China's recently released proposal for the country's policies for the next five years would place an emphasis on eugenics when it comes to birth, according to an expert on China.
"I am actually very worried," Columbia University's Leta Hong Fincher, an adjunct professor in the department of East Asian studies, said during a virtual event hosted by the Center for International and Strategic Studies (CSIS) on Nov. 13, according to the Catholic News Agency.
Hong Fincher added the Chinese Communist Party plans to "optimize its birth policy" and "improve the quality of the population" in the next five years, according to its proposal.
"What caught my eye was that they actually use specific language saying that China needs to 'upgrade population quality.' They need to 'optimize their birth policy.' They even use a term . . . which is effectively emphasizing the role of eugenics in population planning in China," she said.
The professor added, China's treatment of the Uighur Muslims shows how the country uses control over reproduction as part of its plan to maintain security while expanding the Han Chinese population, which is the ethnic majority in China.
"We see it happening in Xinjiang with the forced sterilization of particularly Uighur Muslim women, and the language in the plan suggests to me that the government is going to continue with that," she said.
"You have seen a huge reduction in birth rates in Xinjiang and, on the flip side, the government is also trying to co-opt and persuade Han Chinese women who are college-educated into having more babies."
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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