6 reasons not to worry about all those Chinese men

ARTICLE: Population Controls, Including Abortion, Spark Gender Imbalance in China; 30 Million More Men Expected in 15 Years, Friday, FOXNews.com, January 12, 2007

Spoke of this in BFA. The "bare branches" bit is way oversold.

First, many of these males are found in rural areas. Those who can make a good life will find a wife locally or import them from elsewhere in Asia. Not an historical first and not that hard. Middle-age Japanese men already importing Chinese wives.

Second, many of these men leave in undocumented fashion. Baby girls aborted or given up for adoption, but unattached males often sneak out as economic refugees in their early adulthood, which makes males the biggest village export from China right now (well-documented in NYT).

Third, by 2020 China will see 100 million of its citzens travel abroad each year, so personal access to foreign women hardly restricted.

Fourth, the notion of Chinese society casually sending off single sons to war is BS. In China they call it the 4-2-1 problem: 4 grandparents, 2 parents, one son to support all.

Fifth, China's PLA is moving away from bodies to capital, so little desire there to pack them up for war.

Sixth, the notion of social distress is mitigated by rising incomes, which facillitates for successful males the opportunities described above, and for unsuccessful ones, the chance to emmigrate (again, something that happens a lot).

Demographers tell us numbers but their track record on predicting social responses is very weak.

Bigger issue in my mind is rising elder population, mostly rural. To me, the excess-males-means-war scenario is yet another example of analysts trying to hold on to the China enemy image they so desperately desire. China has gone through, is going through now, and will go through in the future, so many harder issues that I tend to downplay the alleged profoundity of this trend. If China wasn't seeing so many rural males emmigrating now and wasn't opening up so much (to include a rapid rethink on sending off "unwanted daughters" (a historical blip soon to disappear as more childless Chinese couples begin to value girls more)), then I'd be worried, but all those things are happening.

Thanks to the reader who sent this in who might wish to remain nameless.

Comments

[Mark in Texas]

I have a modest proposal for the surplus males resulting in that Chinese gender imbalance. We can invade Iran. We can do it in a way that concentrates on exterminating the Iranian armed forces before they can disperse. That will go some distance towards creating a gender imbalance that complements the Chinese.

We can then fly in Chinese army divisions to take over and occupy Iran. They will have to deal with the million or so Basiji irregulars that will conduct a geurilla war against the occupation. The Chinese are ruthless enough to handle that in a way that will push Iran even farther in the direction of gender imbalance.

All we ask of the Chinese is that no more trouble comes out of Iran. They can have all the oil.

[Thomas Barnett]

Mark, You're sipping at the cup of Genghis Khan--or maybe Conan the Barbarian.

Put down that glass, man!

[nanheyangrouchaun]

Seeing as how the official gender ratio is already 120 to 100, China is already probably in the teens of millions of men who are lonely.Those six reasons are just more "green grass and blue skies" from another business writer.

First: Many of these males are in rural areas, the ones who can make a good life have left because they had the skills, health and strength to get a job. Girls flee the countryside for cities, leaving the LCD boys behind. As for importing them from other parts of Asia, kidnapping is more of the norm and that is done by local officials. Why would a girl leave her poor village at home to live in a poor village in China, never to see her family again according to Chinese custom?

Second: Contradicts the first. And the migrant workers are looked down upon (hairdressers are an exception). Urban girls won't touch laborers and laborers sit around the work site and hurl nasty comments at local girls who are with foreigners, old men, or anyone except them.

Third: These same migrant workers and peasant farmers will be able to afford to travel abroad? To where, North Korea? Don't read this the wrong way, but China is a buyers market for the women and they are leaving the lowest common denominators (the majority of migrant workers and peasant farmers) behind, most of these guys are really crude.

Fourth: The notion of teaching your kids to hate certain countries seems pretty absurd too.

Fifth: The PLA is moving to quality, but the PAP (People's Armed Police) is getting bigger and bigger, picking up the PLA's rejects and doing alot of recruiting. Some speculate that the PLA is for defeating a nation's military and the PAP is for territorial acquisition and suppression of civilians.

Sixth: Income rise for who? More like widening income gap. And where are the unsuccessful males going to emigrate too? The rest of Asia has alot of men for peasant work as well.

Even on "60 minutes" Leslie Stahl sat down with the head of China's family planning bureau and that women said that this is a very serious problem for national stability.

And lastly:http://www.shanghaiist.com/archives/2007/03/29/10_more_reasons.php