Does Population Control = Safe Sex?
China has faced a lot of flak over its family planning policies, specifically the one-child policy initiated by Deng Xiao Ping meant to curtail population growth the type of growth explosion Mao hoped for in the 1950s and 1960s, the type of explosion that could lead to crucial food, water, employment and space shortages as Vaclav Smil discussed in his book, China’s Environmental Crisis. According to official Chinese estimates, the one-child policy cut China’s population growth by 330 million people. But that success has been ignored by much of the international community due to draconian state-sponsored measures to enforce the policy, including state permits for child-births, forced abortions and sterilizations and hefty fines for offenders. The reality of the situation in China, especially in the mid to late 1980s, is much different from the reality US President George Bush and the New Religious Right held up to support cutting UN Population Fund (UNFPA) aid by $34 million last year.
