GLOBAL BABY BUST BEGINS TO BITE: Out: One-Child Policy. In: Chinese City Urges Comrades to Do Their Part and Reproduce.

Howls of amazement and resentment followed in Chinese news outlets and on social media. Here are some reactions attached to one of many articles circulating online, this one from Sina.com:

“In those years you fined everywhere. You beat people, tore down homes, confiscated livestock, and forced people to abort. Today you want to force people to have a second child.” — Muranxuanxie lihua, Wuzhou, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region

“If the state gives me a million, I’ll have a child.” — Sichiyuan, Jinchang, Gansu Province

“If housing prices fall by half, talk to me then about having a second child.” — Xiaolong V8, Beijing

“The government wants to manage a couple’s bed affairs, that’s really messed up.” — Zhijing louzhu, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province

Several days after it was published on the Yichang government website with the red stamps of a clutch of departments indicating wide local support, the letter disappeared, a sign it was politically sensitive. The appeal for more children could be seen as implicit criticism of Beijing’s population policies of the previous 36 years.

Well, that’s because those policies were stupid. And I love the pushback, which is something you wouldn’t have seen in China very long ago.