7 Deadly Scenarios by Andrew Krepinevich

Author:Andrew Krepinevich
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780553905618
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2009-01-14T21:00:00+00:00

THE LITTLE VIOLENT EMPERORS

SINCE THE 1980S, CHINA’S ONE-CHILD POLICY AND THE COUNTRY’S cultural valuing of males over females, combined with prenatal sex identification and sex-selective abortions, have produced a worrisome sex-ratio imbalance that the leadership has failed to address. Historically, the sex ratio between boys and girls has stood at roughly 103-105:100. That is, for every 100 girls that are born, one could expect between 103 and 105 boys to be born. In 1982, at around the start of the one-child policy, China’s male:female birth ratio stood at 1.09:1.00. By 1995 it was 1.16:1.00. In 2000 the ratio had grown to 1.2:1.0. And by 2010 it had advanced to 1.28:1.00.10 While data are now more difficult to come by, current (2017) estimates have the ratio still exceeding 1.2:1.0.11 Today over 95 percent of China’s unmarried population in the 28-49 age cohort is male. Privately, the Chinese leadership talks of a “demographic death spiral” and a “depopulation time bomb.”12 Their fear is driven by the structural problem that the sex-ratio imbalance has created. Even if the government were to encourage larger families, there are relatively fewer females to accommodate such a policy than in recent previous generations. As one respected demographer put it: “One male can impregnate many females; it doesn’t work the other way ’round.”13 Where Chinese women appear in relatively large numbers is in the elderly cohort, beyond the years of childbearing.

As large numbers of unmarried males have entered, and are entering, adulthood, many of these “barren branches”14 have little prospect of ever finding a mate. Experts estimate that by 2020 China will have 30 million more men of marriageable age than women.15 How much does this matter? Some argue that, as the surplus male demographic increases, the result will be considerable internal instability. Young adult males commit the preponderance of violence within a society, and most of this group’s violence is caused by unattached males. Surplus males typically come from the lowest socioeconomic class (hence their difficulty in attracting a mate), suffer from low self-esteem, and feel alienated from (and rejected by) “mainstream” society. Some scholars, studying the consequences of historical cases of profound sex-ratio imbalances, argue that this situation may set the stage for high levels of internal stability. They also ominously note that at times governments faced with this prospect have attempted to redirect that frustration against external rivals.16

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