Educational review, Vol.60, Iss 1, 2008

Edited by Gerard A. Postiglione, HKU
1. Gerard A. Postiglione, Making Tibetans in China: the educational challenges of harmonious multiculturalism.
2. Li-fang Zhang; Hong Fu; Ben Jiao, Accounting for Tibetan university students' and teachers' intellectual styles.
3. Catriona Bass, Tibetan primary curriculum and its role in nation building.
4. Vilma Seeberg, Girls first! Promoting early education in Tibetan areas of China, a case study.
5. Ellen Bangsbo, Schooling for knowledge and cultural survival: Tibetan community schools in nomadic herding areas.
6. Mary Ann Maslak, School as a site of Tibetan ethnic identity construction in India? Results from a content analysis of textbooks and Delphi study of teachers' perceptions.

Overall summary:
Regardless of the transformations taking place in Tibet, the analysis of the education system, policies, programmes, problems and practices inevitably has to be based on the realities of students, households, schools, teachers and communities. The purpose of this special issue is to bring empirical research on the education of Tibetans closer to mainstream educational research by highlighting selected studies that address such questions as: How are Tibetans being educated? What and how do Tibetans learn in China’s schools and universities? What are schooling opportunities doing to lift Tibetan girls out of poverty? How do nomadic Tibetan communities adapt to state schools? How do schools remake Tibetans? What are the views of elite students about their education? What is the case with identity among Tibetans in schools outside China?


This special issue of the journal begins with a discussion paper that focuses on education in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR), and provides a background to situate the articles that follow about education in selected Tibetan communities of China and India. It also provides a brief review of education policies concerning free basic education, bilingual education, and hinterland boarding schools. The paper argues that while enrollment rates in most parts of the TAR continue to rise, schools produce only mixed results. This is due to the widespread lack of quality learning environments that can promote a culturally diverse and locally relevant education to foster a harmonious multiculturalism and sustain Tibet’s social and economic development. Only by doing so, will schools propel Tibetan academic achievement to levels comparable with the national average. Until then, the potential of education to help Tibetans live and work as critical and innovative thinkers in a rapidly changing market economy in the TAR and across China will remain limited.

In their article, Zhang, Ben Jiao and Fu confirm the difference between the intellectual style of TAR Tibetans and Chinese in Nanjing, something that can be seized upon to improve the way in which instruction is delivered. Through systematic examination of the teaching styles of Tibetans at Tibet University and the learning styles they preferred, we get a refined understanding of higher learning in the TAR. Tibetan teachers’ styles were not, as expected, significantly more conservative than those of Nanjing University teachers. To deal with the rapidly changing world, Tibetan university teachers have become more creative in their teaching. Yet, teaching and learning in Tibet University remains relatively conservative due to remoteness, economics, and traditions in monastery education, as well as Tibetan people’s strong sense of culture preservation.

At the other end of the education system, Bass points out how primary school education has become politically conservative, even while the rest of China moves in the other direction. Through careful examination, she discovers that Tibetan culture has been hallowed out from the content of school textbooks, while the theme of Tibetan cultural backwardness remains salient. Tibetan culture is disengaged from Tibetan Buddhism as historical figures are ridiculed or condemned as rich, evil, lazy aristocrats or duplicitous and corrupt monk teachers. The backward state of the TAR's economy is officially attributed to Tibetan Buddhism and mental attitude, as well as the popular idea that Tibet is unique. For Bass, this education will not produce a produce a generation of Tibetans with the confidence and skills to compete with those from other areas of China, unless they are also educated with relevant Tibetan language skills that permit access to their rich cultural heritage.

Seeberg provides new empirical research to explain the struggle of Tibetan girls for education in Qinghai province. She examines how girls become part of new social networks that both bind them to their traditional place, while creating new space for their educational empowerment. Based on narrative data by girls about their pursuit of education, Seeberg sees these girls as advantageously situated for primary schooling. Moreover, schools function as change agents that open possibilities for girls’ demands for parity in promotion to secondary and higher learning. As males leave home for work in the urban market economy, secondary education places remote Tibetan girls into a habitus where they acquire a modern subjectivity, despite remaining materially locked into a pre-modern terrain and poor socio-economic conditions. Seeberg’s empowerment perspective takes us beyond the grim developmentalist view. Within the current seeds of change, she appeals for more culturally responsive policies that have salutary effects of expanding human liberties.

