One Child Program Sucks for Girls

...and everyone else, over the long haul.

China's one-child family planning policy is generating serious long term problems for China and possibly for the world.

Because boys will carry on the family name, are more able to help with physical labor, and are just more valued culturally, people have responded to the one-child rule with abortion or infanticide of baby girls. As a result, the disproportionate ratio of boys to girls has skyrocketed.

From LifeNews:
The eastern city of Lianyungang is one of the worst offenders, according to a BBC
report, with 163.5 boys for every 100 girls four years old or younger.

But it's not alone as the family planning group reports that 99 cities out of 125 surveyed had ratios higher than 125-100.

But don't think fewer women will increase their standing or given them more power. On the contrary, the gender imbalance has "already led to the selling of girl babies, forced marriages, sexual slavery, an increase in crime and a host of other social problems."

Long-term, a nation of mostly men will find themselves without partners and experts predict serious mental health issues and other negative effects. It will also lead to fewer children supporting their older parents and grandparents and a potential financial collapse or poverty as a result.

With a surplus of young men, many may also find the military much more appealing. Just imagine lots of young men with no possibility of settling down seeking adventure elsewhere in the form of conquests.

It's not nice to fool with Mother Nature by messing up the birth ratios of males and females. There could be hell to pay.

Who's Up for Chinese?

Let's see if I've got the whole list:

• tainted, deadly pet food
• seafood with unknown or banned compounds
• faulty tires
• lead in toys
• antifreeze in toothpaste
• unsafe medicines

and now.....pre-used, never washed chopsticks.

Did I leave anything out-- other than the things we just don't know about yet?

A Beijing factory recycled used chopsticks and sold up to 100,000 pairs a day without any form of disinfection, a newspaper said on Wednesday, the latest is a string of food and product safety scares.

Counterfeit, shoddy and dangerous products are widespread in China...

China, on track to overtake the United States this year as the world's second-largest exporter, lacks a basic food safety law and the manpower to enforce food and drug safety regulations at home or for export. Imports are generally carefully scrutinized.

A lack of business ethics and a spiritual vacuum after China embraced economic reforms in the late 1970s have been blamed for unscrupulous business practices and corruption.
Source

Okay, so the chopsticks didn't quite make it to the American market before the Chinese government discovered that used chopsticks were being resold on the Chinese market at an alarming rate sans disinfectant, but can anyone ho hum this away? Shouldn't we put the brakes on imports until China can deal with its domestic and export manufacturing? The safeguards just aren't in place. Of course, our economy is so tied in with China's now that they can wreck havoc by dumping bonds, etc.

h/t: Reformed Chicks Blabbing
Related posts: Time for a Ban, Blackmail, Chinese Style

China Frees Slaves

At least they're trying to do something:

China is still freeing people—including children—forced to work as slaves in illegal brick factories, two months after the scandal involving the brick yards was exposed, officials said Monday.

The scandal erupted in early June after children as young as 8 were abducted or recruited from bus and train stations with false promises of well-paying jobs and sold to kilns for about $65.

"Another 359 slave migrant workers have been rescued in Shanxi since late June, including 15 child workers and 121 mentally handicapped ones," said Xue Yanzhong, executive vice governor of Shanxi province.

I'm always amazed when someone looks at me and says, "People are basically good." Who does stuff like this?

Blackmail, Chinese Style

Blogger buddies at Reformed Chicks Blabbing and The Bos'un Locker both referenced this story of blackmail yesterday from the Telegraph:

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

The Chinese government has begun a concerted campaign of economic threats against the United States, hinting that it may liquidate its vast holding of US treasuries if Washington imposes trade sanctions to force a yuan revaluation.

Two officials at leading Communist Party bodies have given interviews in recent days warning - for the first time - that Beijing may use its $1.33 trillion of foreign reserves as a political weapon to counter pressure from the US Congress...

Described as China's "nuclear option" in the state media, such action could trigger a dollar crash at a time when the US currency is already breaking down through historic support levels.

