For lack of imagination…

China is retarded. Seriously.

How else would you be able to justify the country’s rationale that implementing a one-child policy in a society that is notorious for preferring sons over daughters is the best way to maintain economic stability? You can’t–unless you say that China is retarded–which I did, and even then the equation still doesn’t make any sense.

And now China is stuck with a population made up of 120 boys for every 100 girls. Maybe that doesn’t seem like very much–but if you consider that the country’s population stands at 1,313,973,713 people, there are about 716,115,674 boys for 597,858,039 girls–which leaves 118,257,635 boys whose existence was made possible because their older sisters had been aborted, and China now being forced to come to terms with the white elephant it was trying to ignore: “the largest, the highest, and the longest” gender imbalance in the world.”

As a Chinese person, I was always aware that only sons could carry on the family name and therefore most Asian families preferred sons over daughters. However, my family immigrated from China to Taiwan during the communist take-over, and there weren’t any restrictions on the number of children a family could have–thus, my dad has a sister and my mom has 5 brothers and sisters. My parents’ siblings all have at least two children each, some of whom have kids of their own, and no one cares if there are daughters in the mix. To be fair, the fact that Taiwan gives its citizens the freedom of reproduction makes it easier to ignore the traditional view that having sons is better than having daughters; plus, it is a much more open-minded society than China, and thus most people have no problems accepting the fact that certain traditions have become obsolete and should not be passed on. That’s not to say the sons-over-daughters thing is dead, but it’s not a concern in Taiwan like it is in China.

What is kind of frustrating about China’s sudden epiphany is that it somehow failed to realize that a shortage of females was the only obvious outcome to their one-child policy. I mean, you only need common sense to realize that:

one-child policy + preference for son + aborting female fetuses = men, men, men

Do I have to say it? DUH. DUH. DUH. Where does it seem even remotely possible that the formula would be:

one-child policy + preference for son + aborting female fetuses = becoming the next super power of the world with a balanced population

And you know what is oddly ironic about this whole mess? China’s one-child policy led to a surge in abortions of female fetuses because these families knew that the only way they could continue on the family name was to use their one-child privilege on a son–but now, there aren’t even enough women for these sons to continue the family name with. Good looking out, people, you killed your daughters for nothing.

What I hope ends up happening is that the shortage of women in China is going to start making daughters the new trend in procreation, because now families that have chosen to keep their daughters are going to be able to pick and choose which bachelors their daughters marry. And no longer is it going to be “I’ll give you a dowry if you marry my daughter;” it’s  now going to be “you’re going to do a lot better than selling your soul to the devil if you want my daughter.” The desperation of men who are obligated to have a kid and carry on the family name knows no bounds—and families should definitely capitalize on it…if not for themselves, then for the 750,000 girls who were aborted because of a stupid policy and a tradition that has no place in modern societies.