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Infanticide in China

Li Jianguo and Zhang Xiaoying

THE NEW YORK TIMES, MONDAY, APRIL 11, 1983

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According to news reports in China's dailies, during the last two years large numbers of female infants have been butchered, drowned or left to die, and numbers of women have suffered gross maltreatment as a result of nation-wide implementation of the Government's population control policy. This shocking situation, which the Government must take immediate steps to stop, deserves to be brought to the attention of the United Nations.

We learn, from The People's Daily, The Liberation Daily, The Worker's Daily, Canton Evening News and The Chinese Youth that these illegal incidents hap-pen not only in villages but in cities as well. In the areas most seriously affected, female infants and women who have given birth to female infants have been forced to die. As a result, nationwide, male infants have begun to far outnumber female infants.

The Government's birth-control policy has reduced population growth rate to 1.2 percent -- it is 2 percent in other developing countries -- but the rate reportedly was creeping toward 1.3 of 1.4 percent, and this means the Government may not meet the 1.2 billion target set for the year 2000. A census last July put the population at 1,008,175,288 -- five million more than was expected. The customary preference for a male child, pressure to limit new families to just one child, bonuses for cooperating parents and a warning that families who have more than one will be financially penalized inevitably have led to infanticide.

On March 3, The People's Daily said: "At present, the phenomena of butchering, drowning and leaving to die female infants and maltreating women who have given birth to female infants have been very serious. It has become a grave social problem." The People's Daily said, on Jan, 31, that because of investigations and statistics from Shenyang, Anshan, Benxi and six other cities, in the last year 196 women went to local offices of the Chinese Women's Association to report maltreatment." Apparently, the most seriously affected provinces are Anhui, Liaoning, handong, Hebei, Guangdong and Sichuan.

Both of us, citizens of the People's Republic of China, are deeply ashamed of, and mortified by, this utter barbarism and disregard of humanity. We are filled with boundless indignation that during this last quarter of the 20th century such atrocities take place in our country. They reflect, on the one hand, the persistence of feudal thought and the traditional indifference to the welfare of women and

female children, and on the other, the backward, benighted conditions of poverty and ignorance under which most parts of China still lives.

But traditional prejudice and economic backwardness notwithstanding, we strongly feel that all elements of our Government concerned with implementation of the new population policy should be held directly accountable for the prevalence of such tragic incidents. Infanticide need not be an inevitable outcome of the policy. Apparently, the affected units and organizations have not adopted a policy of "gentle persuasion and education" to achieve the desired goal of birth control and population control but have callously exerted political pressures and adopted extreme political measure for implementation of the policy.

It is true that the population-control policy has effectively reduced China's population growth. Nevertheless, these other, unintended results of such a policy contradict fundamental values of humanism, ethics and civilization. The government, by permitting the news reports of the atrocities, obviously indicates that it opposed them. But, deplorably, it has not exercised its power to stop them, as far as we know.

Ironically, Qian Xinzh-ong, chairman of the Chinese National Committee on Birth Control and Population Planning, in June is to come to the United Nations to receive an award as the representative of the country that has been most effective in implementing birth control and population planning. But if China has curtailed population growth and lengthened the life of an average individual at the tragic expense of the lives of newborn girls, would it not be the greatest irony possible for Mr. Qian to receive this award at this time?

Because of this situation, we hope that the Secretary General, Javier Perez de Cuellar, will take appropriate action to inform the concerned United Nations agencies -- with the full cooperation of the Chinese Government -- so that they may start a detailed investigation of this matter and, using all the resources at their command, end these horrors as soon as possible. To protect its dignity, we suggest that the United Nations should postpone giving Mr. Qian the award pending an investigation by responsible United Nations bodies and a report from Peking that this deplorable situation has ceased.

Dear Sir (from the writer),

In 1982 a lot of bad things were done in China. In China? What to you think about of the other countries. Children were killed. In 1928? Or in 1882? In New York? Or in 1838? For Blacks, too? Whites? Killing infant babies! Unborn? In slavery? How? Now? For what reason? Do we still need more men for the "War Machine"? "What’s to do?" After the 18 year older, who will be living? The baby? You? The Greek’s child? Catholic’s child? Could you have done better? Or the Jewish child? Killed? Or if that child kills some other child? Or in prison. Why? How? Now? Try it. Tell it to the Lord, and to another person.

JT(1-12-1299)

Li Jianguo and Zhang Xiaoyingthese are pseudonyms--are students from the People's Republic of China who are studying in the United States. They intend to return to China.

Other Ancient Courtiers did the same thing: they had ideas about "killing infant babies!"

The Greeks of SPARTA: In ancient Sparta, the purpose of education was to produce a well-drilled, well-disciplined marchine army. Spartans believed in a life of discipline, self-denial, and simplicity. They were very loyal to the state of Sparta. Every Spartan, male or female, was required to have a perfect body. When babies were born in ancient Sparta, Spartan soldiers would come by the house and check the baby. If the baby did not appear healthy and strong, the infant was taken away, and left to die on a hillside, or taken away to be trained as a slave (a helot). Babies who passed this examination were assigned membership in a brotherhood or sisterhood, usually the same one to which their father or mother belonged.

Daily Life Ancient Greece

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