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IV.
COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS – METHOD TO MADNESS – THE LESSER EVIL
FOR THE GREATER GOOD
Taking on man’s primal instincts is a difficult task. The instinct to breed is second only to the
instinct to live and the Global Depopulation Policy has challenged both. Not surprisingly, the
results are mixed.
1. CHINA’S One-Child Policy
111% population growth since 1960; TFR 1.6 (-73%); 400 million births prevented
Since its introduction in 1978, the One-Child Policy has prevented the birth of 400 million
Chinese. Without it, China, which has a population of 1.35 billion, would have had a population
of 1.75 billion, thus 30% more.
Prior to its introduction in 1978, Chairman
Mao encouraged large families and opposed
family planning programs. During the 30 years
that Mao Zedong was in office (1945-1976),
China grew from 540 to 940 million people
and thus nearly doubled its population. Had
the government done nothing and the same
growth levels would have continued, China
would now have nearly 2 billion people and
none of the prosperity that has made it the second most powerful economy in the world.
Market-based economic reforms coupled with population controls have catapulted China to
unprecedented prosperity. Its gross domestic product (GDP) took off as soon as the One-Child
Policy was implemented and in the ensuing three decades it grew 18-fold. China now has a per
capita income of $6,091.
There is no question that in purely economic terms the One-Child Policy, coupled with freemarket
reform, has been a phenomenal success. But what are the social and political drawbacks
of the policy
To better understand the following data readers will need a brief lesson in demographics, the
study of populations. A country’s population is the result of two primary factors, namely how
many people are born in any given year and how many die, thus the balance between fertility and
mortality. The population explosion started when our improved medicine and quality of life
enabled nearly all children to survive birth and the first critical years of life, while at the same
time extended people’s lives into old age.
To stop the population explosion governments began adopting family control measure to lower
fertility and set as their target an average of two children for every woman, which is known as
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