Bangsbo argues that there is a preference for community based schools in nomadic areas of Sichuan and Qinghai, where it is often a struggle to attend school. She conveys the perspectives of nomadic households about the long distance from home to school, the irrelevance of school learning to daily life, and the lack of available jobs upon graduation. Thus, not unexpectedly, the choice by some parents is to keep their children at home to perform domestic work that contributes directly to the household economy. Although some parents consider state schooling of limited value, most parents acknowledge that proficiency in Chinese and other basic knowledge gained in school are essential to life outside the pastoral community. While life in remote, high-altitude herding areas is under transition, this has made Tibetan parents more open to schooling for their children. However, many households prefer community run schools if they better reflect the rugged realities and practical aspirations of nomadic life.

Maslak’s study investigates ways in which ethnicity is represented in India’s primary school curricula and conceptualized in the Tibetan refugee community by Indian and Tibetan public school teachers. While curricula support the national ethos of the majority, teachers play a significant role in shaping Tibetan students’ understanding of their ethnicity. A Delphi study identified teachers’ perceptions of factors that contribute to the ethnicity of Tibetan students. Her research demonstrates a multiplicity of practices in the school – particularly in curricula and teachers, which contribute to how ethnicity is conceptualised. Teachers believe they communicate information about ethnicity to students and can help students become critical consumers of the nationally issued textbooks that fail to capture the refugee perspective. Maslak suggests a review of all textbooks to gauge the frequency with which and ways in which India’s diverse population is depicted. In short, this research supports revisions that recognize the multicultural and eliminate pedagogy of the excluded.

Ethnicity, education and empowerment, Chapter 6

Pp 150-188 Minority students and academic success-The microinteractionist perspective

The last Chapter has discussed the social structures as the framework for the minority students to construct their identities. This chapter talks about in detail that how they do the identity construction, espcially the efforts to develop achievement-oriented selves through individual interviews.

Identity construction within families
1. How families help students succeed in school: financial support, free time from family work, teacher contact, emotional and academic support.
2. Students' perception of family help and sense of filial obligation.
3. How students define family--> usually extend family.
4. How they are redefined by family members?--> almost the same as they thought.

Identity construction within villages
1. Social redefinitions by villagers and personal definitions by students: University students as good children, almost the same as they thought.
2. Challenges to the constructions of achievement-oriented selves: local cultural environment is not that good for children to do hard work. So they become university students meaning they are successful.
3. Role taking: University students become role model, being looked upon by villagers. And the previously university students in villages are the models for the current ones in their childhood.
4. Practicing success: University students are thought by the villagers as "outstanding scholar", they encourage their children to learn from the university students. USs also publicize themselves (no sense? because of their model role?) to the younger children to have more education.

therefore, villagers play an important part in the construction of the students' achievement-oriented self. They supplied a social definition of outstanding scholar on the students.

Identity construction within schools
1. Redefinition by significant others: Helps and concerns from teachers, from meeting problems to growing up and becoming university students.
2. The importance of attending the right school: studying in a better school and so forth.
3. How teachers help students construct AOS (achievement-oriented selves): teachers as parents, as enablers （伯乐？）, as role models.
4. How students help each other construct AOS: academic help of each other and so on.

The salience of ethnic identity for minority student
1. Language use in family: Most use ethnic/local language rather than Mandarin Chinese. They learned Mandarin quite late.
2. Network with other people: School free time spent with Han students and other minority ones, Han occupies most because of its dominated population in schooling.
3. How ethnicity contributes to success in school: Cultural influences.
4. Preferential educational policies: Most agree that they benefit from these policies.
5. Minority group characteristics: good, group spirit, and they have positive impacts on educational achievements.
6. Symbolic ethnicity: High, a means for maintaining some degree of ethnic identity and feeling.
7. Group distinctions.
8. Prejudice (attitude) and discrimination (behavior) : sufferred.

