As you may have heard by now, the Chinese Communist Party, in its infinite benevolence (a statement that cannot be made with enough sarcasm), is permitting their population to exercise the most basic human right – and end-goal of life itself – to a much more liberal degree. Couples in China will now be permitted to have three kids instead of two. How gracious.
But why the sudden change in policy? Well, it’s a poorly kept secret that China, not unlike many 1st world nations at the moment, are experiencing a decline in birthrates, leading to a rising median-age of the average citizen. This is a problem, particularly for a country as mismanaged and reliant on younger, healthier labor to slog through the poisonous and inhumane work conditions in its many factories as China is.
But will green-stamping families to have up to three kids do the trick? It’s hard to say it will.
A social experiment conducted in 1972 known to some as the “Rat Paradise” experiment – the results of which have since been attributed to tightly packed human populations – happened upon some disturbing findings. The population reached a peak; even as all the animal’s necessities were provided for them (food, water, etc.), reproduction became stagnate. A certain enclave of rats even ceased reproduction all together. Eventually, the rats began to die en-mass. The factor most attributed to this disasterous outcome was, indeed, population density.
But in order to fan out its people to combat the effects observed in the ’72 experiment, that would bring China to the second issue it faces; available land.
Possibly linked to its recent colonization of many areas in East Africa, China lacks the landmass it would need to spread out it’s population without heightening tensions with its neighbors. India being the most conscientious, as skirmishes on its land border with China have been becoming more and more frequent. If China is truly worried about a dip in its population, a war with India would defiantly not be of any help.
But of all the reasons listed so far, there is still one far more sinister factor that remains: One that was largely cultural in the region, but was only exacerbated by the mandated population restrictions. Sex-selective abortions. In Chinese culture, men care for the parents in their old-age. Not wanting to risk not having a caretaker, many Chinese couples have been document killing their infant girls to avoid having them count toward their family unit totals. This has caused a massive imbalance in the ratio of men to women in the country, leaving many men without relationship prospects entirely and not enough women to keep up with the government’s new demand for a resurgence in population.
China’s hyper-regulatory policies and complete disregard for nature – both in general as well as human nature – have landed it in a very deep hole. Supply chain disruptions brought about by the global lockdowns and cratering economic reports also affect China disproportionately, as they are heavily reliant on imported foods – begging the question if China would even be able to feed the new numbers it’s looking to see. What we may be looking at is the eventual but inevitable re-balancing of the global population as a result of unchecked growth. And China, having grown more explosively than any other nation in modern history, may be the first to reap the consequences.
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