【CNN 20151029】中国结束独生子女政策，别上当
【中文标题】中国结束独生子女政策，别上当
【原文标题】Don't be fooled by China ending its one-child policy
【登载媒体】CNN
【原文作者】Frida Ghitis
【原文链接】http://edition.cnn.com/2015/10/29/opinions/ghitis-china-one-child-policy/index.html
中国在35年前实施的一项禁止大部分夫妻生育超过一个后代的政策，一直被当作一个标志，它象征着国家对于公民生活的干涉究竟会深入到什么程度。这是一个典型的“结果决定方式”的政策。毫无疑问，当人权组织严厉、无情地批判中国的时候，独生子女政策总是首当其冲被抨击的对象。
那么现在，中国宣布独生子女政策将会正式结束。有人或许会赞颂这是人权伟大的胜利，但事实并不是这样。
当国有媒体新华社宣布共产党将会尽快“实施‘一对夫妻，两个孩子’政策”时，这并不代表党突然意识到要改正过去的错误，开始尊重个人自由。不，这只是党在因势利导。所谓的“势”就是提升这个国家人口出生率的迫切需求，这对于共产党继续控制这个国家是必不可少的因素。
很难想象还有什么事情会比政府规定夫妻可以生几个孩子更加冒犯个人自由的行为，但也绝非不可能，这项严苛政策的执行过程实际上更加令人发指。多年来，人权组织记录了数千起被强迫流产和强迫节育的事件——大赦国际称其为酷刑，还有高额的罚款等惩罚。新的政策把一对夫妻的生育上限调整为两个孩子，但国家依然在进行干涉。大赦国际认为没有本质上的改变。
讽刺的是，这项有争议的政策不仅仅有害，而且是多余的。当党在1978年宣布执行这项政策时，它的解释是“缓解社会、经济和环境问题”。在那时候，贫穷和经济发展问题困扰着中国，人们担心迅速膨胀的人口会让问题更加严重，资源更加紧张、贫穷迅速蔓延，从而威胁到政治的稳定性。官方提供的数据说，这项政策导致中国少出生了4亿人口。部分人口学家不相信这个数据，认为实际人口减少量应该只有这个数字的一半。另一些专家认为，控制人口增长不应该用禁止生育的方式，而是应该通过教育等方式。
但是，控制人口膨胀最有效的方法是经济的繁荣，这要比派出警察逮捕公民、罚款等手段更有效。一些中国官员已经惊诧地意识到了这一点。当人们从农村移居到城市，接受更多的教育，女人有自己的职业，他们自然就会决定不要太多的孩子。
实际上，中国在一段时间之前就试图解除独生子女的限制，但结果不如人意。几年前，当局开始放松政策的限制，允许大约1100万对夫妻可以生育第二个孩子，但只有大约100万夫妻申请二胎的指标。很快我们就会看到共产党内部的人口学家慌作一团。中国与它的近邻和对手日本没有太大的区别，都存在严重的低出生率问题。正如日本目前所展现出来的，其后果对经济的影响是极为严重的。但是日本与中国也有不同，它并没有迫切的经济增长需求。中国的经济增长尽管势头强劲，但数亿中国人依然生活在贫困线以下。党必须要让经济引擎继续轰鸣，如果人民不生更多的孩子，这个任务很难完成。
令人不可思议的是，中国在残暴地限制二胎的同时，还在努力提高出生率。在经历了一代人的低出生率和平均寿命延长之后，中国正在步入老龄化社会。维持经济增长，以及照顾老年人的劳动力规模迅速缩减。每个独生子女最终要照顾两位父母和4位祖父母，结婚之后，一对夫妻的负担加倍：他们要照顾4位父母和8位祖父母。这也是他们为什么不愿意要更多孩子进一步增加负担的原因。
经济层面上我们也可以用数字来表述。随着人口逐渐进入老龄化，工作人群与退休人群和儿童的比例越来越小。这个国家有14亿人口，20到24岁年龄段的人数量越来越少，到2020年预计为9400万人，而且这些人大部分都在学校中，而不是在工作。超过60岁的人群到那个时候将达到3.6亿。很难估算这个问题将对政权的稳定性带来多大的挑战。
中国政府成功地振兴了这个国家的经济，让数亿人民脱离贫困，让中国成为世界第二大经济体，坐拥巨额的金融储备，并扮演着越来越受人瞩目的国际形象。但是，中国存在着一个重大的阿喀琉斯之踵。这个国家的政府并非民选，其最核心的目的是保持增长和稳定，扼杀挑战其权威的因素。也就是说，全面压制个人自由，“包括言论、结社、集会和宗教自由，只要这些行为威胁到一党专政。”人权观察组织这样描述。
尽管中国取得了辉煌的成就，但自由之家对这个国家的定性依然是“不自由”。它提到，在习的运作下，镇压行动越来越残暴，形成了一场“人权危机”。
所以，看起来是某种进步的举措，废除独生子女政策绝不是人权的胜利，甚至算不上是向正确方向前进的一步。政府只不过继续走在老路上，手中的方向盘握得更紧了。
原文：
China's decision to prevent most couples from having more than one baby, imposed more than 35 years ago, has always stood as a symbol of just how far the state was prepared to intrude into the lives of its citizens. It was a classic ends-justifies-the-means policy. Not surprisingly, the one-child policy always figured prominently in the relentlessly harsh criticism of China by human rights organizations.
