The High Cost of China's One-Child Policy (revised)

Update: After qualifying for the final round of judging in Washington D.C., "High Cost" took 4th place in the nation for Senior Level Group Documentary. Thanks for everyone's support!

This is our revised and updated documentary for National History Day 2007, entitled "The High Cost of a Lower Population: The Triumph and Tragedy of China's One-Child Policy." We first began research in the fall of 2006, and only now is the documentary presented here in its final form.

This documentary placed 2nd in Washington State (senior level), and will be competing in the National competition in Washington D.C. on June 9th, 2007 against 99 other finalists from around the country. Wish us best of luck! Thanks for all of the support so far.

-W.C. and T.T.; 10th grade Shorewood High School

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• China
• One
• Child
• Policy
• Triumph
• Tragedy
• History
• Day
• Abortion
• Infanticide
• Sterilization
• Adoption
• Orphanages
• Population

[shadowflare888]

@walter0bz Imagine China without One child policy, the West will chastise China in another way, starting with 'Chinese breed like rats/ rabbits and chew on Earth like those pests!' The West are the ones who hate and fear Asian immigration in the first place. Their outcry is crocodile tears 200%. "Oh NO! There goes my potential cheap labor' sums it all up.

[michel7773]

This makes me cry. Those poor girls, starved to death, how could they? 

[ATReade]

they should drop a nuclear bomb on china to put ecery1 out of misery



[letschat6]

Oh my god...... I watched this at school, and that's just AWFUL :( They have kids tied up to starve to death! Dx

[little196]

made my whole class cryy

[flamifer1]

Wow! You really surprised me with your answer. Usually people throw me to the wolves for my "excentric" ideas. I am a little bit touchy on the subject of overpopulation because when I was a kid we used to live in the suburbs and "our" pond, meadow and forest we used to play in was destroyed to make way for multistory buildings and roads. Now I live in Costa Rica and have to watch the destruction again right in front of my eyes. They call it "progress". Progress in which direction I wonder.

[Herb615]

@flamifer1

Sorry for sounding harsh.

[flamifer1]

@lovingLOLLIPOP

Me too they are the victims of their heartless and irresponsible parents. And their parents who had too many children and these are the victims of their own parents who had too many children and so on... And the driving factor behind all this was the selfish thought that "my children will help me with the farm work now and take care of me when I am old"

The one child policy saved China from the worst so far.

[flamifer1]

@Herb615

No wonder. Overpopulation makes people hate each other. Can you imagine the pressure of competition for nearly everything they have to endure every day? Food, water, cloth, energy, work space, no privacy... The subjective value of a human life decreases with the population density. We love the company of people, not masses. And we hate them when they pick all the berries and mushrooms before us or when all the benches next to the pool are reserved with towels.

[flamifer1]

@rolfeder

Things have changed a lot. Now thanks to the one child policy poverty has decreased so far, that more people are educated and therefore are having less children anyway. What's more: Rich people can just pay for the right to have a third or even more children. This helps to fight poverty even more. (As a side effect there is less left to inherit for each one of the numerous heirs)

By the way: Why are the chinese so heartless? Because overpopulation makes people hate each other.

[flamifer1]

@loren6Q

That's correct. Wealthy people can show off with their 4 or 5 kids and the fines help the poor to support their one child. The one child gets a better start, thus preventing mega-slums like in Africa with big families living a miserable life in tin-huts. And the rich families become a little bit less rich because the inheritance is divided among more people. Some people think it's unfair that the rich can have more babies. It sounds fair enough to me.