Ethnicity, education and empowerment

Chapter 5, Minority students and academic success—the structural perspective Pp 108-149

The major argument, growing out of the micro-interactionist perspective, is that those minority students who do well in school are those who manage to construct “achievement-oriented selves”. This construction process—which happens one-on-one between minority students and their relatives, neighbors and teachers as they advance toward university is discussed in the following chapter 6.

The process of identity construction occurs within a larger structural, or macro, context. Larger social entities like schools, villages and families—and the cultures, norms and values that grow out of them—have a profound effect on individual people’s lives. For minority students, the larger structural context at sometimes constrains and at other times enables them to construct “achievement-oriented selves”. At all times the structural context influences the ability of minority students to succeed in school and to qualify for university. In this chapter, the author discusses both constraints (factors like poverty and language) and supports (like special schools and financial aid) provided by the structural context in which ethnic students and their reference groups interact.

Structural constraints

Social class

西南少数民族很多分布在山区，many of Yunnan’s minority groups live in either mountainous or subtropical areas. Poor geographical conditions impede further economic development. Initial disadvantages compound themselves over time.很多又是贫困县。在初中里，大多数学生毕业之后是前往职业学校，为的是能够早赚钱养家。在教育水平，实际是影响社会分层的重要因素。

Family context

少数民族子女是否接受教育和受教育程度直接与家庭的经济状况有关。作者讨论了parents’ income, parents’ attitude to schooling, parents’ education, gender bias against educating girls, child labor for family financial support and so on.

Village context

Cultural deprivation文化剥夺, meaning limited contact by minority students with the dominant or Han culture. The dominant culture is the one that will be taught and upon which the students will be tested. The premise behind any given curriculum is that students have had certain mainstream cultural experiences upon which to draw before entering school. 而少数民族学生则未必有这样的cultural experiences了。

再者，ethnic minorities in China are regarded backward and underdeveloped compared to the Han majority. The role of the Han is to lead the way for the minorities as they progress toward socialist (Gladney, Dru C, 1994, Representing nationality in China: refiguring majority/minority identities, in the Journal of Asian studies 53: 92-123). 很多人认为这种落后有地域局限，比如很多少数民族居住在边境区，山区，很难与平原地区人交流。追根究底来说，是lack of transportation and communication facilities 的缘故。

Cultural barrier refers to the beliefs, values and norms that minority children bring with them into school and that differ significantly from those Han teachers. 包括语言，穿着，行为习惯，价值观。

School context

Facilities, teacher and language: 学校数量少，教育设施和教师数量poor。教学语言是汉语，而云南少数民族大多都是自己方言。初级中学有时使用双语教学，但会慢慢转用汉语。语言问题对少数民族学生而言是最大的问题。

Structural supports

The rationale behind the educational assistance is twofold—to better the quality of life for nationality people themselves and to ensure the political stability of China as a whole.

Support	Level	Why successful
Special schools & classes for ethnic students	1.Early childhood education 2.Primary schools 3.Full-accommodation schools 4.Half-accommodation schools 5.Vocational schools 6.Nationality sections 7.Preliminary classes	1. Instituted where none hand existed previously. 2. Dramatic increase in number built in areas with high minority populations. 3. Better study environment and living conditions for boarding students. 4. Provide free noon meal for students who live far from school. 5. Fast track to learning occupations, assuming jobs and earning money. 6. Special classes for minority students facing the most challenges, conducted in province’s finest non-minority schools. 7. Preparatory courses, offered by universities, that allow minority students to brush up on basic skills, the retake the college entrance exam.
Training teachers for nationality areas	1.Education of teachers at normal schools 2.Retention of teachers at primary & secondary schools 3.Directive to teachers at all schools	1. Minority students, who attend normal schools free, return to their villages to teach. 2. Increased salary and improved housing keep more qualified teachers at minority schools. 3. Make the education of minority students top priority.
Financial support for minority education	1.Central, provincial, prefectural and county governments 2.Primary, secondary and tertiary institutions 3.Schools at all levels	1. All contribute heavily. 2. Receive funds for building new schools, improving existing facilities, adding nationality classes and upgrading teacher quality. 3. Offer free tuition, room and board to most minority students.
Additional points on national examination	1.Minority students from most rural areas and most impoverished groups 2.For junior middle school, senior middle school and university	1. Benefit most. 2. Minority students are admitted with lower scores than Han students.

