IHT: "According to villagers and witness accounts posted on the Internet, officials in several parts of Guangxi mobilized their largest effort in years to roll back population growth by instituting mandatory health checks for women and forcing pregnant women who did not have approval to give birth to abort fetuses.Several people said officials also imposed fines starting at 500 yuan and ranging as high as 70,000 yuan, or $65 to $9,000, on families that had violated birth control measures any time since 1980. The new tax, called a "social child-raising fee," was collected even though the vast majority of violators had already paid fines in the past, the people said.
According to an account published on a Web forum called Longtan, officials in Bobai County of Guangxi boasted that they had collected 7.8 million yuan in social child-raising fees from February through the end of April.
Many families objected strongly to the fees and refused to pay. Witnesses said in such cases villagers were detained, their homes searched and valuables, including electronic items and motorcycles, confiscated by the government.
"Worst of all, the gangsters used hammers and iron rods to destroy people's homes, while threatening that the next time it would be with bulldozers," said a local peasant, who identified himself as Nong Sheng and who faxed a petition letter complaining of the abuses to a reporter in Beijing.
...
Villagers and visitors to several counties of the Guangxi autonomous region in southwestern China said rioters smashed and burned government offices, overturned official vehicles and clashed with the riot police in a series of confrontations over the past four days."
This one-child policy is disgusting. It takes away one of the most basic freedoms of a family, punishes those who are trying to create more Chinese, and makes a massive bureaucracy of petty tyrants.
Surprise! When you repress peoples freedoms, this is what happens. They fight back. Now I do fear for these villagers lives, but at least they will go out standing for freedom and their own way of life.
And it seems every time I post on China, I get this question. "When will we be at war with the Chinese?"
Any thoughts? Because I don't think we will be at war with them.
You don't fight with whom you trade.
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10 comments:
The 1 Child policy is about as disgusting as you can get. Eugenical thought has been prevalent since the last century, particularly since the rise of evolution. Once we start to believe that certain human beings are better than others, or that human life is the same as a monkey's life (since we are all from the animals, after all).
In regards to China, we cannot even hope go to war with China because of our financial connections to them. Much of national deficit is directly related to the Chinese, and as along as that continues to hang over our heads, we can't even consider such a possibility.
I cannot see a war with China unless the Chinese have a go at Taiwan. I do hope the Yanks would not leave the Chinese to annex that island.
But the Chinese would lose any war against the USA.
Whether war with China is imminent or not is not for me to say. Hopefully it is not, for it would not be the same kind of war that Iraq is...not even close.
However, I do think there is a serious problem with us getting junk (even good junk), and China getting a bigger, better military in exchange (to oversimplify the matter).
Johnathan, eugenical thought. I like the phrase. :D
Matt, I think Taiwan is definetly the wild card in this deck.
KA, free trade is a wonderful thing. :D
Palm boy, would you:
1. sanction (more) government control of our trade with China to help the "deficit"
2. want a self-imposed boycotte of their goods, or
3. suggest nothing?
I would recommend, in the strongest possible terms, that we avoid sanctions with any foreign nation, the Chinese included. Our trade with Chinese manufacturers has done nothing but elevate our quality of life.
If you have a guilt trip everytime you buy Chinese products, then by all means boycott them. I won't, but I have no intention of stopping anyone else.
I think our government should adopt a Laize-fair additude in this matter, and realize how this 'defict' beniefits us.
Ie, I run a deficit with the grocery store. Is this a problem? Heck no! It is a vastly more effcient allocation of reasources. In the world we live in, the eastern nations, mexico, and often times African nations can manufacture products for a lower cost/higher quality/faster.
They do that, we make our way with other markets.
Taiwan may play out to be important, but last time I checked our record defending them hasn't exactly been oustanding, be that kicking them out of the Secuirity Council or poorly defending them during the communist takeover after WWII.
Hopefully, if something did happen, we would come to their defense.
Then again...you know who might be in office :/
I totally agree with you, just for future referance though, it is spelled "laissez faire" (french).
What scares me is this:
"The unfettered free market has been the most radically destructive force in American life in the last generation."
-Hillary Clinton
If Ms. Socialist gets elected, well we're all doomed.
Under, Thanks for the proper spelling. I was guessing at it. :D
Now that you put that up, I do remember her saying that earlier this year. Frightening.
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