THE MISERY OF CHINESE FARMERS
(Listen to the report)

Joseph J. Chen
Voice of America
[Click on the pictures in the article, you will hear the voices of Chinese farmers (Internet Explorer only)]

PART 1
THE DEPRIVATION OF BIRTH

"I miss my son! My only son! I don’t know where he is now. I don’t know how he is doing now. My son … … my son " This is Shandong farmer Yin Dejuan crying for her only begotten son, who disappeared 11 month ago. Her son, Wang Jinbo, published some articles on the Internet, criticizing the government for ignoring the hardship and exploitation that Chinese farmers have suffered in recent years, in particular as a result of the so-called "one-child policy." Moreover, he called for further reform and democracy in China’s countryside. One night in May 2001, more than two dozen plain-clothes police officers suddenly broke into Ms. Yin’s home and told the family that Wang Jinbo, a 22-year-old technologist, was under arrest for plotting to overthrow the Communist government of China. They did not present any official documents or identification, but cuffed Wang Jinbo and took him away. In the following days, weeks and months, Ms. Yin Dejuan spoke with authorities at many levels in order to find out what happened to her son. But nobody could tell or dared to tell her anything. Her son Wang Jinbo simply vanished from the face of the earth. Ms. Yin Dehuan told VOA that although many farmers can not understand the one-child policy, no word can be said against it. Whoever criticizes the policy will meet the same, inescapable fate as her son.

When I was visiting poor villages in China, I heard many desperate mothers like Yin Dejuan crying because of their children’s sickness, disappearance and, in some cases, death. In northern Shanxi province, an old man with a wrinkled face said to me: "In China, it is unfortunate to be born in the countryside, and it is a misfortune to be born in a poor village in this mountainous region because you will have no chance to live a better life." He pointed to a middle-aged woman who was feeding a baby in her arms and joked bitterly: "Look, to have another child simply means to bring misery to another human being. However, they still want more children." The woman said loudly: "But, I now have a son and I do have a hope."

For thousands of years, the Chinese have believed in the power of people. According to one saying, "If you have more people, you can overcome more difficulties." Generation after generation, for most Chinese families, to bear children has become the most important mission. Even Confucius taught that in terms of being unethical, the worst is not to have a son. Thus, the family size in China had kept growing until 20 years ago, making China the most populous country on earth. Among China’s 1.3 billion citizens, more than 800 million – equivalent to the entire population of India, the second most populous country – are farmers whose living conditions have not improved much or have even worsened while China has become the fastest growing developing country in the world in the last two decades. (It is true that about 500,000 million city dwellers in China, or twice population of the U.S., have become relatively better off, creating a huge market with growing consuming power. But if the farmers remain poor, the country’s stability could be gravely threatened, said a China watcher.) It is little wonder that Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji worries so much about the economic stagnation in the countryside.

The communist government in Beijing nowadays often says that with China’s limited arable land, keeping such a large population out of starvation is an enormous undertaking. Nevertheless, after assuming power in 1949, and especially during the 1950s and 1960s, the Chinese Communist Party encouraged couples to have more children, saying that in order to develop the economy, China must have more people. "The more the people are, the easier the development can be" were the headlines in newspapers in those fanatic years, while many scholars who advocated family planning were branded counter-revolutionaries and sent to labor camps and prisons.

After suffering economic failures for more than a quarter century, the Beijing government began to blame the ever-growing population for holding back economic development. Suddenly, they went from one extreme to another, ordering each and every couple around the country to have no more than one child. The Chinese people, especially the farmers, had difficulty accepting this sudden change. They tried by all means to have more children. Furthermore, if they had more children beyond the official quota, they would not register these children with the authorities. Consequently, the government organized numerous task forces to crack down on this kind of rebellious behavior.

Mr. Shi Hanbing, a farmer-turned-writer from a small village in Henan Province in central China, told the Voice of America a chilling story: "One day I went to another village to visit a relative. When I arrived, I saw a big truck carrying dozens of policemen and militia parked beside a mud house. On the side of the truck was a huge banner that said: ‘We’d rather create a river of blood than have an extra child.’ A bystander told me that the house was empty because the family had just escaped after a baby boy was born. Minutes later the police and militia used the truck as a bulldozer to destroy the house."

Many farmers said that in order to keep the birth rate under control, the village leaders use any means available to punish the families that have more than one child. Punishment includes heavy fines, destruction of houses, confiscation of property, torture and forced sterilization, etc.. To avoid such brutal punishment, some farmers hide their boys and kill their female babies. According to a study conducted jointly by the University of California in San Diego and a semi-official institute in Beijing, more than 800,000 baby girls and 80,000 baby boys were missing in the lower Yangtze River region in the past 10 years.

However, only a minority of farmers kill babies. Most of them would bear the punishment and humiliation to raise their so-called "extra children" and suffer unbelievably for such a choice. Ms. Mo Li from Hunan Province told VOA: "A couple had four children and were punished year after year. In the end, they had nothing left because the government confiscated almost everything that could be taken away. Then the husband became very ill and was unable to bring home their daily bread. While the whole family was facing starvation, the wife decided to prostitute in a nearby city. She charged 50 cents for each customer and used the money to buy food for her children and medicine for her husband."

For people in other parts of the world, it might be difficult to imagine such severe punishment and suffering as a result of having children beyond the government quota. But for the Chinese, it is part of their life. It is their fate and there is no escape. Many people, especially farmers, feel that they are pushed into a corner and have no choice but to exact revenge. Violent confrontations constantly occur all over the country. Mr. Han Dongfang relayed a tragedy in Sichuan Province: "Cadres from the country and township comb the villages regularly to check if the so-called family plan has been carried out. When they discover that a family has a child beyond the government quota, they go to the household to take away anything they can find. When they discover a woman who is pregnant without government approval, they take her into custody and perform a forced abortion. One day, they went to a family that had already been punished several times. Nothing worth taking away was left. Even the house was not worth being destroyed because the roof, the door and the windows were all broken. Finally, they picked up the only blanket on the brick bed and told the family that the they will confiscate the blanket. Yet, when they stepped out of the house, they found fleas all over the blanket and threw the blanket onto the ground immediately. They cursed the family because they got nothing this time and left."

However, the family-planning cadres are very diligent and never give up easily. They closely watch the households that have had extra children. Once they see anything worth taking, they immediately go to the household. Mr. Han Dongfang continued: "A year later they heard the family mentioned above bought a little pig with borrowed money. Wasting no time, the family-planning cadres rushed to the family’s pigpen and took the little pig to a schoolyard to auction it. The man of the family just got a job at a small coal mine not very far from his home. When he was told that his little pig was taken away, he could no longer hold back his anger. He tied several pipe bombs around his waist and went directly to the schoolyard. Standing in font of the family-planning cadres, he ignited the bombs. He and a couple of the cadres were kill instantly and a few others were wounded."

Nobody knows how many Chinese children have lost an opportunity to live a life in this world due to the Chinese government’s one-child policy. Furthermore, no official data exist about how many farmers have committed suicide because they could no longer bear the brutal punishment. However, according to the Lancet Report, 287,000 suicide incidents occur annually in China and 93% of them happen in rural areas. Professor Arthur Kleinman of Harvard University said that the one-child policy was a major cause of the high suicide rate among Chinese farmers.