Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T08:27:38.551Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Birth Control: Reversal or Postponement?*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Leo A. Orleans
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Whereas throughout most of the world the results of the 1953 censusregistration of Communist China, reporting a population of 582·6 million, evoked anxiety and even alarm, the Communists expressed only pride and overwhelming confidence. As a people “liberated from the oppressive chains of capitalism,” Communist leaders felt that their horizons were unlimited and that feeding and caring for a population of this size presented no problems under a system in which people are “the most precious of all categories of capital.” The simultaneous release of vital rates which indicated a birth rate of 37 per thousand population and a death rate of 17 per thousand, further stressed the “great vitality of the people of new China.” The 2 per cent, natural increase (excess of births over deaths), resulting in an annual population growth of some 12 million, was declared, in line with Marxist doctrine, to be an asset in a country with vast new lands and unexploited natural resources, where additional people create additional wealth.

Type
On the Frontiers
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 3 , September 1960 , pp. 59 - 73
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1960

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Although the reported vital rates were presumably based on a sample of some 30 million persons, both the birth and death rates are undoubtedly minimal. The sample was heavily weighted with urban population, and it is questionable whether the Chinese were technically capable of deriving accurate statistics. Ch'en Ta, the former director of the Census Research Institute at Tsing-hua University, in a symposium called by the Director of the State Statistical Bureau on May 27, 1957, stated that, “I am not satisfied with the present vital statistics registration work, which is not scientific” (T'ung-chi Kung-tso, No. 12, 1957Google Scholar). A birth rate in the vicinity of 45 per thousand would seem more plausible for a country without effective controls on fertility, while notwithstanding Communist claims of great medical and sanitary achievements, a death rate of 25 per thousand would also seem more realistic. Nevertheless, the resulting natural increase must still have been close to 2 per cent, as reported.

2 Jen-min Jih-pao, 11 1, 1954.Google Scholar

3 Kuang-ming, Jih-pao, 12 19, 1954Google Scholar

4 Chung-kuo Ch'ing-nien, No. 4, 02 16, 1955.Google Scholar

5 New China News Agency (NCNA), 08 13, 1956.Google Scholar

6 NCNA, 03 31, 1957.Google Scholar

7 Jen-min Jih-pao, 03 8, 1957.Google Scholar

8 Ch'eng-tu Jih-pao, 12 24, 1957Google Scholar (as quoted in Joint Publications Research Service, May 6, 1959, 701–D).

9 Wen Hui Pao, 01 23, 1958.Google Scholar

10 Kuang-ming Jih-pao, 12 19, 1954.Google Scholar

11 NCNA, 02 21, 1957.Google Scholar For example, urologist Wu Chieh-ping stated that it was a very simple operation to seal off the vas deferens of a man. There was no pain and no ill effect.

12 NCNA, 03 12, 1957.Google Scholar

13 Jen-min Jih-pao, 03 9, 1957.Google Scholar

14 For example, Ch'en Ta expressed strong reservations with regard to both abortion and sterilisation (Hsin Chien-she, 05 1957).Google Scholar

15 NCNA, 05 29, 1957.Google Scholar

16 Jen-min Jih-pao, 03 14, 1957.Google Scholar

17 Wen Hui Pao, 01 23, 1958.Google Scholar

18 Jen-min Jih-pao, 03 17, 1957.Google Scholar

19 Hsin Chien-she, 05, 1957.Google Scholar

20 Ma Yin-ch'u's widely discussed and bitterly attacked article, “A New Principle of Population” (Jen-min Jih-pao, 07 5, 1957Google Scholar), analyses China's immense population in relation to her shortage of capital and low standard of living and stresses the necessity to decrease consumption through the control of population.

21 For example, in 1957 Peking reported a somewhat improbable natural increase of 3·24 per cent., with a birth rate of 4·02 and a death rate of ·78 (Pei-ching Jih-pao, 03 11, 1957).Google Scholar

22 Hsueh-hsi, 06 18, 1957.Google Scholar These figures represent the net increase. Actually, the age and sex structure of the Chinese population suggests that over 11 million persons become 16 annually.

