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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:
All countries really need a one child rule. This planet can only take so much of a beating from humans. I'm not saying humans are bad but if the rat population or any python population were using up so many resources and doing so much damage to the environment, we'd do our best to wipe them out.
Humans were designed to produce many offspring as it used to be most would die of natural causes - those days are gone and yet humans haven't adapted yet.
Your point is well taken and should be discussed, but the countries that should be studied first are the ones that have mass starvation 24/7 and STILL have multiple offspring.
While I agree they need it most - mostly for the sake of the children, They are also the ones to keep their final children count low due to their lack of food. The only way to do assist them is to sterilize a significant portion of the population and many would equate it to being cruel or say what if the baby that didn't get born was the next Einstein. If you offered them free birth control, I'm sure they'd sell it as they need food first and it is hard to blame them. Chances of the baby not getting born of being the next Einstein are probably about the same as getting struck by lightening while scratching off the winning lotto ticket for Powerball while getting eaten by a shark but knee jerk liberals somehow think they are saying something intelligent.
BS! In order to sustain a viable population, you need a replacement rate of a little over 2 children per couple, otherwise, you end up with an unbalanced population of elderly people and not enough young workers to take care of everything. I agree that someone should take steps to stop people in 3rd world nations from poping out 13 kids, but go check your facts, basically all western countries have responsible birth rates and in some cases even too low birth rates.
Hello Rodney,
I'm in the US - not sure where you are from but our population is growing significantly and big surprise, it is mostly due to our lax immigration policies and lower income families. In fact we ENCOURAGE people not making enough money to have more children as we'll pay more for welfare. So if perhaps you check your rates you'll find that we're doing our best to overpopulate in the US as well as most other countries.
@boe,
You are completely uninformed on this subject, the birth rate is in the last few years is in decline in the United States, before then it was only about 2.5 which is basically what we need to sustain ourselves (and that is with the immigrant children that you point out). Get off the KoKo Koolaid and go check your facts.
Rodney - welcome to the real world. We don't exactly punch them into the computer when they come over the border. Nor do most illegal immigrants rush to answer the door when the census bureau shows up. And if you've ever done any work in lower income areas nobody is trusting whitey when they knock on the door. You don't NEED 2.5 children to sustain a country, when it is over populated you need to DECREASE the numbers not maintain them or increase them.
If a country supports abortion either for population control or economic stability then it follows that euthanasia is also a viable rule considering the costs of health care and maintainence of old people. Such policies preclude the existence of God and support the declining moral issue of man's will to be higher than God. This big blue marble is destined for eventual extinction sooner or later, asteroids are getting closer all the time.
@G A Custer
Actually, it is not. You're conveniently forgetting that the "costs of health care and maintenance of old people" is paid to someone, likely a very large corporation. It's most profitable to keep old people alive as long as possible, even at the cost of their quality of life.
One child rule sounds good, if it is a liberal couple a NO CHILD rule sounds even better. Help us end that dreaded disease, Liberalism.
And that bozo Jackie Chan recently said America is more corrupt than China. Last movie of his I ever will see or rent or download.
Replacement rate is defined as 2.1 children per family.
What China is going to end up with, is an aging population supported by an ever-shrinking pool of younger workers. And by the time they realize that they've got an underpopulation problem, it will already be too late to fix it.
So, by all means, let Red China commit demographic suicide. It'll be one less bad actor on the world stage, if you ask me.
This is a problem is several European countries as well, the only difference is that Muslim immigrants are making up the difference. In the not to distant future, Europe will be dominated by Islam. It's not to late however if more Caucasians would start having kids now.
Too late to fix it? How hard is it to knock up a woman? This may stun you but even after bombing the hell out of Japan and wiping out vast amounts of their poor people they have many many times the population they did just 70 years ago. A significant percentage of the US male population was wiped out in the civil war and world war 2. Repopulating is VERY easy. Decreasing a human's instinct to procreate is much much harder to do unless you've been on a red eye with a few screaming children near you.
The problem China will face won't so much be a matter of human beings, but a matter of workers.
Having a rapidly-aging population with too few young workers paying into the system means they'll run out of other people's money that much faster.
It's certainly a very quick process to make a human being; but making an economically functional WORKER takes a little more than nine months.
Let us suppose, for argument's sake, that China realized too late that "one child" had been the law just a bit too long, and that they needed to encourage large families quickly. Who would feed all those babies? Before you say "their parents," consider: 72% of Chinese mothers with children under age 6 are working; for single women of childbearing age, the percentage is closer to 83. Women make up a healthy portion of the Chinese labor force, and if the entire country had to go on what amounts to an extended maternity leave, the economic consequences would not be pleasant.
Also, even if China DID order an emergency baby boom, at what age would the resulting children be put in the labor force? China does have a less than stellar record on child labor, but not even they could suddenly put an entire generation of 5-year-olds on the assembly lines. What age, then? 15? Could they get away with 10?
Even if they could, if they were facing economic collapse because of underpopulation, it would likely take much less than a decade for the demographic bomb to finish going off--at which point, by the time the new young workers DID hit the factories, it would be too late.
Coming to Barry's Amerika next.
There are a ton of babies being crushed on the shock website kaotic. It seems once they have them, they don't take care of them. It's truly sad.
Not even a drop in the bucket.
Current population about.. 1,354,040,000 making up about 20% of earths population...
China should be commended for instituting this policy years ago. Imagine how many Chinese there would be without it. In 50 years, the entire world will have this policy because we refused to take appropriate and reasonable precautions ahead of time.
Just about all Western countries have responsible or even in some cases too low birth rates, go preach your stuff to the 3rd world!
Too low by who's standards? And I would love to institute new policies globally.
