China is in a demographic decline. This has created an existential crisis for the Chinese Communists, who are having the devil of a time trying to discern what Marx and/or Mao said about existential crises.
You see, existential crises are never supposed to happen in Communist countries. The Central Planners are supposed to have planned out a future without crisis of any kind.
The essence of Communism is that they claim to have figured out how human beings behave in every given situation, making their society, in effect, perfect.
So when the Chinese reluctantly announced their first population drop in six decades, the wheels began to turn throughout the bureaucracy. China’s National Bureau of Statistics reported a drop “of roughly 850,000 people for a population of 1.41175 billion in 2022, marking the first decline since 1961, the last year of China’s Great Famine,” according to Reuters. It wasn’t a situation they had remotely planned for, so we can forgive them for being a little nervous.
In the historic Chinese city of Xian, authorities texted residents a simple message. The Communist authorities were wishing them “sweet love, marriage and childbirth”, and to create “good fertility.”
Unpacking that text might take a little doing for the uninitiated. The city authorities were saying, “get busy with the patriotic baby-making so that we don’t fall into a demographic hole.”
“Continue the blood of China and share the important task of rejuvenation,” the Weibo post on China Newsweek read. There was also the reminder that marriage and babymaking should be done at the “right age” but did not give further details. Thank goodness.
Instructions to follow.
The message comes as China’s government tries to encourage young couples to have children, as an increasing number of women put off having children or opting to have none at all.
Many women cite the high cost of childrearing, difficulty in continuing on their career, gender discrimination and not wanting to get married as key factors for not wanting children.
Official rules in China make it hard for single or unmarried women to have children out of wedlock but some provinces like Sichuan in the southwest have started liberalising laws in the past year to boost fertility levels.
In the 1950s, many newly married American women were given little booklets on how to keep a husband. There were tips about what to cook, what to wear, and how to behave.
And there was usually a graphically illustrated chapter or two about lovemaking. I know because I found my mom’s copy in the attic when I was about 12 years old.
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The Chinese Communists don’t have to give women anything like that. I’m pretty sure the Chinese invented sex, so telling Chinese women to “do their duty to the state” and make babies is something they’re well familiar with.
But while Chinese women might be knowledgeable, Chinese Communists could use a remedial course in sex ed. “Be fruitful and multiply” might have worked for Adam and Eve, but for the dour-faced, ill-tempered commies in China, a little more instruction on how to get couples to procreate might be needed.
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