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- Source/Curator Weijian
- Author/Curator Weijian
In 2023, India's population will surpass China's to become the world's most populous country.
If it had been said 50 years ago that China would lose its position as the most populous country, I am afraid that few people would have believed it. But over time, this prediction gradually became a reality.
Behind this data is the continuous decline in the birth rate of the mainland. By 2022, the mainland's birth rate has fallen to 6.77 per 1,000, the lowest since the founding of the People's Republic of China. The birth rate for 2023 has not yet been fully counted, but many people are also pessimistic, believing that it may be lower than in 2022. With such a low birth rate, the mainland has already experienced a negative population growth trend, but has decreased by 850,000 people.
Although the state has successively opened up the two-child and three-child policies to encourage childbearing, the fertility rate still does not show a significant growth trend. This is accompanied by a serious aging population and a decline in the working-age population.
As a result, many people blame Ma Yinchu for these problems, believing that if Ma Yinchu had not put forward the new population theory and had not implemented family planning, China might not have the problems it has now. So is that really the case? What would China be like today without family planning?
First of all, it should be clear that Ma Yinchu did have radical views on the population issue, but he was only a scholar after all, and he could only put forward theories and suggestions. As for whether or not these plans can be implemented, and how they will be implemented, it is not up to him to decide. Ma Yinchu only has the right to make suggestions, not the right to make decisions.
Therefore, even if Ma Yinchu's theory is completely wrong, he should not bear all the infamy for it, because he is not the one who has the power to make decisions in the end. Even if Ma Yinchu had spoken of his new population theory in a fanciful way, if no one had adopted it, his ideas would not have had any impact. Of course, if this decision is wrong, he should definitely bear part of the responsibility, but it cannot be considered that this result is completely caused by Ma Yinchu.
So is there any problem with Ma Yinchu's theory? We still have to look at it in a specific context. Many theories were valid at the time, but they may not be effective later, and practice is the only criterion for testing the truth.
Let's take a look at when Ma Yinchu came up with his theory of controlling population growth - in 1955, when the Chinese population was growing rapidly and educational resources were somewhat unable to keep up.
Before the founding of the People's Republic of China, the mainland experienced many years of war, from warlord melee to the war of liberation, and there were hardly a few days of peace on the mainland. The mainland lost a large number of young and middle-aged people during the war, and naturally needed to replenish it quickly.
Therefore, at the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, a policy of encouraging childbirth was adopted, which was similar to that of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union also suffered heavy casualties in the war, so fertility was strongly encouraged after the war. Following the example of the Soviet Union, the mainland set up the titles of "glorious mother" and "heroic mother", and families with a large number of children could receive a lot of subsidies. In addition, the mainland itself has the traditional idea of "having more children and more blessings", so the population of the mainland at that time was growing extremely rapidly.
In 1953, the population of the mainland exceeded 600 million, and compared with the statistics of 1949, the population of the mainland increased by more than 40 million in four years. This figure was advertised as a mainland achievement at the time, but Ma Yinchu was deeply worried about it. In years of research on the economy and population, Ma Yinchu realized that more people are not always better. Because the carrying capacity of the land itself is limited, once it is overpopulated, it will inevitably lead to a series of problems.
So in that era of common birth, Ma Yin sang "Countertone" at the beginning. At the second session of the National People's Congress in 1955, Ma Yinchu submitted his own report: "Population Control and Scientific Research", arguing that China's economy is still in difficulty, and the development of productive forces has not kept up with the trend of population growth, so not only should fertility not be encouraged, but also population growth should be restricted.
Ma Yinchu's theory caused an uproar at the time, and few scholars agreed with him, and he was soon surrounded by doubts. Some people think that since the Soviet Union has also implemented a policy to encourage childbearing, there is no problem for the mainland to do so. However, Ma Yinchu believed that the Soviet Union and China had different national conditions, and that the Soviet Union had a wider territory and a relatively sparse population. Even if fertility is encouraged, the upper limit of carrying capacity will not be exceeded in the short term, but the situation on the mainland is different.
At the same time, the mainland was still facing a key problem at that time, that is, there was a shortage of cultivated land, with less than 3 mu of cultivated land per capita in the whole country, and grain production was too low. Once the population grows too fast, it will inevitably face a food crisis, and if the people's living standards are to be guaranteed, they will have to rely on food imports. However, the mainland needs a lot of money for development, and it is difficult to cover all aspects.
In this case, Ma Yin first proposed the theory of limiting the population. In 1957, Ma Yin published the "New Population Theory", proposing that with the population growth rate in 1953, the Chinese population would reach 2.6 billion in 50 years. But Ma's theories were immediately sharply criticized, with people either arguing that population growth would not be that fast, or that there was nothing wrong with 2.6 billion people.
However, in the 70s, the central government still realized the urgency of the population problem and began to implement the family planning policy, putting forward the policy of "late scarcity" to widen the birth spacing between the two children. In 1982, the mainland clearly put forward the slogan of "late marriage and late childbearing, fewer births and better children", and began to implement stricter measures to limit population growth.
In short, Ma Yinchu was only a proposer of a theory, but he proposed it too early, so that he became a "retrograde" of that era, so he was the most famous. Even if there is no Ma Yinchu, when the population is to be controlled in the 70s, there will still be Zhang Yinchu and Li Yinchu who will put forward this set of theories.
So, if family planning had not been practiced at that time, what would China's population situation be like now?
