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Subscribe to RSSBEIJING – A 13-month-old child was fatally crushed by a car containing Chinese officials after they went to collect a fine from the parents for breaching the country’s one-child policy, according to Chinese state media.
The incident reportedly occurred Monday in Dongshantou village near Wenzhou city in the eastern province of Zhejiang, after a delegation of 11 officials from the Ruian Town birth control office drove out to get the unspecified fine.
This did not go down well with the father, Chen Liandi, 39, and the conversation got heated.
According to a briefing given by the Ruian Municipal Propaganda Department and reported by state media, the officials convinced Chen’s wife, Li Yuhong, to accompany them back to Ruian to talk over the couple’s options.
The baby was reportedly left in the hands of his father and the group got back into their cars to leave.
What happened next remains unclear – perhaps due to the politically sensitive nature of this story – but the boy was then found crushed underneath a car.
He was rushed to the Third People’s Hospital in Ruian, but could not be saved.
'You were too careless'
On China’s Twitter-like service, Weibo, users expressed frustration over the vague account given by Ruian officials and demanded more information, but no other Chinese press have printed much beyond the official government account.
For many in China, the story brings back uncomfortable memories of Feng Jiemei, who last June posted gruesome photographs of her lying in a hospital bed next to her 7-month-old aborted fetus.
Feng’s story created a social firestorm for Beijing when word got out that the 22-year-old mother had been forced to have the abortion because she did not have enough money to pay the $6,400 fine for having a second child.
“I told you, $6,400, not even a penny less. I told your dad that and he said he has no money,” a family planning official wrote to Deng in a blunt text message that quickly went viral. “You were too careless, you didn’t think this was a big deal.”
Feng was grabbed from her home and taken to a local hospital in her native Shaanxi province where she was blindfolded, thrown on a bed and forced to a sign a document she couldn’t read. Thirty hours later, her baby girl was aborted.
China has long defended its one-child policy as a way to prevent overpopulation and to help raise living standards across the country.
However, some experts in China and abroad argue that the policy has outlived its usefulness and may instead be a detriment to future growth.
Others in China have pointed out the abuses meted out in cases like Feng Jiemei’s show that it causes more social harm and have called on Beijing to remove it.
However Beijing just last month reaffirmed its support for the policy.
NBC News’ Le Li contributed to this report.
Related:
China: One-child policy is here to stay
Leave a Comment:
Why is it legal to abort a baby but if you cause the death of an unborn baby you can be charged with its murder?
Nixon made the overture to China decades ago and it has turned into a disaster for us today.
Obama should simply cancel contact with China. We don't need them if this is their thoughtless value of life.
They hold us even less esteem.
Remember a few years ago when some milk suppliers put the poison in baby milk to make it look better and it killed several babies? If the Chinese business culture has them acting like that would you expect any better association?
I avoid Chinese people and do not deal with any of them. Sorry.
We have to pay off our ever growing debt to them before we can break off contact.
As I recall, the CEO's of that milk company were executed by firing squad. Seems fair.
Agree...until the last sentence, there are some great Chinese people. It is not the Chinese people but rather the International Socialists Occupation Forces illegal occupation of the Government Office in Beijing that are the problem. Great rid of the Communists would make a far better nation in mainland China such as that in Taiwan and Singapore. Not perfect but far better than under the genocidal communists.
so you like another cold war or just all out full blown contact war?
Learn to distinguish between a country's government and its people. If you have any European friends, they probably like you in spite of your country's government.
%#/(*& Chinese A-holes! And we are making these people rich by buying their crap! Boycott China!
let's see you do that. they laugh at your face....
btw, they are conditioned to follow orders so whatever you think these "officials" were doing like as if you and me making a choice you're sorely mistaken. they're nothing but paid thugs if they don't do what they're told it's their head, think of it like a mafia thing here.
OK.. since evidently NBC can't do a simple translation from Chinese, I thought I'd take the liberty to do so (I was an American expat in China for many years and speak the language):
http://news.qq.com/a/20130204/001501.htm
"Whenzhou: 13 Month Old Baby Run Over During Visit from Family Planning Fine Collection Reminders
Local News: People's Network; Jiang Weixin 2013-02-04 19:00
Wenzhou, People's Daily, February 4 (Reporter Jiang Weixin)
Ruian Ma Lantau Town: Report of Irregular Death Due to Event Specific Reasons, Local Police are Investigating
At 12:00 pm on February 4, 2013, an 11 member team from the Qing Xiang Mayu Town Community Cadres Corps arrived in Dongshan Tau Tsuen Township to collect required social support payments. Parents Chen Mouhaui (male, 39) and Lee (female, 39) were approached for collection of social support. According to the social workers present, Chen [initially] attempted to forcibly obstruct the officials' work. Lee, however, was cooperative and agreed to accompany officials in their van to discuss family planning options.
Chen Mouhaui [reportedly] held the 13 month child [after the confrontation] while officials started the car. [Once the vehicle started moving,] it was discovered that the baby had been run over. Social workers attempted to assist and the baby boy was rushed to the Third People's Hospital of Ruian City. Upon arrival, the baby boy was declared dead from serious injuries sustained in the incident.
Ruian police have initiated an urgent investigation."
