"Free-market" China Still Totalitarian

Because the Chinese economy has undergone such remarkable growth in recent decades, largely due to governmental support of a quasi free-market economy, it's easy to forget that the Communist leadership still exerts near total control over every other aspect of Chinese life. The following AsiaNews story is a perfect example of the brutality that typifies life under totalitarian rule...

Young Chinese mother kidnapped and sterilized to enforce one-child law. Hong Kong (AsiaNews / CHRD) - A young mother of 23 was kidnapped and forcibly sterilized by the members of the population control office in Anhui. The news was reported today by the CHRD (Chinese Human Rights Defenders).

Li Hongmei, 23, from Changfeng County, gave birth to her first child last June 21. On 15 July, the office for family planning kidnapped her along with her child. When her family reported her disappearance, Li’s mother, Yang Yonglian, was arrested by local police and detained for 10 days on charges of "hindering the course of official duties."

Later the family learned that Li, a mother for less than a month, had been brought to the hospital in Shuangfeng, where members of the population control forced her to sign consent for her sterilization.

CHRD said that after the forced sterilization Li became ill and is suffering from dizziness and chest pains. At present she is still in hospital.

To ensure the economic development programs, and hold down the population growth, since the late 70's China has adopted a one-child law which allows a couple to have only one child. In every province, city, village an annual quota of new births is set. In order to meet this quota representatives of the Office for population control resort to forced abortions (even in the ninth month), sterilization of women and men, huge fines of up to one or two years of annual wages for those who have a second child.

Sociologists and economists have long warned about the dangers of a quickly aging population. Moreover, the preference for male children among farmers has led to a widespread practice of selective abortions, female foeticide and has also created a serious imbalance in the ratio between males and females. Because of this, different personalities are demanding that the state change the one child law, allowing at least two children per couple. Each year, however, the government reaffirms the "common good" of the On Child Act.  

A Falun Gong peaceful protester in the "workers' paradise"

It's always for the "common good", isn't it? And while the economists and sociologists might criticize the one child law for its unintended societal consequences, the more obvious, and much more damaging, consequences are ignored. Not only has this law resulted in millions of innocent Chinese unborn babies and newly born infants being callously murdered and thrown in the garbage, but the cumulative effect on the moral sense of the Chinese people must be devastating. When the most innocent are destroyed without a second thought, respect for all human life suffers dramatically.

God bless the China Human Rights Defenders (CHRD). I suspect their work is not without its dangers. I was unable to access their website and assume it has been taken down.

Pray for them and for the Chinese people.