It would also cause a spike in US bond yields, hammering the US housing market and perhaps tipping the economy into recession. It is estimated that China holds over $900bn in a mix of US bonds...

"Of course, China doesn't want any undesirable phenomenon in the global financial order," he added....

A bill drafted by a group of US senators, and backed by the Senate Finance Committee, calls for trade tariffs against Chinese goods as retaliation for alleged currency manipulation...

While tariffs generally aren't a good idea, this extreme threat from the Chinese to blow up our economy clearly demonstrates their underlying attitude toward the U.S. and our weakness.

Earlier we saw that the Chinese government's response to an FDA testing mandate was to claim it was "illegal under world trade rules." The FDA mandate came after tainted pet foods killed our pets, toothpaste and toys contained unsafe substances and "15 percent of farm-raised shrimp, eel and catfish contained dangerous or unapproved substances"--all courtesy of Chinese businesses. (see Time for a Ban?)

Granted this latest threat to nuke our economy is probably mere political posturing since the Chinese would damage their own economy greatly in the process, but for their threat to have any impact on the U.S. at all exposes our weakness. Although national debt often grows during times of war, the U.S. debt has been increasing for decades just to fund our normal operating expenses. Is it any surprise we are now blackmail victims? The debtor is, after all, the servant of the lender.

Time for a Ban?

Nearly two-thirds of Americans would support a ban on Chinese imports, a poll yesterday said.

Asked by pollster Zogby International whether they were concerned about buying Chinese products, 82 percent of respondents said yes and only 30 percent said they believed food imports from China were safe.

Some recent imports of seafood, toys, pet food and toothpaste from China have been mislabeled, contaminated or otherwise proven unsafe. Consumers consequently remain wary.

Meanwhile, in another report:

At least 1 million pounds of suspect Chinese seafood landed on American store shelves and dinner plates despite a Food and Drug Administration order that the shipments first be screened for banned drugs or chemicals...

So, can the FDA competently handle their current workload and identify unsafe products? Carl R. Nielsen doesn't seem to think so. He should know. He oversaw import inspections at the FDA until 2005.

Normally, the FDA tests 1% of imports, but when food products fall under an import alert, they are supposed to be held "until private tests that cost importers thousands of dollars show the seafood is clean. Sometimes, the FDA double-checks those tests in its own labs. Products can be detained for months, irking importers."

China's response fails to generate confidence. On the one hand, they agree to inspect fish farms for use of dangerous drugs and chemicals while on the other they call "the FDA's testing mandate illegal under world trade rules."

Last summer, FDA labs began accumulating evidence that 15 percent of farm-raised shrimp, eel and catfish contained dangerous or unapproved substances. The agency started throwing individual companies on its watch list, and ultimately issued a sweeping mandate that all shrimp, eel and catfish raised on Chinese farms be stopped and tested.

Federal food safety officials said that while the seafood poses no immediate danger, long-term exposure could increase the risk of cancer or undermine the effectiveness of drugs used to fight outbreaks of disease...

The Chinese government and U.S. importers say the FDA overreacted. It would be impossible, importers say, for a person to eat enough seafood to be affected by the trace levels that FDA found of substances such as the antifungal chemical malachite green and the antibiotic Cipro.

It still smells fishy to me. With fifteen percent of imported seafood tainted, I don't think the FDA overreacted. Consumers expect food on American shelves to be safe. Would an American company be allowed to get away with this? I doubt it. Lawsuits would force them out of business if the government didn't clamp down on them first.

Also, after our pets have been killed, our toothpaste made unsafe for use, lead found in our children's toys, and our own food supply tainted, the burden should fall on the Chinese to pay for testing to prove their purity of their products. For us to pay through our taxes for all this testing would cause the true price of imports to be masked with Americans paying a hidden price for each product while believing it truly cheaper than American or other imported products. American companies would surely be run out of business for this kind of behavior. Why should foreign companies get a pass?