Jonathan Watts - When a Billion Chinese Jump

The novel was blocked. The authorities issued a “three noes” order: no distribution, no sales, and no promotion. But the grassroots campaign to expose the AIDS villages and support the victims had some success. The government now acknowledges the problem and has been providing free retroviral drugs to the people infected.

32. James Kynge, China Shakes the World: A Titan’s Rise and Troubled Future—and the Challenge for America (Houghton Mifflin, 2006), p. 48.

33. “When I look at today’s Chinese landscape, so much of which bears the unmistakable footprint of man, the earth seems not so much bad as simply tired. The lands that make up China have done a yeoman’s job in providing sustenance for untold millions, ceaselessly and without rest for a few thousand years. They seem to be asking for a bit of a break” (Richard Harris, Wildlife Conservation in China: Preserving the Habitat of China’s Wild West [East Gate, 2008], p. 10).

34. Shapiro, Mao’s War Against Nature, p. 30; Judith Banister, “Population, Public Health and the Environment in China,” in R. L. Edmonds (ed.), Managing the Chinese Environment (Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 262–91.

35. Economy, The River Runs Black, p. 42.

36. By replacing the poll tax (which penalized families for having children) with a land tax (which encouraged families to breed so they would have more hands in the fields to raise productivity).

37. Becker, Hungry Ghosts, p. 10.

38. Frank Dikötter, “The Limits of Benevolence: Wang Shiduo (1802–1889) and Population Control,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 55, 1 (1992), p. 110.

39. Historically, one in five Chinese males have been lifelong bachelors (James Lee and Wang Feng, One Quarter of Humanity: Malthusian Mythology and Chinese Realities, 1700–2000 [Harvard University Press, 2001]).

40. Shapiro, Mao’s War Against Nature, p. 33.

41. Ibid., p. 22.

42. Mortality rates also fell thanks to the introduction of “barefoot doctors” (local farmers who have undergone basic medical training) and a lifestyle free from cigarettes and alcohol, which most people were too poor to buy.

43. After Mao’s death, Ma was rehabilitated, and his arguments were accepted. The realization that China has reached an unsustainable size of population came disastrously late. If Ma’s suggestions had been adopted in the 1950s, China could have several hundred million fewer people today and many of the country’s environmental strains would be considerably reduced. This is reflected in a bitterly worded inscription in Ma’s hometown of Shengzhou, which reads: “Criticise one person, give birth to several million additional people” (Shapiro, Mao’s War Against Nature, p. 45).

44. Philip Pan, Out of Mao’s Shadow: The Struggle for the Soul of a New China (Picador Asia, 2008), p. 302.

45. China’s total fertility rate fell from 5.4 children per woman in 1970 to 2.8 in 1979.

46. The “one-child policy” does not mean every couple is restricted to a single child. The single-child rule is enforced in most cities, but in the countryside most families can have a second child if the first is a girl. Ethnic minorities, particularly in sparsely populated regions such as Xinjiang, are often allowed three children. In 1980, the Marriage Law made procreational restraint a legal obligation for couples. In 1982, this was upgraded to a constitutional requirement. “Both husband and wife have the duty to practice family planning” (Article 49). See Isabelle Attané, “China’s Family Planning Policy: An Overview of Its Past and Future,” Studies in Family Planning 33, 1 (2002): 103–13.

47. Pan, Out of Mao’s Shadow, p. 305. Near-term abortion is far from the norm, but neither is it unheard of. Chen Guangchang, a blind activist in Shandong, was imprisoned when he tried to draw attention to the sometimes brutal enforcement of family-planning policy.

48. Xinhua, “China’s Family Planning Policy Benefits Country, World,” October 24, 2008. I have heard rumors that China might try to claim carbon credits for the “one-child” policy: the fix for Mao’s demographic mistakes hawked as a gift to the planet.

49. Human numbers are a big factor in environmental impact assessments. In a landmark 1970s study, Paul Ehrlich and others described the relationship formulaically as IPAT (Impact = Population × Affluence × Technology; see www.stirpat.org). Some scholars believe this understates the influence of culture and religion. Others argue that the impact is more direct. Qu Geping, one of the earliest and most influential Chinese environmentalists, describes human numbers and ecological degradation as two sides of the same coin (Qu Geping and Li Jinchang, Population and the Environment in China [Lynne Rienner, 1994]).

50. I spoke to a gynecologist in Yunnan who admitted such practices were common in the recent past, although she said they were no longer used.

51. Beijing’s mandarins argue that they did not have the educational, financial, or bureaucratic tools to effect demographic change in any other way. But this claim is contentious. Birthrates were falling rapidly even before the one-child policy was implemented. Studies by the United Nations suggested rising incomes and smart economic policies were more effective than coercion in limiting births. Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, and Japan all achieved a lower fertility rate than mainland China without taking such draconian measures.

52. Laurel Bossen, “Missing Girls, Land and Population Controls in Rural China,” in Isabelle Attané and Christophe Z. Guilmoto (eds.), Watering the Neighbour’s Garden: The Growing Demographic Female Deficit in Asia, Committee for International Cooperation in National Research in Demography, 2007, www.cicred.org.

53. Ma, China’s Water Crisis, p. 14.

54. Henan uses more chemical fertilizer in China than other provinces: over 6 million tons, or 836 kilograms per hectare (Xinhua, “Henan Releases Environmental Data. Good and Bad News for Environmental Protection,” June 4, 2009).

55. In Henan and ten other provinces, government studies in 2002 linked the lack of iodine with 10-point-lower-than-average intelligence quotients in the worst affected areas. Measures have subsequently been taken to provide iodine supplements (Xinhua, “More Than 90 Percent of Chinese Residents Using Qualified Iodized Salt,” May 16, 2006).

56. It is estimated that in China a baby is born with physical defects every thirty seconds because of the country’s degrading environment (Chen Jia, “Birth Defects Soar Due to Pollution,” China Daily, January 31, 2009).

1. Cited in Mark Elvin, Retreat of the Elephants: An Environmental History of China (Yale University Press, 2004), p. 108.

2. The following account is based on interviews with Meng Xianyou, the Beijing News, and earlier research for my “On a Diet of Coal, Urine and Grim Jokes, Brothers Tunnel Their Way Back to Life,” Guardian, August 29, 2007.

3. In 2007, 76.6 percent of all the energy China produced came from coal ( National Statistical Yearbook 2008 [China National Bureau of Statistics, 2008]). The global average is 40 percent (Mao Yushi, Sheng Hong, and Yang Fuqiang, “True Cost of Coal” (Greenpeace, the Energy Foundation, and WWF, October 27, 2008).

4. According to the World Health Organization, the upper limit ought to be 50.

5. “‘The fact that the rate of birth defects in Shanxi Province is higher is related to environmental pollution caused by the high level of energy production and burning of coal,’ said Pan Xiaochuan, a professor from Peking University’s Occupational and Environmental Health Department” (Phyllis Xu and Lucy Hornby, “Birth Defects Show Human Price of Coal,” Reuters, June 23, 2009).