Thanks for this. I’ve been interested in this topic for a while as well.
As you mention China a bit in the article, I think it’s worth mentioning how “eugenics” is viewed in China at the moment.
The term eugenics (优生 yousheng or 优生学 youshengxue) has never really been taboo in China. You see it all the time—in political slogans and everyday speech—with more connection with modern medicine than the Nazis. You‘ll see crudely scribbled messages using eugenic language all over the countryside (the most common, until recently, being 少生优生,幸福一生 shaosheng yousheng, xingfu yisheng; translated as “Have few(er) and high(er)-quality (eugenic) children, and be happy your whole life!). You’ll also hear TV hosts and politicians discussing youshengxue as if it were as anodyne a concept as entomology. This forum post would read as nonsense to many Chinese people (the title would read as something like: “Most people endorse having healthy children”). You do get some exceptions, especially among foreign-educated people (see this Zhihu response (Chinese)), and I’m also unsure what (more western-influenced) HK/ Taiwanese people think about it.
The Baidu Baike (Chinese Wikipedia) first line is: “优生/Eugenics is the most important issue concerning marriages and families, it is a science that uses the principles of genetics to guarantee the normal survival ability of the next generation.” The ‘dark history’ of eugenics, particularly in Nazi Germany is mentioned briefly in one paragraph. See also the “Chinese Healthy Birth Science Association” http://www.chbsa.org/ (w/ google translate 中国优生科学协会 is “Chinese Eugenics Science Association”) website, with articles on a range of topics, from genetic testing to child nutrition.
I guess you could argue either way here. You could say that in China it’s good that you’re actually allowed to talk about this sensitive topic openly and rationally, without having a ridiculous and illogical cached concept where ‘wanting to have healthier children = nazi race science’. This is generally my experience and makes way more sense to me personally. If someone has distinctly dodgy views (spoiler alert: they do), you can argue with them without anyone using ‘but that’s eugenics’ to end the argument without actually addressing the issues.
But, from a consequentialist perspective, you could also say: “China doesn’t have a “eugenics taboo” and look at the consequences” (horrible one-child policy + forced sterilisations/ abortions + non-Han ethnic cleansing are seen as okay). You could also note that ‘extreme’ eugenic attitudes are incredibly common in China—people do care about the ‘superiority of the Chinese race’, and views regularly go way beyond those a more rational westerner would see as acceptable.
IIRC, China didn’t adopt the one-child policy based on traditional Chinese eugenics beliefs (优生 yousheng ). Rather, Deng Xiaoping’s advisors in the 1970s over-reacted to Western antinatalist, degrowth, eco-alarmist propaganda as promoted by Paul Ehrlich, the Club of Rome, and others. Then in the late 1970s they hired physicists untrained in demography to do simplistic models of China’s expected population growth, based on outdated, unreliable census data from the early 1960s. They panicked about Chinese ‘over-population’ because the West was panicking about ‘over-population’, and the one-child policy was the result. It was based only a little bit on Western or traditional Chinese eugenics; it was based mostly on eco-alarmism.
Yep, agreed (I haven’t read those books, but I broadly know the story). I wasn’t trying to imply that eugenics was the main cause of the one-child policy, but the two are definitely connected. Post-1CP, the state took a really active role in controlling how and when kids were born, compulsory sterilisation (mostly of females, despite vasectomies being safer) became normalised for ‘quality and quantity’ etc.
A stronger “eugenics taboo” could plausibly have limited the scope of the policy.
Fact updated: In recent days, China is encouraging young people to have more children, in order to fight population aging. It is now allowed to have 3 children per family. Despite the recent propaganda of having more children, lots of young people in China are not willing to have even one child because the higher education and/or marriage cost, and the birth rate keeps dropping.
Thanks for this. I’ve been interested in this topic for a while as well.
As you mention China a bit in the article, I think it’s worth mentioning how “eugenics” is viewed in China at the moment.
The term eugenics (优生 yousheng or 优生学 youshengxue) has never really been taboo in China. You see it all the time—in political slogans and everyday speech—with more connection with modern medicine than the Nazis. You‘ll see crudely scribbled messages using eugenic language all over the countryside (the most common, until recently, being 少生优生,幸福一生 shaosheng yousheng, xingfu yisheng; translated as “Have few(er) and high(er)-quality (eugenic) children, and be happy your whole life!). You’ll also hear TV hosts and politicians discussing youshengxue as if it were as anodyne a concept as entomology. This forum post would read as nonsense to many Chinese people (the title would read as something like: “Most people endorse having healthy children”). You do get some exceptions, especially among foreign-educated people (see this Zhihu response (Chinese)), and I’m also unsure what (more western-influenced) HK/ Taiwanese people think about it.
The Baidu Baike (Chinese Wikipedia) first line is: “优生/Eugenics is the most important issue concerning marriages and families, it is a science that uses the principles of genetics to guarantee the normal survival ability of the next generation.” The ‘dark history’ of eugenics, particularly in Nazi Germany is mentioned briefly in one paragraph. See also the “Chinese Healthy Birth Science Association” http://www.chbsa.org/ (w/ google translate 中国优生科学协会 is “Chinese Eugenics Science Association”) website, with articles on a range of topics, from genetic testing to child nutrition.
I guess you could argue either way here. You could say that in China it’s good that you’re actually allowed to talk about this sensitive topic openly and rationally, without having a ridiculous and illogical cached concept where ‘wanting to have healthier children = nazi race science’. This is generally my experience and makes way more sense to me personally. If someone has distinctly dodgy views (spoiler alert: they do), you can argue with them without anyone using ‘but that’s eugenics’ to end the argument without actually addressing the issues.
But, from a consequentialist perspective, you could also say: “China doesn’t have a “eugenics taboo” and look at the consequences” (horrible one-child policy + forced sterilisations/ abortions + non-Han ethnic cleansing are seen as okay). You could also note that ‘extreme’ eugenic attitudes are incredibly common in China—people do care about the ‘superiority of the Chinese race’, and views regularly go way beyond those a more rational westerner would see as acceptable.
IIRC, China didn’t adopt the one-child policy based on traditional Chinese eugenics beliefs (优生 yousheng ). Rather, Deng Xiaoping’s advisors in the 1970s over-reacted to Western antinatalist, degrowth, eco-alarmist propaganda as promoted by Paul Ehrlich, the Club of Rome, and others. Then in the late 1970s they hired physicists untrained in demography to do simplistic models of China’s expected population growth, based on outdated, unreliable census data from the early 1960s. They panicked about Chinese ‘over-population’ because the West was panicking about ‘over-population’, and the one-child policy was the result. It was based only a little bit on Western or traditional Chinese eugenics; it was based mostly on eco-alarmism.
For more details on this strange story, see ‘Imperfect Conceptions’ by Frank Dikotter, and ‘Governing China’s population’ and ‘Just one child’ by Susan Greenhalgh
Yep, agreed (I haven’t read those books, but I broadly know the story). I wasn’t trying to imply that eugenics was the main cause of the one-child policy, but the two are definitely connected. Post-1CP, the state took a really active role in controlling how and when kids were born, compulsory sterilisation (mostly of females, despite vasectomies being safer) became normalised for ‘quality and quantity’ etc.
A stronger “eugenics taboo” could plausibly have limited the scope of the policy.
Fact updated: In recent days, China is encouraging young people to have more children, in order to fight population aging. It is now allowed to have 3 children per family. Despite the recent propaganda of having more children, lots of young people in China are not willing to have even one child because the higher education and/or marriage cost, and the birth rate keeps dropping.