Soft-Rebellion in China

Learned Lessons From Israelite Midwives

We have blogged before about the evil's of China's One Child Policy.  The unintended consequences of this perversity are legion, with many downstream unforeseen consequences.  But now, it seems as if millions of parents in China just thumbed their noses at the authorities.

China's 'missing' girls: The millions hiding from the one child policy
By Debra Killalea
NZ Herald

Researchers may have found millions of women and girls who were believed to be missing across China.  It was estimated that between 30 and 60 million girls were "missing" in the world's most populous country, with many believing they were either killed before or after birth simply because of their gender.  But new research suggests 25 million girls do actually exist after all and didn't appear on government records because they simply weren't registered.  The findings raise the possibility that the country's serious gender imbalance is not as severe as previously believed.

Of course these numbers are not "hard".  They are estimates, and to that extent, speculative.  But assuming there has been an underground resistance to the One Child Policy, it seems as if Chinese citizens have linked themselves to a very noble tradition indeed.
  This story will be reminding every Christian of a much earlier time in human history when genocide was on the cards.  In that case, however, it was boy children who were being exterminated, not girls.

Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people, “Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.” Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens. They built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and Raamses. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad. And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel. So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves and made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and brick, and in all kinds of work in the field. In all their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves.

Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, “When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, you shall kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live.” But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live. So the king of Egypt called the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this, and let the male children live?” The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.” So God dealt well with the midwives. And the people multiplied and grew very strong. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families.  [Exodus 1]

It would seem that these Chinese parents who put their love of their children before the idolatrous worship of the state were following in the train of our noble ancestors in the faith.

John Kennedy, an associate professor of political science at the University of Kansas, along with co-author Shi Yaojiang, an economics professor at Shaanxi Normal University, believe these girls went unreported at birth.  However they later appeared on government census records.

Prof Kennedy said it now appeared the administrative story had to do with how births are registered at local levels in China.  "People think 30 million girls are missing from the population. That's the population of California, and they think they're just gone," he said on the university's website.  "Most people are using a demographic explanation to say that abortion or infanticide are the reasons they don't show up in the census and that they don't exist.  . . . The sex ratio at birth was 118 males for every 100 females the 2010 Chinese census found.

However according to the new research, published this month in the journal China Quarterly, the female to male ratio isn't as dire as it sounds.  Using interviews and observations with villagers in rural China, the researchers analysed national population data which spanned a 25-year period. . . . (T)hey found authorities, particularly in rural areas, would turn a blind eye to extra children as they had to work and live in the village where such policies were implemented.

The Chinese government, realising (at least in part) the the damage China had done to itself with its One Child Policy, is trying to reverse course.  Some critics have argued that it is too little, too late.  Chinese society for the next fifty years or so will be riven with the consequences of this government overreach where men have set themselves up over against the Creator of all things.

Now, however, we may have to temper this dire prognosis.  It is possible that many ordinary, rural Chinese fathers and mothers sided with the the ancient Hebrew midwives and surreptitiously ignored the One Child Policy.  As a result they may have unknowingly spared their nation from catastrophic consequences.  Thus, they served God without knowing it, and have blessed their nation as a result.

May God have mercy upon China--and upon all nations.