Ethnicity, education and empowerment (Con't)

Pp23:

Shortly after the founding of the PRC in 1949, the Chinese government launched a huge classification project to determine which of the 400 groups claiming to be "minority nationalities" actually were. About 700 scholars, officials and college students fanned out across the countryside. Many had little prior ethnological or linguistic training other than the crash course they were given before being sent into the field (Wu David Y.H, 1990, Chinese minority policy and the meaning of minority culture: the example of Bai in Yunnan, China, in Human organization 49, 1-13). They used criteria, developed by Joseph Stalin to describe a nation, to decide which groups qualified as minority nationalities. According to Stalin's definition, a nation has a common language, territory, economic life and psychological disposition (psychological disposition is understood to mean customs and habits). Using these criteria, the CHinese government had officially recognized 20 minority nationalities by 1957; Since then the number has increased, up to the current 55 recoginzed groups. In this book, the author wrote that, according to Fei Xiaotong, the ethnic identification is a continuous and difficult task, and political considerations may carry more weight than scientific criteria in deciding whether a group qualifies as a minority nationality. Once it is officially recognized, delegates can be chosen from the group to sit in representatives bodies at all levels of government. In addition, the minority in question is given the chance to set up an autonomous nationality region, prefecture or county. Some local governments even stipulate that a given amount of their budgets be spent on mnority affairs, making it easier for ethnic entrepreneurs to secure business loans. In short, political and material benefits accrue to minority nationality groups, in other words, groups that meet Stalin's criteria.

However, western-trained anthropologists like David Wu feel that it is simply both theoretically and technically impossible to apply at one time all four criteria to all the ethnic groups. Wu explains that the recent trend in western social sciences is to regard ethnicity as fluid, situational and changeable.

Pp 29:
Today a huge tourist industry is being developed around minority cultures. Ethnic tourism plays an important part in stimulating foreign trade and investment. Ethnic costumes, handcrafts, festivals and architecture are being promoted as "exotic and different from that of the Han" (Wu, 1990), thus especially worthy of tourists' attention.

Pp 33 Minority Education in communist China and reformed China
When the communists overthrew the Nationalists in 1949, a dramatic shift in minority policy occurred. The emphasis shifted from assimilation to pluralism. The first constitution of the PRC, written in 1952, granted equal rights to all ethnic groups to all ethnic groups, minority and Han. The constitution also contained promises to develop minority languages and writing systems and implement political, economic, cultural and educational reconstruction. In practice, over the past 50 years, this has meant the development of written languages, the elimination of illiteracy and the provision of schools.

Since many minority areas had no schools whatsoever in the early 1950s, the first step was to expand primary education, usually to a length of about 6 years. Subjects offered in minority and Han areas were quite similar: reading, writing and arithmetic. In minority areas, additional instruction was provided in nationality languages. All teaching was to be done in local languages. Han teachers were expected to master the indigenous languages of their particular areas.

By 1956 the focus had shifted to secondary education. The new goal was to train enough teachers to staff the primary schools. To this end, normal schools were founded.

Ethnic minorities and Higher education in the PRC

Ethnicity, education and empowerment

MaryJo Benton Lee, 2001, Ethnicity, education and empowerment: how minority students in southwest China construct identities, Ashgate

Pp 8-9 An overview of literature:
1) Some ethnic minority students are able to construct personal identities that allow them to do well in school. In essence, these students learn "strategies to attain achievement-related possible selves".

2) These socially constructed selves rely heavily on the backing of reference groups at the family, village, primary/secondary school and university levels. Personal definitions of self by ethnic students are combined with social definitions by reference groups. The result is a constructed self, personally empowered to overcome academic obstacles and to achieve in school.

3) Self-conceptions at the individual level are influenced by social structures at the societal level. The structural context of interaction sometimes constrains and sometimes supports the construction of achievement-oriented selves by ethnic students. Discriminatory practices would be an example of a structural constraint. Preferential government policies that give advantages to minority students in China would be an example of a structural support.

