I haven't checked the text lately, but the age article of China's marriage laws used to say "the male needs to be at least 22 years of age and the female needs to be at least 20 years of age," so it is at least implied that marriage should be between a male and a female although the text of the law may not explicitly forbid a marriage between two members of the same sex. If the clerk is sloppy and one member of the same sex couple is willing to dress up as a member of the opposite sex, you can probably get a marriage license. As a side note, homosexuality was taken off the list of mental illness in 2002, the US took it off that list in the 80s and Japan in 1997 I believe.

Socially, while homosexuality is still somewhat of a taboo, there is a fairly good degree of tolerance towards it. Violence against gays are virtually unheard of, but some people do think of gays as an oddity and shunt gays out of disgust. There is a famous openly-gay Hong Kong singer, Leslie Cheung, who had a tour in mainland China back in 1999~2000, he appeared in a red dress and high-heels and the Chinese government had no problem with that, and the concerts were pretty much all sold-out since he has a lot of fans.

As a nation and global neighbor China has a right to rule as it sees fit. The rules by which China controls internal affairs is none of our concern. If a nation with the population of China allowed a family to bare as many children as parents saw fit the population would rise more rapidly and the economic stability of the nation would collapse. Not only would the entire country be thrown into economic depression civil unrest and domestic revolt would plague the country. We cannot look into the eyes of a nation that knows its own people and tell them how to rule their citizens.
Our county has grown too comfortable sitting on a pedestal and handing down directives and mandates to other nations. We have lost all creditability as a country and as an international friend. Should I be sitting anywhere else but America I would be huddled in my corner of my home hiding with a flashlight because I would be terrified that America would try to muck with a system that has worked in the past.
It is fine and wonderful for America to attempt to "better the world for the future" but how dare we look at other nations while in our own land we have problems such as people without homes, starving children, abusive parents. I admire any nation who has ever accepted America's hand-out policies. It should not be our place to accuse China or any other country of doing wrong or doing something wrong. It has become commonplace, for The United States to be so powerful we sometimes lose sight of what is right for other lands.

This topic is a two part issue. One: are population laws a good idea? Two: should the United States dictate the rest of the world's policies, in this case China's Birth Control?

For the first I strongly disagree, population laws commonly called birth control practices hinder more then help. With fewer people to build up a nation and provide job opportunities, then the less the nation grows and actually loses more economy then gains in the long run. Population laws a quick solutions to difficult problems. In the case that there is not enough room there are other areas in the world. Simply allowing more people to emigrate or encouraging emigration would provide better population control because the cultures are spread throughout the world. Raw materials may seem to be a problem globally and provide an excellent reason for population limits but in the next millennia the world will have several planets, all with their own materials, inhabited. Besides there are many of resources just waiting to be harvested that are just not as accessible that most people would like.

In the case of whether the United States should dictate the rest of the world, I also disagree. Whatever happened to the Monroe Doctrine? The world does not need a spokesperson to delegate what other countries should and should not do. The United States is withholding 34 million dollar from China because they do not believe in the cause. This is another case of government gone wrong.

I think the United States should either withdraw from the entire proposition or just hand over the money. There is no gray area in politics and especially when dealing with such a large amount of money.

P.S. I recently read a book titled Ender's Game and it has a character named Valentine that has an alias or Demosthenes. One of the book’s main issues is the population laws too. Is this just a strange coincidence or did you plan this?

The idealistic part of me agrees with you fully, in fact, I think a perfect world needs only a dozen of so laws like "thou shalt not kill" etc, but the pragmatic part of me says "be realistic."

The reality is that it will still be some years before the majority of people in China would willingly have three or less children. Chinese society is still largely agrarian, of the 1.3 billion people in China, 800 million live in rural areas and work in agriculture. And as a basic characteristic of agrarian societies, families want more children because more manual laborers means more productivity.

To slow population growth "naturally," or without the application of a law, one must have two things -- better farming techniques, which reduce the need for manual laborers, and higher cost of living, which makes raising more children more costly. China is also making progress in both areas as mechanization of the agricultural sector and urbanization progresses.

As for emigration, I have an anecdote for you. When Warren Christopher, then Secretary of State of the US, visited China in 1984, he raised objections to the "one-child policy" to Deng Xiaoping, then leader of China. Deng responded by saying, "If you allow 200 million Chinese to move to America, I would stop the policy." Mr. Christopher dropped the topic promptly. I don't think the story is true, but the point it tries to convey is valid nonetheless -- no country in the world is capable of handling a sudden influx of hundreds of millions of people, even 1 million would be unthinkable.

As for inter-planetary migration, both the technology and the funding are not within reach in the foreseeable future. However, I am also a supporter of such efforts, and I applaud your optimism.

First off, I would like to thank you for being the first person to not take what I said and consider it the worst form of english writing. The best overall way of improving poverty is making a majority of the country 'rich'. The more rich basic people are the less likelihood of them wanting a large family, and the lower the need for having a lot of sons to run the family farm or other laborious activities.

Speaking at a more realistic level other then mass emigration, terra-forming, or substantial GNP increase. Simply having a successful retirement plan will greatly reduce the want for more children. Parents will not have to worry about being provided for when they no longer can work for themselves. Social security, and increased taxes for more children are other simple ways to reduce the amount of children. Abortion should not be universally legal, and should only be used at extreme circumstances. A entire country should not use it as a way out.

This may however be already taking place. This post is only my opinion and that is not always the best way.

Hey, I agree. But this is a kind of a chicken and egg problem. When you are poor, you want more kids to help you on the farm, but when you have more kids, you won't have enough money to put them through college and they will stay poor. To put this in a more academic way -- to increase the resource per capita, you can either increase the resources available or decrease the number of capita (Or what's the plural form of capita?) Ours may not be the best way, but it sure beats waging a war to grab more resources.



Hmmm, actually you have some good points. Retirement plans in rural China are non-existent, and just getting started in urban areas. This would definitely help solve part of problem, but I think that by the time China's social security network is complete the popoulation would have been forcebally reduced to a level of equillibrium.