ABSTRACT
The generally poor natural resource base of China is one reason why there has been concern for two decades now about continuing population growth. During the 1950s, the total fertility rate was high, and large families were encouraged in the belief or assumption that overpopulation was solely a ‘capitalist’ problem. In military and strategic terms, also, the attitude prevailed that the more people there were, the more able China would be to survive a war, even a nuclear war. However, it was through a combination of unfavourable weather, and the reorganisation and neglect of the agricultural sector, not a war, that in 1959-61 there were about 20 million deaths in excess of those normally experienced. China’s pro-natalist policy was revived during the first part of the Cultural Revolution, which started in 1966, and a baby boom ensued. Only in the 1970s did a reversal of policy lead to measures to encourage and in places actively force the one-child family on the generally reluctant population. Figure 16.3 shows the changing gap between birthrate and deathrate in China and the steady and relentless growth of the absolute number of people from the start of the communist period.
