Chinese women have had it. Their response to Beijing’s demands for more children? No. 

Fed up with government harassment and wary of the sacrifices of child-rearing, many young women are putting themselves ahead of what Beijing and their families want. Their refusal has set off a crisis for the Communist Party, which desperately needs more babies to rejuvenate China’s aging population.

With the number of babies in free fall—fewer than 10 million were born in 2022, compared with around 16 million in 2012—China is headed toward a demographic collapse. China’s population, now around 1.4 billion, is likely to drop to just around half a billion by 2100, according to some projections. Women are taking the blame.

In October, Chinese Leader Xi Jinping urged the state-backed All-China Women’s Federation to “prevent and resolve risks in the women’s field,” according to an official account of the speech.

“It’s clear that he was not talking about risks faced by women but considering women as a major threat to social stability,” said Clyde Yicheng Wang, an assistant professor of politics at Washington and Lee University who studies Chinese government propaganda.

The State Council, China’s top government body, didn’t respond to questions about Beijing’s population policies.

  • VeganPizza69 Ⓥ@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    The capitalism part is culture too. You’re just describing the traditional capitalist practices of treating women like commodities to use as a type of fuckable home appliance. You’re using cultural language to describe commodity trade, inheritance, reproduction of human capital, property ownership, and the fact that only men were “real people” who could own capital.

    • qooqie@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I understand what you’re saying, but these Chinese cultural aspects go back far further than modern capitalism.

      • WeeSheep@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        They are part of trade too. Dowry paid, women as furniture/appliances, trading owners from father to husband. This is all part of the economy in trade and capitalism.

        • qooqie@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Hence modern capitalism. If trade in general is capitalism then every system is capitalism