborted male fetuses?

Those who don't know Chinese culture impose their own cultural judgments on it. If you study Western history, there are many examples of male chauvinism, such as kings in Europe wanting male heirs to rule their kingdoms. If you read some works of Chinese literature and history, you get Mulan and Wu Ze Tian, who was China's first empress. Yes, some Chinese do value sons over daughters, but not all the time and not all of them agree boys are better than girls.

Regarding the men not being able to find spouses, remember we are talking about humans here, they don't simply marry the first person of opposite sex that they come across. Some may choose not to marry, some are picky, and some just do not care.

Loveandpeace:

You assume that men become gay because they can't get women. That is just not true.

This is what happens when the Government try to run our lives. I hope Obama and the Democrats read this.

What to do with 30 million unmarried males? Crime will be the least of China’s problems. Unless the leadership is made up of fools, they know that with these numbers, nothing but trouble will come to China. Internally it could give rise to civil war or revolution and to keep this from happening, the leadership will probably engage in imperialistic foreign expeditions to keep the excess males occupied outside the country, at first confronting Taiwan, than expanding into S.E. Asia, Korea, and Japan. India and Russia could also be threatened and with Africa’s natural resources, who knows?

A new Sabine campaign - which unfortunate neighboring nation will desperate Chinese men pillage for women?

Either that, or the sex trade in Southeast Asia will expand its boom....and this will certainly diminish the ethno-superiority of the Han people.

Just legalize Gay Marriage in China. China will have National Gay Marriage earlier than US, and then US can not blame China about human rights, because Christian America does not giving equal rights even to its own citizen.

Thanks for those comments:
First, a debate has begun in China about relaxing the one-child policy. It's not very open but the Southern Weekend piece that Weiyifan refers to is a sign. Last year as well a senior Chinese official called for a change in the policy; he was contradicted soon thereafter but his statement was another sign of the debate.

Second, as to the scenarios and predictions raised by Comunista. There have been many. Think-tanks associated with China's police have been warning about a significant increase in crime. There already is a large and growing wife-stealing/kidnapping problem in the countryside and in neighoring countries -- specifically Burma and North Korea. Some Western political scientists have hypothesized that an overabundance of males could prompt China into taking foreign military adventures. The rationale being that China would funnel some of these "bare sticks" (the Chinese term for these unmarriageable guys) into the armed forces. I can't see that as very likely though because the military has been (and seems likely to continue) cutting the number of men in uniform.
More realistically, we are already seeing Chinese men leaving China and moving to neighboring countries to do business -- witness the growing population of Chinese workers in Siberia and Central Asia. That's only going to be intensified by this demographic wave, bringing with it a new series of challenges for China and its neighbors.

This has significant global security implications. Some studies note that countries with serious gender imbalances tend to pursue more aggressive foreign policies -- possibly in an attempt to redirect the focus of their "unmarriageable males." This level of gender imbalance, however, is unprecedented and thus it is difficult to predict the long term foreign policy ramifications.

I would have liked to read more about the problems that this policy will create. These problems seem obvious, but there are not lay down in this op-ed. There is a lot of stats showing that there is a real imbalance but not a lot of predictions.

A bachelorette's heaven!

It's raining men
Hallelujah, it's raining men
Amen!

Environmentalists who really push population control should take note. This would be the result in many parts of the world. Be careful what you wish for.

China's current ratio of boys to girls is an astonishing 123 to 100, according to Southern Weekly (南方周末). They published an article on April 9 titled "Allowing a second child is an urgent priority" that generated a lot of discussion in China. The English version can be found on their website at tim.z.infm.com.

I suppose it's not too hard for the average person (myself included) to imagine some of the implications of this issue in the future, especially if it continues, but I'd like to hear some predictions by experts on what could be expected to happen as a result, and how that may possibly affect international relations.