"Population Control" Eyewitness
Steven W. Mosher is president of the pro-family Population Research Institute based in Front Royal, Virginia. For more than 20 years, Mr. Mosher’s has been a leading voice speaking out against the abuse of human rights in Communist China. He was interviewed by John F. McManus, publisher of THE NEW AMERICAN.
Q. How did your relationship with China begin?
A. As a doctoral candidate from Stanford University, I was the first American social scientist to go to China after President Carter normalized relations with that nation in 1979. I spent an entire year living in a village in South China. During the course of that year, China’s population control program got underway in earnest.
Q. What did you observe about population control?
A. In China, I witnessed forced abortions and forced sterilizations performed on women who were told that the children they were carrying were "illegal." I went with them when they were arrested and remained with them as they were subjected to mind-bending psychological torture. And I accompanied them as they went in tears to the local clinic to have their pregnancies aborted. As you might expect, the experience gave me a solid perspective about population control and also a new perspective on the People’s Republic of China.
Q. Did you decide at that time to protest what was happening?
A. There wasn’t anything I could do while in China, but after I left in June 1980, I determined to expose to the world these crimes against the Chinese people. In short order, articles I’d written about the one-child policy were published telling how women were being brutally subjected to abortion. These articles included photographs of women being detained, and then being forcibly aborted and sterilized. And I was really the first voice of criticism against China’s one-child policy. The worldwide population control movement applauded when they found out that China was serious about limiting everyone to one child per family. I couldn’t applaud because I knew the human cost of this program.
Q. Where were your initial articles published?
A. My articles appeared in several places including Taiwan, and that really angered the Beijing government because of the situation between mainland China and Taiwan. I had gone to Taiwan to continue doing field research. The Beijing government was furious, particularly because these eyewitness accounts appeared in what they consider "the breakaway state." They declared me to be an international spy and put my name very high on their blacklist of foreigners who would no longer be welcomed in China. I expected this.
Q. How were your actions received by your university?
A. What I hadn’t expected was China putting pressure on Stanford University in the form of a confidential document which, after listing my "crimes against the people," demanded that I be severely punished. A threat was made that if I were not punished, then Stanford University faculty members would find it very difficult to do research in China in the future. You might think that one of the most prestigious U.S. universities would refuse to buckle under to that kind of pressure and, instead, make a stand for academic freedom and defend their young scholar who was speaking the truth about what was happening in China. But Stanford didn’t stand up for me and effectively gave my head on a silver platter to the rulers of Red China.
Q. Did Stanford ever dispute the facts that you were publishing?
A. Nobody anywhere disputed the facts I was reporting. Everyone acknowledged that these horrors were going on. Yet I was dismissed from the program at the university and sent off to wander in the academic wilderness.
Q. How far along were you toward gaining your Ph.D. degree?
A. I had completed just about everything required for the doctoral degree in the field of anthropology. I had finished all the course work and done my field work in both the mainland and in Taiwan. And I had written my dissertation but, at this point, no one at the university would read it. All that remained for me was the reading and approval of my dissertation and an oral exam. But after I began publishing these articles and after the Beijing government put pressure on Stanford, the three-person dissertation committee formed to supervise my field research, read and approve the dissertation, and administer an oral examination resigned from the project. And I couldn’t form another committee because no one at the university was willing to help me.
Q. Did any of these three ever tell you why they had resigned or apologize for abandoning you?
A. Yes, I received letters from two of them. One of my committee members admitted that he didn’t know whether the charges made by the Chinese government against me were true or false, but he made it clear that he and others wanted to do field research in China in the future and my actions had jeopardized that. He was quite frank about the fact that he had resigned from the committee formed to assess my work because I was persona non grata in China and having any association with me would hinder his access to China in the future.
Q. If you went back to China, would you be in physical jeopardy?
A. The Chinese are not as crude as the officials in the former Soviet Union were. The Kremlin would send thugs to brutalize critics in the streets of Moscow. The Chinese have done some of that, but it’s not their normal procedure. The way they work is to warn you beforehand. They’ll come to you and say that you maligned the Chinese people in your article last month and now you want to go to China. We will allow this only if you promise not to write or say anything critical of China in the future. Since scholars have to get their tickets punched, businessmen have to have entry permission, and anyone who wants to be considered a China expert has to go to China in order to have credibility, this tactic amounts to a very effective silencing mechanism. The Chinese government controls access to China, and they use it like a club to beat visitors into silence. One end result is that those in the foreign policy establishment dealing with China are compromised. In a sense, my difficulties with China have freed me from these constraints. I don’t have to worry about my next visa to China because I’m not going to get one. So I can say exactly what I think about China and the ambitions of its leaders.