4) Reference groups play an important role in how ethnic students view themselves, and self-concept is among the most powerful predictors of academic achievement.

5) The process of empowerment among ethnic students in China is rooted in their commitment to help families and their villages. The logical way to do this is by acquiring education for themselves. Through this education, the students also acquire the "prestige, status, honor and power to make changes" that benefit their ethnic groups.

Pp 9-10 Research questions:
1) How do ethnic minority students in China construct personal identities?
2) What influence do reference groups have on minority students?
3) How do social structures both constrain and support identity construction by minority students?
4) How do personal identities and reference groups relate to academic achievement for minority students?
5) What role do educated minority students play in their own empowerment, and what role do they intend to play in the empowerment of their ethnic groups?

Pp 15-16 Overview of the text:
Chapter 1 provides basic information of the study. Chapter 2 gives more contexts for the understanding of identity construction among minority students.

Chapter 3 explains the symbolic interactionism, it is an effective framework for looking at identity construction among minority groups. Symbolic interactionist theory posits that people define situations within which they find themselves and then, in keeping with these definitions, engage in what they believe to be the most appropriate action.

Chapter 4 presents research design, addressing such issues as site selection, researcher roles, key informants and field assistants.

Chapter 5, 6 and 7 contain the findings of the study. Chapter 5 concerns the influence of the large-scale social structures on minority students' self-conceptions. The structural constriants, such as the poverty of minority families, the inadequacy of rural schools and so forth, as well as the structural supports for minorities students from Chinese state. Preferential policies are designed to ensure the eventual equality of the minority nationalities with the Han majority. Ethnic students have greatly benefited from attending special schools, receiving financial aid and being awarded additional points on national examinations.

In 6, students discuss the coping strategies they developed that ultimately led to educational success and to college admittance. They told how, through a series of definitions and redefinitions, in their families, villages and schools, they managed to construct images of themselves as academic achievers, in a micro level analysis on the interpersonal interactions with significant others. Both 5 and 6 deal with academic success of minority students during pre-college education, one in structural perspective and the other from a microinteractionist perspective.

Chapter 7 looks at the stories of minority students in colleges and universities in both abovementioned perspectives.

The identity construction process is ongoing throughout higher education, personal definitions of self by ethnic students are combined with social definitions by reference groups. The result is a constructed self, able to achieve academically in the mainstream of schools and empowered to function effectively within the larger society.

Twenty-years writing on identity politics: western literatures on ethnic minorities in southwestern China

My Final year project ongoing is about the identity politics among Chinese ethnic minorities, a descriptive study aims to familiarize myself with western anthropological and sociological literatures on ethnic studies with a focus on identity issue. I just narrowed the topic on identity politics because when I read numerous books and articles, I felt western scholars on Chinese ethnic issues concerns a lot on the state ethnic identification, but not many existing literatures summarizing this feature and analyzing its implications.

They wrote the Chinese state not only identified ethnic minorities in Stalinist way, but promoted something like "ethnicization" through many kinds of socialization institutions; and they continued to write process as so-called "de-ethnicization" or "re-ethnicization" in China's reform era. I supposed that how the identified ethnic minorities respond/react to the state and Han majority, both in the pre-reform and post-reform eras can be considered as certain kind of identity politics. My key content of the study will be the investigation of the surrounding environment, including the politics [e.g. the state identification policy and education policy], economy [e.g. ethnic tourism], cultural [e.g. real ethnic culture and the labeled one] and social [ethnic relation, stratification, intermarriage etc.], how they construct or reconstruct [new] ethnic identity; as well as how the existing [new] identity they have make their reactions to the state and majority group: both these two dimensions create the discourse of identity politics in China.

For the first dimension, I put efforts to see how state implements policies to identify and regulate ethnic minorities, as you pointed out this afternoon, identity politics may not only refer to the oppressed social groups, but the policy implementation from the state, the exploitation and discrimination and something like that from the dominated groups can also be viewed as a kind of identity politics.

