The Chinese government’s attitude to reproduction has veered from population-boosting policies at one extreme to the “one child” approach at the other. Now the economic consequences of the policies could eclipse even the demographic time bomb of 40 million “extra” males, finds Alexander Monro
“OUR views on population should change. In the past I said that we could manage with 800 million. Now I think that 1 billion would be no cause for alarm.” When Mao Zedong made this announcement in August 1958, it brought to an end the birth control policies that the Chinese Communist Party had pursued in the early years of the republic’s…