According to the population growth trend at that time, if family planning had not been implemented, it would indeed not have been such a serious problem of population aging and insufficient working-age population, but it would have led to an even more serious population problem. And no matter how fast the population grew at that time, the final aging of the population was inevitable.
Why? We first need to understand the law of natural population growth. What is natural increase? Because people always move from place to place, natural increase refers to the tendency of the population to grow in the local population, excluding the impact of migration. Generally speaking, the natural population growth rate follows the law of "low and low".
In the first stage, the level of education was low, the level of medical care and living standards were also low, so the birth rate of the population was very high, the death rate was also very high, and the natural growth rate of the population was low, which was basically the case in ancient times on the mainland. Although there are many children, due to poor conditions, children are prone to death, even if the royal family is the same.
In the second stage, the medical level and living standard have improved, which greatly reduces the probability of child death. The population has a high birth rate, a low death rate, and a high natural population growth rate.
In the third stage, the level of medical care and living standards are still high, but people's education level has gradually improved, and they no longer pursue to have so many children. The population has a low birth rate, a low death rate, and a low natural population growth rate.
Taken together, this is the general law of natural population growth. In the third stage, no matter how much the standard of living is improved and no matter how much the government encourages childbearing, people's willingness to have children will always be limited, and the natural population growth rate will basically not reach the level of the second stage. Unless everyone has fully achieved "financial freedom", there is no need to worry about how to raise them after birth.
Even those developed countries whose per capita income is higher than ours face the same problem. After experiencing the "baby boom" of the 50s and 60s, Japan's fertility rate has been declining year after year, but can it be said that the living standards of the Japanese are not as good as they were in the 50s and 60s? The developed countries of Europe are also facing the problem of excessively low or even negative population growth rates. Even if the government vigorously encourages childbearing with high welfare, it can only be raised a little, and it is impossible to return to that period of high growth.
Therefore, if the mainland had not had family planning in the first place, what would have been the result? The population growth rate would have gradually declined after a "big bang" stage, and the problem of aging would still have appeared, but it would have been delayed by 20 or 30 years compared to the present one. By the 40s and 50s of this century, the babies born in the population explosion will basically have entered old age and are facing retirement, while the number of newborns is relatively small, and the mainland will face an even more serious problem of population aging.
In short, even if birth restrictions are completely lifted, the fertility rate will gradually decline, and the aging of the population will still be a problem we will inevitably face. The key is therefore to maintain a steady population growth, not a temporary high fertility rate. As long as the subsequent new population can maintain a balance with the previous growth rate of the elderly population, the aging problem will naturally be gradually eased.
Of course, in order to alleviate the trend of population aging, in addition to maintaining its own population growth, there is another way, that is, to attract young and middle-aged people from other places and foreign countries to migrate over and change the demographic structure of the country. However, after all, the mainland is still a developing country, and it is unrealistic to expect a large number of young and middle-aged people from European and American countries to immigrate here. If we have to alleviate the aging of the population by attracting people to migrate, which countries are most likely to come? This is an outcome that many people may not want to see.
If family planning is abolished, in addition to facing the problem of a delayed but more serious aging population, the mainland will also face the problem of lack of educational resources.
As a country that attaches great importance to education, why did the mainland only implement compulsory education in 1986? In the final analysis, there is too much population and too few educational resources. As the saying goes, "ten years of trees, a hundred years of people", to increase educational resources, it is necessary to carry out long-term advance preparations, and it is impossible to see the results in a short period of time.
Therefore, when the growth rate of population exceeds the growth rate of educational resources, the mainland is destined to face the problem of insufficient educational resources, and it will not be able to promote compulsory education. If there is no family planning, it is very likely that compulsory education will not be implemented on the mainland until later, and even until now, compulsory education will not be implemented, and the per capita education level will be even lower.
At present, the competition for educational resources on the mainland has become fierce, education has become one of the "new three mountains", getting up early and studying late has become the norm, and a large number Xi of students are facing the problem of lack of sleep. If the population is hundreds of millions more, but there is no significant increase in educational resources, it is unimaginable what the current students will be "rolled" into.
In addition, the mainland may also face the problem of insufficient population carrying capacity. Although the mainland has a land area of 9.6 million square kilometers, the main habitable areas are concentrated in the east of the Heihe-Tengchong line, that is, the eastern region. Although the western part is vast, it is mountainous and desert, and there are not many areas suitable for habitation. What's more, if too many people are concentrated in a certain area, the local environment will inevitably be seriously damaged, which may lead to various natural disasters and eventually endanger itself.
All in all, if family planning is not implemented, the problem of the aging of the mainland's population will indeed be postponed for a while, but it will still happen eventually, and it will be more serious. This will be followed by a shortage of educational resources and a lack of regional population carrying capacity, and the people's living standards are likely to be worse than they are now.
Of course, this does not mean that the family planning policy does not need to be changed, and Ma Yinchu's theory is not problematic at all. In the process of implementing family planning, the problem of "one-size-fits-all" and overly strict and direct methods has indeed emerged in some areas. Ma Yinchu's theory adapted to the trend of explosive population growth at that time, and someone really needed to "pour cold water" on that environment. But now his theory may not be applicable, and if Ma Yinchu is still alive, it is likely that he will revise his own theory.
Therefore, the crux of the problem lies in how to control it, how much it can be controlled, and when to end the control, so as to scientifically calculate a time point that is most in line with the development trend of the mainland. It is undeniable that family planning itself is of course necessary and of great significance.
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