23 Vice-premier Li Fu-ch'un's report on the Second Five-Year Plan.

24 The dilemma is expressed in numerous accounts. For example, “Statistics showed that surplus manpower in 1955 mounted to 26 per cent, in 6 co-operatives in Hopeh Province, 30 per cent, in 18 co-operatives in Shansi Province, 17 per cent, in 497 co-operatives in Kiangsu Province, and 35 per cent, in 18 co-operatives in Szechwan Province…. Also, the statistics from 26,000 co-operatives showed that the average number of workdays per person was 96” (Chiao-hsüeh Yü Yen-chiu, 02 4, 1957).Google Scholar

25 “In the past, some people have worried about and discussed the question of overpopulation in China. Under the present situation, when everything is leaping forward, such a one-sided opinion has been proved to be incorrect. In many localities a shortage of manpower has been experienced” (Jen-min Jih-pao, 07 22, 1958).Google Scholar

26 It is too early to evaluate the effects of the Chinese communes on the birth rate; however, it seems that the western press has overly stressed the sensational aspects of the so-called “barrack society” in which husbands and wives live isolated from each other and have only limited periods of visitation. Indications are that, if in fact this pattern has been established, it is limited to only a few experimental communes. Nevertheless, it is conceivable that the living conditions created in the communes could adversely affect fertility.

27 Robbins, John, Too Many Asians (New York: 1959).Google Scholar

28 Kung-jen Jih-pao, 06 28, 1956.Google Scholar

28 Hopeh Jih-pao, 02 21, 1957.Google Scholar

30 Hopeh Jih-pao, 02 21, 1957 (letter from a reader).Google Scholar

31 The difficulty is clearly brought out by the conditions in Japan: “It is a sobering thought that the Japanese national campaign to limit fertility has not yet managed to spread a knowledge of the subject (of contraception) sufficiently widely to prevent people from turning to abortion as the most usual and most certain method of fertility control. And yet Japan is flooded with literature on the subject; has numerous birth control clinics; and has gone to the length of training one instructor in the subject for every 3,000 of the population. Experience in the Caribbean equally emphasises the enormous difficulties which have to be overcome before any ‘pill’ that may be discovered will break down the barriers of ignorance and apathy” (“The Control of Human Fertility” by SirZuckerman, Solly, in Impact, Vol. IX (1958), No. 2).Google Scholar

32 Washington Daily News, 10 16, 1958.Google Scholar

33 The much-publicised advice of the Deputy of China's National People's Congress, Yeh Hsi-chun, to use fresh tadpoles as a contraceptive has now been officially disclaimed. According to an article in Jen-min Jih-pao (04 14, 1958), 64Google Scholar women in Hangchow City “volunteered” to swallow live tadpoles 3 to 5 days after menstruation (24 on the first day and 20 on the second day). 43 per cent, of the women who went through the test became pregnant. The experiment was conducted by the Chekiang Research Institute of Chinese Medicine.

34 Ta Rung Pao, 02 5, 1958.Google Scholar

35 A visitor to China who has had an opportunity to visit one prophylactic station, reports that small boxes of condoms (unspecified number) sold for one yuan. Although this may not be representative of China, this sum is equivalent to about 2 per cent, of the average monthly wage of an urban worker and totally out of reach for an average peasant.

36 Hsin Chien-she, No. 11, 11 7, 1959.Google Scholar

37 Most of the attacks on Ma were carried by the December issue of Hsin Chien-she and in several issues of the newspaper Kuang-ming Jih-pao.

38 Hsin Chien-she, No. 1, 01 1, 1960.Google Scholar

39 New York Times, 04 17, 1960.Google Scholar

40 For example, an illustration of the continuing encouragement of birth control may be found in a “letters to the editor” section of one women's magazine. A young woman wrote in complaining that although she wanted to “contribute to socialist construction” and not be tied down toy an additional child (she already had two), her husband felt that the use of contraceptives “is not necessary and is very troublesome.” In a lengthy reply, the editor pointed out that if she could give her husband “a clear picture of the reasons for the necessity of practising contraception” the great difficulties arising from the birth of too many children at short intervals could be avoided (Chung-kuo Fu-nu, No. 14, 07 16, 1959).Google Scholar

41 Chung, Su, “Facts About China's Population,” Peking Review, 07 1, 1958.Google Scholar