Q. You have told of witnessing abortions and sterilizations. Did you ever see the murder of live babies?
A. On one occasion, there were 18 women from my village who were arrested because they refused abortions. They were taken about ten miles to a town that was the local seat of the Chinese Communist Party. They were locked up in a small dormitory whose doors and windows were shuttered. A single 25-watt bulb illuminated that dismal and gloomy room. The women were kept there for the next few weeks and were subjected to morning-to-night brainwashing sessions.
In good-cop, bad-cop fashion, officials would harangue, threaten, and cajole these women about their need for an abortion. The bad cop would tell them they had no choice and would receive the abortion whether they wanted it or not. He would make his point by singling out a woman who was nearly full-term and then tell her not to plan to extend her time in the government lock-up until she went into labor because she would never be allowed to give birth. He would add that if she went into labor before giving permission for the abortion, the authorities would take her baby anyway and send her home alone.
Then the good cop would come in and assure the women that no one was going coerce anyone to do anything. He would bribe them with promises of a free mosquito net, some food ration coupons, or permission to go home that very night if they agreed to have the abortion. These procedures would be alternated back and forth all day in the time-tested way of breaking down someone’s will.
Q. But were there actual cases of infanticide?
A. Yes, infanticide was actually carried out in the following fashion: If a woman in labor came into a hospital or clinic and could not prove she was carrying a legal child by producing a government certificate allowing her to have the child, the doctors would assume that she was carrying illegally. They would then wait until her cervix was totally dilated and the baby began to descend the birth canal. When the baby’s head emerged, they would inject a hypodermic needle full of formaldehyde, alcohol or iodine into the baby’s brain which caused instantaneous death. So when the baby was born seconds or minutes later, the baby was already dead. This is similar to partial-birth abortion being employed in our country. It amounted to infanticide.
Q. Did you ever talk to any Chinese medical personnel about this gruesome business?
A. On one of my subsequent trips into South China, I interviewed the head of a large military hospital. I asked if they ever killed babies at birth and he said that it’s legal to take the baby’s life as long as it still has one foot in the womb. He then described the procedure I’ve just recounted. I asked him how many such procedures were done every year. He responded, "About 400." This means that in his hospital alone, they were killing an average of more than one full-term baby every day of the year. That’s 400 cases of infanticide committed in that one hospital annually. I asked him, "Don’t your doctors object?" He said ruefully, "They did at first but it’s like drinking coffee. At first it’s bitter, but then you get used to it."
Q. Is there any reason to believe that the policies you saw being implemented have been changed?
A. I believe that the one-child-per-family policy put in place when I was in China is essentially unchanged. It was officially mandated throughout China in 1981. By 1983, the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party promulgated a secret directive entitled "Central Committee Directive #7," which stated that any woman who has one child must have an intrauterine device (IUD) inserted, any woman who has two children must be sterilized or her spouse must be sterilized, and any woman who is pregnant with an over-quota child must be given remedial measures, which is a euphemism for abortion.
Q. Do parents attempt to determine the sex of an unborn child so that a male child would be allowed to live and a female destroyed?
A. The one-child policy has created a situation where there are very few females in the entire nation. A girl conceived in China has to run an eerie kind of gauntlet if she is to survive. The first threat she faces is sex-selective abortion because many parents will use the ultrasound technique at about 20 weeks and, if it reveals that the baby is a girl, they’ll abort her. If it reveals the baby is a boy, they’ll celebrate. They’re only allowed one child and they prefer a boy.
The second part of the gauntlet comes at birth. Many couples who don’t have access to the ultrasound technology decide beforehand that if their newborn baby is a girl, she is not going to be allowed to live. So at birth, they either suffocate her, plunge her into a bucket of water and drown her, or abandon her by the side of the road to die of exposure.
Some of the little girls who are abandoned end up in state-run orphanages that are really killing fields. Babies in this circumstance die within a few days or a few weeks. Basically, China’s state-run orphanages are part of the enforcement mechanism of the one-child policy.
The next part of the gauntlet is that even older little girls are sacrificed if their mother becomes pregnant with a son. A family will give up a little two-year-old or three-year-old girl because if they didn’t, they would have to abort a newly conceived child that might be, or is known to be, a boy. And they want a son who will support them in their old age.
