Figure 1.--Here we see a Chinese family photographed by an America about 1945 at the end of the War with Japan. Notice that this is still a young family. The oldest boy looks to be about 13 years old--meaning there are more children to come. And the father did not even want the girls included in the photograph. Contrast this with China's One Child policy. Photographer: S.F. Lindstrom.

The Kuomintang (KMT) sought to modernize China. It was a major policy objective. Sun and Chiang were determined to do what the Qing had failed to do. They pushed pushed industrialization to catch up to he Japanese. But the KMT in reality only had the brief Nanjing Decade to make progress. Compare this to the unfettered power of the Meiji Emperor in Japan to pursue industrialization. Allowed to continue the KMT efforts in China might have evolved into what is today's Asian Tiger Economies. Taiwan is a modern democratic progressive state with European-like demographics. But the shock of the Japanese invasion truncated what progress was being made. Industrialization is particularly important when we speak of demographics. Agriculture which is how the great bulk of humanity made a living until the 20th century mandated large families. Children meant not only low-cost labor for peasant farmers, but a kind of old age insurance. The children (especially the boys) would care for their father in old age. One reason the Chinese prefer boys. The girls after marriage were largely lost to the family. Because of this dynamic and the incredible fertility of the Middle Kingdom as well as other factors like the caloric value of rice, irrigation, and long eras of relative tranquility, you have the Chinese population explosion. Industrialization changed this millennia old family dynamic. Industrialization meant that people moved from the farms and moved into the city seeking good paying jobs in he frwing cities. At this point children changed from cheap labor to expensive and often annoying ornaments. 【Zeihan】 This of course did not occur during the short Republic era. China remained a country largely of rural peasants wih an economy which continued to be based on agriculure. Industrialzation and a population shift to the cities would occur during the Communist era (after the Communists embraced capitalism in the 1970s). But because of Communist totalitarian mismanagement like the One Child Policy, China is now going over a demographic cliff and we are now talking about the end of Han ethnicity. 【Zeihan】

Sources

Zweihan, Peter. Varous internet blogs.

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Created: 7:23 PM 1/17/2025
Last updated: 7:23 PM 1/17/2025