Posted on 10/04/2005 5:02:23 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
China: Bachelor bomb
Dudley L. Poston Jr. and Peter A. Morrison International Herald Tribune
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2005
SANTA MONICA, California In a trend fraught with troubling political and social implications, China will soon find itself with a marriage-age population remarkably out of balance, with about 23 million more young men than women available for them to marry in this decade and the next - what demographers term a "marriage squeeze."
This impending surplus of unattached young men could be a driving force behind increased crime, explosive epidemics of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, and even international threats to the security of other nations. Yet the Chinese government has done little to address its demographic destiny.
The coming squeeze is largely the legacy of the government's one-child policy, along with societal modernization. As a result, the nation's fertility rate has fallen dramatically, from around 6 children per woman in the 1960s to around 1.7 currently.
But the society's strong cultural preference for sons has not changed. In recent decades, ready access to ultrasound technology has enabled parents to learn the sex of their unborn children and has led to widespread female-specific abortion.
The demographic consequence is now apparent. Most societies exhibit biologically natural sex ratios at birth of around 105 baby boys born for every 100 baby girls, yielding roughly equal numbers of prospective brides and grooms as generations reach marriageable age. This normal pattern emerges where human interventions don't disturb biology.
But China has departed markedly from this natural pattern since the 1980s. Its sex ratio at birth has hovered between 115 and 120 baby boys for every 100 baby girls in recent years, a level that renders roughly one of every eight men in a generation "surplus."
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
China is already dumping Han population into Xinjiang and Tibet offering incentives to would-be Han settlers. I suspect that some of these settlers first came as soldiers and stayed there. This pattern could become more pronounced in the future.
I know that PLA was downsized in manpower and concentrate more on modern military hardwares. However, it is possible that China may organize large additional paramilitary forces comprised of these surplus young males. PLA would first come in and do military battle, destroying opponent's military. Then the paramilitary forces follow into the conquered area in large numbers, consolidating occupation, wiping out any lingering resistances, and eventually settling on the occupied area, which would ensure that the new territory would stay in Chinese empire.
Ping!
Can't they see the writing on the Wall?
I was at a Chinese restaurant and I noticed that the placemat was a Chinese "Year of the..." (insert your birthyear / get the animal that represents you) thingy.
I am Year of the Horse. I noticed that my wife is Year of the Rat. It instructed that a Horse must NEVER marry a Rat.
Hmmm... that explains a lot.
Looks like Chinese women are sitting on a gold mine.
Maybe there will be a market for China male mail order brides in San Francisco.
Or in constant fear of being kidnapped. Two sides of the same coin.
To paraphrase Mark Steyn, they are either going to have to be expansionist or become the first gay superpower since Sparta.
Interesting point. Also, with Chinese people having increased access to travel, there may also be more Chinese men marrying foreign women and taking them to their homeland.
Sort of like an old Beach Boys song ... (kinda): "Two girls for eveeeery guuuuy ...."
Maybe the Chinese government doesn't see much of a problem? Crime is troublesome, of course ... but epidemic diseases will kill people, which suits their goal of lower population growth, and they didn't need a surplus of young men as an excuse to threaten the security of other nations!
That's what they get for aborting females.
Most of these surplus males are from poor family. They make barely enough to get themselves fed. Well-off Chinese can travel abroad and get brides. However, it would not be enough to mitigate bride shortage in China.
Sounds like a good market for Kleenex and HBO.
But there are no longer any good adjoining thinly-inhabited areas available. Siberia, central Asia, Mongolia--there are good reasons why few people live there. Tibet is marginal at best.
A traditional part of expansionist war was to kill enemy males and seize their women. This would suit them today, but modern warfare doesn't lend itself to this approach.
That doesn't sound that bad. If 105 male to 100 females yields equal partners. That leaves 10 to 15% unmarried.
Right now, we have reverse ratios of that magnitude of single females to single males. But the excess females aren't out committing crimes.
Very true. And also the consequence of a culture which regards women as a lower form of life. I've read that India is beginning to experience a similar trend.
I doubt that Chinese regime would want these guys to become a social problem. These surplus males could repeat the historically established pattern of large-scale peasant rebellion. Yellow Turbans in Late Han dynasty, Maitreya Cult in waning days of Mongol Empire, all the way down to Taiping, and Boxer Rebellion in late 19th century. Such rebellions are dynasty breakers. In all these cases, the population certainly dropped dramatically for sure, but the dynasty went down as well.
There is no upside for letting these males create social problems, HIV or other crimes, because it may well lead to large scale social rebellion and chaos.
See my comments in Reply #1. In the modern variation of conquest scenario, large paramilitary force can come in after regular forces defeated the opponent's military. The paramilitary force would wipe out lingering resistance from (most likely local male) population with its massive manpower, and consolidate the occupation. Then they settle there, marrying local women.
Most American women appear to be under that impression as well.
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