One Child: The Story of China’s Most Radical Experiment by Mei
Fong, 250 pages
“An intimate investigation of the world's
largest experiment in social engineering, revealing how its effects will shape
China for decades to come, and what that means for the rest of the world. When
Communist Party leaders adopted the one-child policy in 1980, they hoped
curbing birth-rates would help lift China's poorest and increase the country's
global stature. But at what cost? Now, as China closes the book on the policy
after more than three decades, it faces a population grown too old and too
male, with a vastly diminished supply of young workers. Mei Fong has spent
years documenting the policy's repercussions on every sector of Chinese
society. In One Child , she explores its true human impact, traveling across China
to meet the people who live with its consequences. Their stories reveal a
dystopian reality: unauthorized second children ignored by the state,
only-children supporting aging parents and grandparents on their own, villages
teeming with ineligible bachelors, and an ungoverned adoption market stretching
across the globe. Fong tackles questions that have major implications for
China's future: whether its "Little Emperor" cohort will make for an
entitled or risk-averse generation; how China will manage to support itself
when one in every four people is over sixty-five years old; and above all, how
much the one-child policy may end up hindering China's growth. Weaving in
Fong's reflections on striving to become a mother herself, One Child offers a
nuanced and candid report from the extremes of family planning.” This was a fascinating look at the
Chinese policy of one child per family.
I had no idea how strictly and how inequitably it was enforced, or that
some of the adoptions were little more than human trafficking. It was sad but anyone that that has an
interest in the subject matter will be glad that they read this book.
