Special
Report: China
Abortions changing social makeup
By THOMAS C. FOX
The highway to Beijing from the
airport is wide, straight and clean. The trip takes 30 minutes. As if signaling
kilometer markers, uniformed soldiers, standing at attention, punctuate the
route.
We checked into the Gloria Plaza Hotel, a modern twenty-some story
complex with spacious lobby and clean rooms. It seemed to accommodate mostly
Chinese businessmen, Asian tourists and a few group tours from the states. This
appeared to be the case in each hotel we stayed in during our six-city tour
organized by an efficiently operated, government-sponsored tourist agency.
A Chinese English-speaking tour guide, with a solid understanding
of Western culture, accompanied us throughout our trip. Local guides met us at
airports and ushered us to awaiting buses. Each night before leaving a city we
placed our luggage outside our hotel rooms -- and each time the baggage showed
up the next day in our new hotel.
The view out my 12th-floor room window onto a sprawling Beijing
each morning was clouded by a thick brownish-orange haze that stayed through
the day. Chinas growing energy appetite has been fueled by the ever
greater need to burn low-grade, high-sulfur-content coal. Additional pollutants
have been generated by greater numbers of automobiles, buses and trucks. The
capitals 1.2 million automobiles now compete with its 5 million
bicycles.
Many cities, particularly in the north, exceed the World Health
Organization pollution standards by five or six times. When I asked about
Chinas pollution problem, I was reminded more than once that the United
States is responsible for nearly 10 times Chinas greenhouse gas
emissions.
Chinas population is daunting. It has 22 percent of the
worlds population but rests on only 7 percent of the worlds arable
land. It is difficult to imagine governing a population of 1.3 billion or
nearly one quarter of all the worlds people.
Population control
More than two decades ago, the Chinese leadership concluded the
nation would never advance if population continued to outpace development. So
in the 1970s, China introduced its controversial one-child-per-couple policy.
Except for ethnic minorities, Chinas parents are allowed only one child.
Any subsequent child is frowned on. Reports of forced abortions have been
common, especially in rural areas. Second children must be raised without any
social benefits, including subsidized education. Further, families with more
than one child pay special fees and taxes.
Almost all I spoke with defended the policy. If they disagreed,
few would dare say so. Catholic leaders deferred from addressing the issue when
asked. They are in a difficult position of having to pay lip service to the
policy or suffer the consequences. One evening, however, I spoke with a
Catholic woman who told me she is appalled by the policy and the way it has led
to the abortion of female fetuses. She added, however, that she recognized the
reasons behind the policy, saying that crowding is an enormous problem in China
where there are no simple answers.
It is said that computers are revolutionizing modern China, but
others have said that the machine that has most shaped life in the past 20
years is the ultrasound scanner. By the early 1990s, China was importing more
than 2,000 scanners yearly and making 10,000 of its own. All this allegedly to
improve the nations health care but in reality to search and destroy
female fetuses. If a couple is to have only one child, most prefer a boy. As an
adult, he will carry on the name and more likely be able to provide financial
support.
One Chinese demographer estimated that the Chinese were operating
100,000 scanners in 1990. An early 1990s government-sponsored survey found the
sex ratio for newborn infants -- normally 100 boys to 106 girls -- had reached
118.5 boys for every 100 girls. This means that more than 12 percent of Chinese
infant girls -- 1.7 million -- were missing each year.
Officially, sex choice abortions are strictly forbidden. But the
practice goes on -- and Chinas growth rate has slowed dramatically.
Crowded streets
One morning in Beijing, our group headed out by bus down the
Avenue of Eternal Peace, a large boulevard that runs east and west alongside
the Forbidden City, Beijings traditional home of its emperors. We saw
scores of merchants in blue smocks with white kerchiefs on their heads who had
stacked mounds of winter cabbages along the streets. These squared-off mounds
ran for blocks. The merchants, we were told, continue selling cabbages as
hedges against winter famine. Our guide seemed embarrassed to explain this to
us, saying that China had vanquished famine. He admitted, however, that old
habits -- and fears -- die hard.
On roadsides across the country, elderly Chinese worked as street
cleaners, sweeping debris with large straw brooms and placing it into carts
supported by large wheels. They work part-time earning money as part of a
government-sponsored social security program. The streets of the Chinese cities
we visited were clean and uncluttered.
Eleven million live in Beijing. China has many cities larger than
Chicago with names unrecognizable to most foreigners. Beijing has a boxlike
look to it. On street after street, one finds 15- to 20-story block-like
apartment buildings. Most look alike, square and made of brick.
Driving on a Beijing street can be a chilling experience. As our
bus moved through traffic, we were inches from the edge of a steady stream of
bicycles that moved along the outer lanes. At intersections, bike riders would
turn in front of cars and trucks in seeming defiance, seeming to stake their
lives on their dares. Occasionally, we saw accidents along the roads.
Development is taking its toll.
National Catholic Reporter, January 29,
1999
|