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What happens in a society that embraces and even forces
women to have abortions? As you might expect, the value of human
life diminishes -- to the point where "aborting children"
doesn't stop at birth.
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Infanticide detailed in China
BY SARAH LUBMAN
Mercury News Staff Writer
Two researchers say comprehensive new data shows that traditional family
patterns in China, combined with tough population-control measures, have
resulted in ``female infanticide on a grand scale'' -- close to 800,000
baby girls abandoned or killed in a single region between 1971-80 alone. 
G. William Skinner, an anthropologist and China specialist at the
University of California-Davis, and Chinese researcher Yuan Jianhua
based their conclusions on an analysis of 1990 Chinese census data. They
presented their findings at the Association for Asian Studies' annual
meeting last weekend in San Diego.
While the phenomenon of disappearing girls isn't new, the paper by Yuan
and Skinner is the first to show how location and family composition
help determine infants' fate: The more rural a baby girl's surroundings,
and the more sisters she had at birth, the higher her chances of not
surviving.
The researchers say most of the girls were abandoned or killed at birth.
Chinese officials have long maintained that missing girls are adopted or
raised on the sly, but Skinner said the data does not allow for
concealment.
Skinner and Yuan, who works for a semiofficial agency in Beijing that
does population projections for the Chinese government, focused on a 1
percent census sample of China's lower Yangtze region. Located around
the central metropolis of Shanghai, the area ranges from crowded coastal
cities to
surrounding rural communities, and had a population of 140 million in
1990.
Their research found that the culturally ``minimal acceptable'' Chinese
family consisted of two boys and a girl, given China's patrilineal
heritage. Daughters are important as well for household duties, marriage
into a higher- status family, and the source of sons-in-law when there
are no male heirs.
China began trying to control its massive population growth in 1970 and
introduced a one-child-per-family policy in 1980 -- an approach that ran
into huge resistance and was relaxed after 1986. From 1971 to 1980,
Skinner and Yuan found that 808,300 baby girls were missing, or about 8
percent of all girls born in the lower Yangtze region during the decade.
About 81,800 boys, or 4.7 percent of the total, are missing, too.
But Skinner and Yuan conclude that while most of the boys were adopted
or ``transferred'' to other families, most of the girls were killed
shortly after birth. Their research was aided by the fact that the
Chinese census collects a birth history from every woman under the age
of 65.
The data paints a stark picture. For example, 44.6 percent of all girls
who were the sixth-born child in lower Yangtze families between 1971-80
are ``missing,'' the researchers said. At the same time, 45.4 percent of
all girls born into families with four daughters are missing.
The disappearance of girls has continued over time. All Yangtze-region
couples with two daughters reported more than twice as many male as
female births in 1989-90 when it came to baby No. 3.
That's more than double the natural ratio of 104-106 baby boys born for
every 100 baby girls. For couples with two daughters, the ratio shot up
to 232 baby boys per 100 baby girls in 1989-90.
``We'd expect it to be 104, so more than half of those girls have been
disposed of,'' Skinner said in an interview. Many girls were abandoned
at birth, he said, but the traditional method of infanticide is
drowning.
``The moral of the story is that the Chinese birth-planning program has
caused a major upsurge of infanticide,'' Skinner said. ``There's been
terrible resistance along the way.''
Statistics since 1990 show that China's male-female imbalance is
persisting, and there have been reports in both the Chinese and the
Western press about the rise of targeted abortions of female fetuses
after their sex is detected by ultrasound. In 1997, a University of
Washington demographer cited statistics from a 1995 Chinese census
sampling. That data reportedly showed that among 3-year-olds, there were
119 boys per 100 girls; among 2-year-olds, 121 boys; and among children
less than a year old, 116 boys.
Journalists, academics debate media coverage The panel featuring
Yuan and Skinner's paper was just one of more than
200 held during the four-day AAS conference. There were panels on
everything from Xinjiang mummies to Buddhist texts to the Asian
financial crisis.
At a round table on press coverage of China, journalists squared off
with academics over how the Western media portray China. From the
media's perspective, there was good news and bad news. Adam Brookes, a
BBC reporter in Beijing, deplored China's widespread practice of making
foreign journalists pay for coverage outside the capital, which began in
the early 1990s. The BBC paid $1,600 for one three-day filming trip.
Local officials
also sit in on interviews, frequently ruining them, Brookes said.
Susan Lawrence, the Far Eastern Economic Review's Beijing bureau chief,
gave another side of the story. Lawrence, who has been reporting from
China since 1990, noted the growing number of Chinese who are willing to
be quoted on the record. She also said internal policy debates often are
played out in Marxist journals, and that the increasingly aggressive
Chinese
press is more informative than it used to be, especially on business
topics.
Two China experts weighed in next. Jeffrey Wasserstrom, a history
professor at Indiana University, complained about the lack of interest
in history whenever there's a contemporary crisis in China. He singled
out television reporters in particular.
Bruce Cumings, a history professor at the University of Chicago, had a
different take. He criticized American coverage of China as largely a
Washington-centered ``Beltway debate,'' and was scathingly critical of
The New York Times' 1999 coverage of alleged Chinese spying involving
Wen Ho Lee, a Taiwan-born American scientist at the Los Alamos nuclear
weapons
laboratory.
``China functions as a kind of Rorschach ink blot of the politics of our
country,'' Cumings said. In fairness, neither of the two journalists on
the panel reports for U.S.-based media, and the Times does plenty of
coverage from China that has nothing to do with Sino-U.S. policy.
N. Korean propaganda, CIA pins on display
Every conference has its exhibition booths, and the AAS was no
exception. In San Diego, most of the booths were occupied by academic
publishers, universities and the stray language-software company.
Two booths, however, stood out from the crowd. One belonged to Rainbow
Trading Company, a Tokyo-based bookstore that specializes in North
Korean propaganda. Jun Miyagawa, the company's representative, offered
the writings of deceased leader Kim Il Sung and garish, hand-painted
posters in classic Socialist Realism style. At $370, they were no
bargain, but they cost around $500 in Japan. Why? ``Because they sell,''
Miyagawa
said.
But it was the display a few booths down that drew the most puzzled
stares. That's where Craig Paver, a recruiter for the CIA, displayed
pins and brochures about CIA job opportunities against a navy-blue
backdrop decorated with pictures of world cities. According to Paver, it
was the agency's first appearance at an AAS conference.
While Paver didn't expect any short-term gains -- ``I don't think I'll
get any résumés next week'' -- he said the material was going fast.
After all, he noted, the AAS crowd has language ability and overseas
knowledge -- perfect for the CIA. And like anyone else these days, the
CIA is having trouble finding talent.
Said Paver, echoing Silicon Valley's boom-time mantra, ``The economy is
so good, if you want to get good people you have to go out and get
them.''
Contact Sarah Lubman at slubman@sjmercury.com
or (408) 920-5740.
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The Bubble Zone: http://www.interlife.org/bubble/
Clinic Watch: http://www.interlife.org/clinic/
The Genetic Cleansing Project: http://www.interlife.org/gene/
The Kevorkian Papers: http://www.kevork.org/
The RU-486 Files: http://www.ru486.org/
The Morgentaler Files: http://www.interlife.org/morgentaler/
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