Q. Has China arrived at a point where there aren’t enough women for men who want to marry and have a family?
A. Most certainly. The Chinese government, which never exaggerates its problems and usually underestimates them, admits that there are 20 million men in China who, in the next few years, will not be able to find brides, will not be able to marry, and will not be able to form a family. This all stems from the one-child policy that has led to the dramatic shortage of females.
Q. If there are 20 million Chinese men who can’t find wives, could this lead to revolution within China?
A. This situation cuts two ways. These young men are 20 million potential barbarians who need the stabilizing influence of a woman and the responsibilities inherent in family life. I believe they will cause many problems for China in the future and they may cause problems for China’s neighbors. I expect to see higher crime rates in China and the formation of gangs that are in effect alternative families. I think many of these men will join the military because the military is a kind of alternative family. I believe that rates of prostitution and homosexuality will rise dramatically as these young men seek other sexual outlets. Buying and selling women already exists in China.
Another consequence is that gangs are kidnaping women from China’s remote areas and transporting them a thousand miles across the nation to sell to the highest bidder. This type of activity could easily spread outside China’s borders to neighboring nations. Imagine an army of single men who are told that if they’re successful in their next border war with Vietnam, they’ll be able to bring home a Vietnamese bride. So China’s one-child policy may have serious consequences for China but also for China’s neighbors as well.
Q. Might Chinese men seek women from other countries?
A. They are already buying women from North Korea, where Chinese men are paying $1,000 or $2,000 for young women to come and be their wives. In the years to come, I think they’ll be seeking wives in Vietnam, Burma, Thailand, and Nepal. I don’t think they’ll go to Japan, because there are no extra young women there as a result of a birth rate that is among the lowest in the world. The current fertility rate in Japan is about 1.5 children per woman and the replacement level is 2.1. There aren’t enough women for Japanese men, much less for export.
Q. What about religious persecution in Red China?
A. For many years, the Chinese Communist Party tried hard to wipe out all forms of Christianity. Until 1957, the goal was to eradicate all belief except belief in the party. It turned out that the Christians weren’t afraid of martyrdom and some of them seemed to grow stronger as more of their numbers were put in jail. So the party organized two "patriotic" churches that were loyal to the government: the Patriotic Catholic Church, which was designed to control and hold Catholics; and the Patriotic Protestant Church, which was established as a catchall for all Protestant sects. Once these were in place, the goal changed from trying to destroy outright to containing the church’s influence and forcing believers to acknowledge loyalty first to the Communist Party and secondly to God and the church. For any true Christian, of course, this is impossible.
The new policy held that once you’d sworn allegiance to the party, you could worship in the state-run "patriotic" churches, where you could be watched and where cooperative ministers and priests would report any activities deemed subversive. Beyond your affiliation with these churches, you couldn’t preach outside; you couldn’t talk to young people; you couldn’t preach in the streets; you couldn’t have Bibles; and you could only hold your meetings in official churches. So this goal wasn’t to wipe out religion immediately, but to wipe it out in a generation and prevent it from being passed on.
Q. Did the policy succeed?
A. Not at all. In the last two decades, the number of Christian believers in China has skyrocketed. There are tens of millions of worshipers in China outside of those attending patriotic churches. The Beijing government itself admitted recently that there may be as many as 50 million Christian believers of all denominations in China. This is an amazing admission because for 40 years Party officials insisted that there were exactly 2.5 million Catholics and 3.5 million Protestants in the entire nation. Now suddenly they have admitted that the real number is in the tens of millions. And I think the number they admit is deliberately underestimated. Most of these Christians are in underground churches of various kinds.
Q. What is the condition of the official churches today?
A. Even the patriotic churches have turned in part against the Chinese Communist Party. In the 1980s, when China opened itself to the West and it became possible for Catholics to communicate with other arms of the Catholic Church, the bishops of the patriotic church in China sent emissaries or notes to the Vatican one by one asking to be recognized as legitimate bishops. About three-quarters of them have been accepted, even though they were previously promoted by the Communist Party from the ranks of priests. They have been recognized in secret as bishops after Catholic authorities conducted investigations and became satisfied that these were holy men who had not sold out to the party. There are still Communist agents serving as bishops in the important cities of Beijing, Shanghai, and elsewhere. These men are absolutely untrustworthy. They are the products of the effort to undermine the church from within. But most of the so-called patriotic bishops are loyal to the church.
Q. What of the Protestant ministers?
A. The Protestant Patriotic Churches also maintain ties outside of China. This instrument that the Chinese Communist Party wanted to use to control and destroy all forms of Christianity is in large part being used against them to spread the gospel and to spread Christianity.