A nation needs a birth rate of about 2.5 to maintain a viable population, many western countries fall well below that mark, so first go educate yourself on the subject and then go preach your crap to 3rd world countries where couples pop out 15 kids.
You're speaking from an entirely economic standpoint, and economics in the ways they have always been done. There's nothing wrong with a shrinking population when that population is already past carrying capacity. I'm speaking from a global-viewpoint where we have shoved 7 billion people into a place that probably shouldn't have more than 3 billion. We've stretched our global resources to a temporarily sustainable level and only through overuse of pesticides and fossil fuel consumption.
And if you knew me, you'd realize how dumb you are telling me to "educate" myself Rodney.
This is sick. There has to be a better way of controlling the population than killing children. I'm completely skeptical that this was in any way an accident. China does not have any value for human life, other than what it can bring to the GDP. Why would the country go to the extreme of killing babies? Why not do as another posted suggested, and force sterilization of poor mothers before they're allowed to leave the hospital with their firstborn? That's barbaric, obviously, but as a parent I'd much rather be forcibly sterilized than have a living child ripped from my arms and killed. If they're willing to go up into a woman's body to rip out a living fetus, why can't they just prevent all that and tie her tubes after the first kid? Problem solved.
They tried that on the multi-child welfare mothers in the South some decades ago but it met with such an uproar from the "it's a woman's God-give right to produce as many children as the State could afford to pay for" crowd, that they had to abandone the practice!
It is ridiculas and totally unneeded. Eduation will work much better but is not being used in China. Google this and you will get information about how many people call in and have no idea what birth control is or how to use it properly even though it is free in China. Remember China is a country that often lags behind when it comes to education. America and some of the other countires have demonstrated the value of educating the masses and our decreasing birth rate has proven this. We still need to be more vigalent about continuing that education as we educate our young. Our schools should address these subjects. Family planning would go far in educating people,especially young people. When my Granddaughter was thinking about having sex a few years ago we decided to take her to a clinic and let them educate her about it because they can do it better and they did. It slowed her down and she put off having sex for a good while. Murdering children is not the way to go there are much better ways of addressing this issue for people who can think and be solution focused.
Typical of a wreckless, careless, heartless and classless government like the Chinese.
Hilarious. Imagine if America had a "one gun" policy.
How about a one immigrant rule? We have Mexico stuffed with approximately one billion population just chomping to "take back" America.
You are a bit off base there, Frank. The population of Mexico is less than 113,000,000, more than 200 million less than that of the USA.
Tracontech, the Republicans were NOT opposed to birth control, they were opposed to FREE birth control. Why should insurance companies pick up the entire tab for birth control devices and/or pills and charge co-payments for life-dependent drugs? You want to have sex, pay for your own damned contraceptives. Why should I have to pay higher premiums to cover the cost of free birth control for others?
Thirty hours later, her baby girl was aborted.
No, Ed, you're not supposed to call it a "baby girl"! The "pro-choice" crowd insists that you say, "thirty hours later, her unviable lump of tissue was aborted."
Oops, except in this case, the girl had reached a viable stage of development.
But at least they sell us stuff cheap, right? This will upset people for a short period of time, but as long as the Wal-Marts of the world continue to get cheap stuff for the good ol' USofA to buy, it's all good. And we wouldn't want China to demand collection on the money we owe them, correct?
All the people here supporting the One child policy and trying to make excuses for what happen just makes me want to throw up.
I suggest that each and everyone of you do your share to reduce the world's population, if you know what I mean.
No second amendment in China.
it's time to boycotte China and any company that has overseas production services in that country. they are a useless country that has no intention of ever being a usefull part of this world. all throughout history they have kept to themselves and wanted nothing to do with the outside world because they know the outside world sees their judicial and political systems see them for the corrupt, tyrranical immoral SOB's that they are. They aren't willing to play ball by the rules of everyone else, then kick them out of the picture. lets see how well they do on their own.
Considering the 1,354,040,000 population of China - as of Dec. 2012, I guess their draconian 1 child limit is not slowing any birthrate down when it comes to wantonly producing new mouths to feed!
If they have not had such a strict population control policy, there would probably be 50% more people in China now than there actually are today.
China has over 1/6 of the world's population. The reason all our prices (particularly oil) have skyrocketed is because of increased demand due to the Chinese.
The rest of the world should be grateful that the Chinese government has such a strict population policy.
What amazes me....is that.....people stand in line to do business with these people.
Being "sub-human" or "barbaric" is bringing children into this world that you cannot afford. Children you cannot house, feed, and educate. Having so many people that our earth gets so polluted and overrun that no one can survive. Life is precious, but so is quality of life.
Guido, are you assuming ALL Chinese can not "afford" more than one child? What is barbaric is forcing other people to have their own children murdered to confirm with the Genocidal Communist Regime.
China has it's problems ,we as Americans have ours !
It's just one more way for the Chicoms to exert their power over the people, and that's ALL it is. With all that land mass in the nation, they could have "redistributed" land to uncrowd the crowded areas; instead, they opted to murder babies by the billions. There is only one way the world can make felt its disapproval of this, and other human rights violations routinely practiced by Red China, and that's to STOP BUYING CHINESE-MADE GOODS. No government will do this, because every time one tries, the Chicoms start sword-rattling, and everyone backs off in fear. But if we as individuals refuse to buy anything made in Red China, then the loss of income will force the companies to stop using Chinese manufacturing facilities. Yes, it will mean doing without. I don't buy anything made in China unless I literally cannot live without, and then I'll usually go to someplace like Goodwill, where the money does NOT make its way back to Red China. It has the added advantage of saving me money, too. If more people in the world were willing to make the same (gasp!) sacrifice, then maybe, just maybe, those idiots would pay attention.