I'm not sure if I translated social workers correctly. Literally, it translates into community worker cadre.
Assuming the local reporting is to be believed, the facts have not yet been ascertained and an investigation is underway, but the death is being treated as suspicious.
how is this different from the stry above?
Those Commie's don't kid around, they mean business! Good thing we don't do that type of thing here...
Fire Kerry...babies are DYING in CHINA. In other news...a whole family of doughnuts was inhaled by Chris Christie on Letterman
If China had no 1 child policy, most families in China would be like the Duggars family in the U.S.
Why? They don't have birth control?
There are ways to encourage small families without forced abortions or other violations of human rights. The US tax code currently gives each family a $1000 annual credit for every child. What if that were capped at $2000? Allow families to have as many children as they like, but stop subsidizing it above a certain level.
The way to end this is for every country to stop buying goods made in China....I worked for Ethan Allen and they closed US factories that had supported entire towns because Mr. Kathwari decided it was better to do it cheaper so his bonus would go up. Ethan Allen is not the only company to do this, I just know for certain about this one. Every dime sent to China is a reaffirmation of their policies. PS...quality of finishes and overall product went down. Veneers were lifting off in the show room. Sorry did not mean to make this a statement about a company, but Americans need to go back to BUY AMERICAN!
All you crying and whining about this make sure to keep on buying junk and trinkets and shopping at Wal Mart and Amazon to save money on sh*t you just have to have ya bunch of hypocrites.
What a sad story. That poor little baby. And the aborted one (at 7 months it was a baby). But stories like this aside, I do applaud (too strong?) the Chinese for trying to doing something about their overpopulation, unlike most of Africa and other places where they keep spitting out baby after baby that they can't feed and then it becomes everyone elses problem.
What is your limit? One ? Two? I would rather do this by education instead of foricibly grabbing a woman and a aborting a 7 month old baby (fetus) is that how you want the world to address over population? and what do you feel about the CHINESE selling ivory and thus promoting the extinction of elephants and rhinos?
Are you for real EB? You got that out of what I said? And elephant ivory? And by the by, 10 kids in a starving country with no water would be too much!
So you do believe the government has a right to pick you up, take you to a clinic and abort your child? Would you like this in this country also....where do you draw the line. The comment about the animals was made because the CHINESE do not feel they need to preserve too much. Did you read or do you know about their huge pollution issues....check last weeks news. Now if you have a neighbor , would you be okay with the sheriff or police picking her up against her will and aborting her baby...
I meant to add that I would not be terribly surprised if the father put the toddler in front of the car. China is a wealthy country, but not the Chinese people. They had his wife in the car, no money to pay the fine...
OMG Just OMG - Forced Abortion?
Eventually some time in the future there will to many humans. The earth cannot sustain that many people and more drastic measures then this may have to be done.
This is beyond disgusting and from now on I will literally turn everything over to check where it is made. If it says China it is going back on the shelf no second thoughts. If I can buy from another country, I will, and if not, then I will do without the product period. If everyone in America would not buy from China for 6 months, they would feel the heat and change their one child policy guaranteed. They depend upon us to buy there stuff and enough is enough after reading this crap of a story which I am sure is true.
It is truly scary to see how many posters here actually AGREE with China's one child policy. Don't worry so much about overpopulation - we are aborting MILLIONS of children every single day in the US alone. It will catch up to us, and you'll have fewer workers supporting an older and older population. Well, unless Obama gets his way with those "death panels".
"Millions a day" Jim? Millions? A day... Really? Good thing you were here to keep us all based in facts and science. Thanks for coming...
Well not "millions" a day, "only" around 3 thousand a day. The most dangerous place to be in is the womb as thousands by the day are murdered.
That does it, I'm never shopping at Walmart or eating at Panda Express again!
China is headed to a demographic, environmental and political cliff. There is no solution to the first, maybe a massive theoretical shift to hydrogen for the second, and the third? That may be the end of the world as we know it. Some day they will go over that cliff and they may take everyone else with them.
dont worry about it nothing we say or do will change how they run thier country. just look forward to the day the three gorges dam breaches from shoddy construction and takes out the cities down stream.
When societies value "improved" standards of living and economic growth over human life and the inherit desire to have children (plural) , this is the grotesque end result of that value system.
The best and most important thing you can ever give your child is a sibling.
Seriously, ONLY $6400 to have a SECOND child?
If I add up all the pre-natal care for the fetus and mother, plus the delivery, plus the hospital stay, etc. my FIRST child cost more than that! And that's in the 'family friendly' US of A! Yeah, I am so 'free' to have any number of kids I want... and 'free' to cough up all the dough that costs.
If we want to criticize other countries for 'punishing' families for having children, we really should do that on a full-disclosure basis... China's fine on a second child is, if anything, cheaper than the cost of having a child here in America!
It's Obama's fault!
Wish we had these policies here in the US
Says the first born, male.
Yea, China....like the father would put his baby under the car wheels. Riiiiight. We all believe that nonsense. What dastardly stuff. Rules do not justify murder. China murdered that baby because of policy. Period.
This is democRat-run NBC - we can't assume ANYTHING is true in this report until verified by actual reporters instead of Odummy asskissers.