[In 2006 a Chinese general said just what you did about their one child policy. Said they needed a war to clear out lots of them.]
Do you recall the source? I’m skeptical that *any* Chinese general would say something so head-scratching, in light of the Chinese historical record. 2200 years ago, China’s Spartacus dethroned the First Emperor (i.e. the guy who created China out of dozens of independent kingdoms by drowning it in oceans of blood) and slaughtered his entire clan to the tune of tens of thousands. The proximate cause of the disturbances that kicked it off? Draft riots.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Gaozu_of_Han#Insurrection_against_the_Qin_dynasty It’s hard to think of any other regime in antiquity that was established by a peasant. Japan’s Hideyoshi Toyotomi came close, but his regime collapsed immediately after his death under siege from his vassal Tokugawa Ieyasu. Whereas this Chinese peasant established a dynasty that saw his bloodline rule the empire for 400 years.
I was reading emails that were army internal, and I don’t recall the source. I remember that I read it in 08, but he’d said it in 06. It was definitely said, and I haven’t heard that since. Anyone that has some situational and historical awareness would realize that this was the case anyways.