by Wei Jingsheng

The status of women in China is very different from the way Communist propaganda describes. Women were never liberated under Mao; they were instead the first victims of repression under the People's Republic. In the face of forced abortions and sterilisation, not even the United Nations have the time or inclination to condemn Beijing. Here is the analysis of a great dissident.

Washington (AsiaNews) - In November I attended a conference in the European Union and met a lot of old friends.  I was also invited by the European Parliament to participate in a program moderated by the editor-in-chief of the Europarl TV.  The original theme of this program was to discuss the role of women in democratic transitions, asking if they could be leaders or which kind of roles they could play.  The results come down to an indictment complaining of discrimination against women and violence against women.

Originally, I had nothing to say.  Of course, women can become leaders.  More so, through the history, many women have become very good leaders.  If it was a ceremony honoring them, I might have had something to say.  But to belatedly expound such a truth seemed not so interesting.  So I sat there facing the stage lights and was ready to sit through the whole session without saying anything.

But as I noticed the Deputy Executive Director of UN Women's triumphant look as the heroine of the party, I got angry.  At the invitation of the enthusiastic host, I changed my original decision to just say favorite words like the others, and decided to demand justice for Chinese women.

I stated that, first of all, I cannot speak on behalf of Chinese women, as I am just a bystander on women's issues.  Then, I pointed out that many Western scholars and politicians have inaccurate views about many issues in China.  For example, many Western scholars who do not support the Communist Party still think that although Mao Zedong did a lot of harm to the Chinese people, still his liberation of women was a good thing.

Obviously, this is a misunderstanding due to the propaganda of the Communist Party.  Not only are the Chinese not liberated, they had entered a new state of oppression and exploitation.  Women are just as oppressed and exploited as men, without so-called liberation.  Furthermore, women are suffering more than men.

For example, the victims of the savage family planning policy implemented by the Chinese Communist regime over the years are mainly women.  The Communist Party seized many young and middle-aged women on the streets, loaded them into trucks, and sent them into hospitals for forced sterilization like castrating animals.  These serious human rights violations, these barbaric acts that treat human beings like draft animals were even rewarded by the United Nations and have been continuing until now.

Then I turned around and directly asked this Deputy Executive Director of UN Women: What is your United Nations' comment on this issue?  Why did not you UN Women and the Human Rights Council interfere or criticize?  Hundreds of the audience warmly applauded to ask her answer these questions.  The host also very politely handed the microphone to her.

This official explained in embarrassment: China is a big country, with a great influence on the United Nations, the United Nations cannot intervene in the internal affairs of each state, etc. -- a lot of standard diplomatic language.  Surprisingly, the audience did not give her a round of applause.  The host politely tried to smooth things over for her, and said that the UN Woman and the United Nations are not organizations with authority, and usually conduct their work in the way of giving advice and encouragement.

The Deputy Executive Director thought it over and still was not satisfied, so she found an opportunity to explain once more: we made a lot of investigation into China's problems, and also wrote a number of reports to criticize, but did not receive satisfactory answers from the Chinese side.  After this debate, many of the audience came to shake hands with me to express their encouragement.  The president and vice-president of the European Parliament also came to me and warmly shook hands with me and told me: You have said well and we should let people know the truth.

In fact, I very much regretted that because of the limited time I could not allow everyone to learn more about the truth.  At the reception that followed, a lot of people found us who wanted to know more things.  Chinese women not only suffer more misery than men, this savage family planning policy also brought China long-term social problems.

The significant drop of the birth rate in China that started in the 1970's has, on the one hand, resulted in a lack of suitably aged labor, and on the other hand, a trend of aging surpassing many developed countries.  Simply said, while the population that could work has drastically reduced, the population that needs to be supported has rapidly increased.  Under most circumstances today, one young couple needs to take care of 12 elderly and one child.  They have too much to handle with grave misery, which resulted a lot of social problems.

In the 1970's, the Communist Party's policy suddenly changed from encouraging birth to savage family planning, for the purpose of finding an excuse for its economic failure.  However, was the excessive population growth really the reason for economic failure?  Not only is there no evidence in foreign countries, even the economic growth of China itself in the past 30 years does not have any relationship with this family planning policy.  Some populations in developed countries are already in, or close to, negative growth, but their economies did not stop because of the negative growth.  To say poverty is due to fast population growth is purely an illogical sophistry.

The role of population in economic development is more of a positive factor.  Population represents labor and consumption, which are the most basic conditions of economic activity.  Either a slow growth or a fast growth of the population will cause problems to the economic development.  But population is definitely not the only reason for economic decline or economic growth.  Besides bringing additional income for some corrupted officials, the savage family planning policy in China did not have a direct relationship with the economic development, but instead raised a lot of difficult social problems.

For China to have sustainable development not only must we have a democratic political system, but we must also have the correct social policy.  We must exclude political myths manufactured by the Chinese Communist Party, including the myth that there is more prosperity when there is less population.  What we must implement is a policy of balanced growth of population and economy.

From the humanitarian point of view, we must first abolish the barbaric family planning policy of the Chinese Communist Party.  This is an issue that does not even need to be discussed.  The next step is to adjust the population growth level according to the actual conditions.  According to the evidence in many countries, as the economic and cultural levels grow, population growth has a downward trend.  Yet, if the population growth rate falls too fast, it will be a difficult issue during the economic development process.

Population growth and technological progress are the two most important driving forces of economic development.  How to coordinate the relationship of population growth and technological progress is the important issue of sustainable economic development.  I will find the opportunity to discuss this complex issue in the future.

• china
• repression
• women
• status
• wei