So far, 2021 has been cruel to unhappy Chinese couples. The first blow came on Jan. 1, when a new law went into effect mandating a 30-day cooling-off period for those seeking a divorce. Then, in February, couples that were still seeking to split up found themselves struggling to find online appointments. In parts of Shanghai and Shenzhen, the calendar was backed up for weeks. In Guangzhou, appointments were so scarce that scalpers sold them.
China’s government isn’t apologizing. For years, it took a hands-off approach to marriage and divorce. But steep recent declines in the country’s birth rate are changing minds at the top. A government that once sought to discourage childbearing is now resurrecting traditional and often sexist notions of family and gender to promote it.
The article explains the history of government intervention there into marriage laws. The concern with the birthrate has led to government badgering of women:
...the end of the one-child policy in 2016 had no meaningful impact on the country’s birth rate. In 2019, the number of births fell 4%, to 10.6 million, China’s lowest level since 1961.I wonder how popular abortion is now in that country? I mean, we know it was used to help enforce the one child policy, but now that they want more kids, wouldn't they just consider it making it harder to obtain?
That has left the government eager to find scapegoats as it abandons decades of anti-natalism for an increasingly coercive pro-natalism. Last week, the National Health Commission outlined the factors that, in its view, are impacting fertility in China’s economically depressed northeast region: “economic burdens, infant and child care, and female career development.” The commission is no outlier. About a decade ago, Chinese media began referring to working, unmarried women over the age of 27 by the derogatory term “leftover women,” expressing an anti-feminist (and pro-natalist) attitude that has persisted ever since.
Reports say that they are being, shall we say, unsubtle about its use for the Uighurs:
The state regularly subjects minority women to pregnancy checks, and forces intrauterine devices, sterilization and even abortion on hundreds of thousands, the interviews and data show. Even while the use of IUDs and sterilization has fallen nationwide, it is rising sharply in Xinjiang.
The population control measures are backed by mass detention both as a threat and as a punishment for failure to comply. Having too many children is a major reason people are sent to detention camps, the AP found, with the parents of three or more ripped away from their families unless they can pay huge fines. Police raid homes, terrifying parents as they search for hidden children.
It's pretty incredible, their attitude to controlling society.
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