So, now that China has announced that the one-child policy will officially come to an end, some may hail the moment as a triumph for human rights. That, however, would be a mistake.
When the state-run Xinhua news agency announced that the Communist Party of China will move quickly to "implement the policy of 'one couple, two children,' " it was not a sign that the party will suddenly start respecting personal freedoms more than it has in the past. No, this is a case of the party adjusting policy to conditions.
And those conditions urgently demand boosting the country's fertility rate -- among the world's lowest -- to preserve economic growth and social stability, which are indispensable for continuing Communist Party control of the country.
It's hard to imagine a more intrusive role for the government than telling couples how many children they can have. But it's not impossible. The draconian policy's enforcement is, in fact, the height of intrusiveness. Over the years, human rights groups have documented thousands of cases of forced abortions and forced sterilizations -- which Amnesty International labels as torture -- in addition to heavy fines and other practices.
The new policy, raising the limit to two children per couple, preserves the state's role. Amnesty says the change makes little difference.
Ironically, the controversial policy was not only harmful; it may have also been unnecessary. When the party announced it in 1978, it explained that its purpose was to "alleviate social, economic, and environmental problems." Back then, endemic poverty and economic stagnation plagued China. The fear was that a fast-growing population would make matters worse, overstretching limited resources, worsening poverty and threatening political stability.
Authorities claim the policy prevented as many as 400 million births.
Some demographers challenge that number, putting the figure at perhaps half that level. Other experts maintain that the way to curb population growth is not by banning births, but through education and birth control.
But the most effective path for preventing a population explosion is prosperity. It works much more successfully than sending out police to arrest and fine citizens, something even Chinese officials, to their growing consternation, are discovering.
Couples naturally decide to have fewer children as they move from the fields into the cities, become more educated, and when women establish careers outside the home.
In fact, China has been trying to move away from the one-child policy for some time, with befuddling results.
Authorities started loosening the rules a couple of years ago, to no avail. When the government announced relaxed rules that would allow some 11 million couples to have two children, only about 1 million applied for permission to have a second baby.
Pretty soon, we may start seeing signs of panic among Communist Party demographers. China, not unlike its neighbor and rival Japan, has a serious problem with low birth rates. As Japan has shown, the consequences can be disastrous for the economy.
Unlike China, however, Japan doesn't have the imperative of maintaining strong economic growth. Despite strong economic growth for many years, hundreds of millions of Chinese still live in poverty. The party needs to keep the economic engine humming, and that will become increasingly difficult if people refuse to have more children.
Incredibly, China has managed to preserve abusive restrictions on births while simultaneously struggling to raise the fertility rate.
After more than a generation of collapsing birth numbers and improving life expectancy, China is becoming a country of old people. The number of workers available for sustaining economic growth and caring for their elders is shrinking. Each single child can look forward to eventually looking after two parents and four grandparents. When he marries, he and his wife will double that: one couple responsible for as many as four parents and eight grandparents. That's just one reason they're afraid of adding more children to their responsibilities.
The same arithmetic applies to the economy. With the population growing older, there is a smaller ratio of workers to retirees and children. In a country of 1.4 billion, the number of people ages 20 to 24 is becoming smaller, estimated to fall to 94 million by 2020, by one estimate, many of them attending school rather than working. The number of people over 60 is expected to top 360 million by then.
It's hard to overestimate just how serious the challenge is for the regime.
China's government has done a spectacular job of boosting economic growth, pulling hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and turning China into the world's second-biggest economy, with vast financial reserves and an increasingly assertive global role.
And yet, China has one giant Achilles heel. The country is ruled by an unelected government, whose primary concern is preserving growth and stability and preventing challenges to its authority. Doing that has meant systematically suppressing a range of individual freedoms, "including freedom of expression, association, assembly and religion, when their exercise is perceived to threaten one-party rule," according to Human Rights Watch.
For all its impressive accomplishments, China is "Not Free" by the nonpartisan Freedom House, which says the current President, Xi Jinping, has overseen a worsening of repression, causing a "human rights crisis."
So, no, despite what may seem like progress, the lifting of the one-child policy is not a victory for individual rights. It's not even a step in the right direction. It's more of the same from a regime determined to continue moving in the same direction while it keeps its hands tightly on the rudder.
当党在1978年宣布执行这项政策时，它的解释是“缓解社会、经济和环境问题”。
现在的资源、环境、社会问题不是较1978年时更差嘛，又为何恢复二孩政策呢。
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