| That's not what they're worried about. At all. Forget PR talking points for a minute and think about the very real relationship between macroeconomics and empires. THAT is party elite care about here. The Party forced the population to HAVE fewer children in 1980. They did this primarily to jump start their economic modernization plans. Moreover, they figured everyone would start having kids at replacement rates second they lifted the rules. If that happened, they'd be able to consolidate their economic gains. Economic modernization worked. The kids part...not so much. In fact, there's reason to believe (e.g., maternity store receipts) that their birth rates will look like Japan's or Korea's. To put it another way, not only are people having fewer kids, they're having far fewer kids than Westerners with equivalent per capital wealth/income are. If that happens, China may not be able to consolidate their economic or international political gains. THAT is what Chinese elites are really worried about. I, personally, am interested in the elephants in the room. For starters, my lesbian friends and I really wonder if the Chinese censorship machine are responsible for erasing lesbians from Western media spaces -- and especially LGBT spaces. Everyone hears plenty about bi and trans women, but lesbians? Nope. But we're still here. While I'm not the only one who's noticed this erasure, I think I may be the only one who's also noticed how China's quietly been rolling out aspects of its online censorship system in the West over the past ten years -- and how it's REALLY intensified over the past five (i.e., doxxing, career ruining for anyone with political opinions threatening to the current leaders, sex pic leaks against political opponents, etc.). Guess too many of the Chinese kids studying abroad decided to stay abroad, so it's time to make the English internet feel exactly the Chinese one. Sadly, now the air sucks just as much here. Thanks guys. More substantively, I find it interesting that absolutely no one will discuss how women in fully economically developed Confucian societies have FAR fewer children than equally economically developed non-Confucian societies (e.g., South Korea and Japan vs. Italy and France). |