In the second dimension, I examine the reactions from ethnic minorities, for instance, some minority groups could relatively get along well with the Han Chinese like Hui and Naxi (a relative peaceful ethnic relation), they strategically deal with the official ethnic identification that benefits themselves in the Chinese context, a good example is the booming ethnic tourism; however, ethnic tourism [I generalize as an economic independent or even an interdependent variable] may also affect the ethnic minorities in the way of re-ethnicization which means they may be more awareness of their ethnic-ness, cultural practices, religions and so forth after they meet and interact with the culturally different Han tourists. But some like the Uyghur and Tibetan may not but experiencing ethnic conflict. So this afternoon I asked whether the “identity politics” can be practiced in peace or by force.

The books or articles I request from you are those have broad definition and extension of "identity politics", like including the discussions not only in how disadvantaged groups react with dominated ones, but the state/ dominated groups' behaviors which also are defined as "identity politics" process, because all materials I had read, and searched out from internet are limited to the definition on the reactions and protests from the oppressed social groups. And they will be better in a specialized discussion of ethnic identity issues.

Minority education and gender in China

Mette Halskov Hansen, 2001, Ethnic minority girls on Chinese school benches: gender perspectives on minority education, in Education, culture & identity in twentieth-century China, edited by Glen Peterson, Ruth Hayhoe and Lu Yingling, Michigan U Press
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This essay looks at how Chinese school education may influence minority students' gender and ethnic identities by changing their attitudes to religion, their roles as men and women, and their expectations of life. The author argues that for many ethnic minority girls, participation in school education offers the opportunity to find jobs outside their villages and thereby enhance their status in Chinese society; while at the mean time, it instills in them feelings of cultural inadequacy. As a result, many of these women express contradictory feeling of, on the one hand, having gained pride as women through their (sucessful) participation in the state educational system and, on the other hand, of having developed feelings of inferiority（劣等） based on their ethnic affiliation（参与，关系）.

According to the author, there are few publications on gendered minority studies in China, neither in English nor Chinese. The general education stituation of Chinese ethnic minorities is that those groups of people have low levels of education which is considered as the obstacle to modernization as well as being inconsistent with the official ideology of equality among the country's nationalities, therefore also a potential source of ethnic conflict. Developing education among minorities and statifying their needs for especial educational measures becomes the crucial to achieve the unity of the nationalities. [official ideology of gender equality and ethnic equality]

This essay seeks to shed light on how minority women experience the Chinese educational system in which the gender perceptions were presented and discussed by female minority students. The reseach fieldwork is carried out in two locations in Yunnan province, Lijiang and Xishuangbanna. Ethnic minorities are portrayed as poor, backwardness, but culturally colorful. Ethnic tourism creates an incrasingly significant commercial side that enforces and reproduces stereotypes of "Minority women", who are popular among tourists. The exoticized and eroticized representations of minorities and minority women often become part of these women's early school experience and therefore play a significant role in the transformation of their gender and ethnic identities as they prepare to make their way in Chinese society.

Minority female's engagement in the Chinese schooling system
Girls participate less in school education, and ethnic minorities has less attendance and completion rates compared to Han majority. [poverty and son preference, cultural traditions and children's willness], but Dai does not have son preference and parental attitude of sending daughters school is neutral or positative. For Naxi female, they are warned not get marriage if they continue on with higher education, its culture favors the male to participate in education. Of course the economic factor is more important in any cases.

The development of ethnic tourism provide job opportunities for minority females, and their educational training also has sth related to local tourist industry.

How schools represent minority women
School education reflects a mixture of official state representations transmitted via textbooks, popular Han exoticized representations, and representations produced and communicated by local minority elite members themselves. The exotic representation and perception of the Tai, especially the female become good business in Xishuangbanna. Local schools engaged in business in order to get funding and money support, in return, they provides school girls dressing, singing and preforming for local business, so do local governments to show the color of ethnic minorities. Therefore, it is clear that schools actively participate in the commodification of minority women and serve to confirm and reinforce an exoticized image of minority peoples. But some girls feel shamed to dress the traditional constume publicly which they think too obviously show the backwardness of their ethnic group.

How ethnic minorities respond to the unified and standardized state educational system and the conclusion
School plays a crucial role in the ongoing process of ethnic identification, while ethnic minorities respond differently to the state education system. Processes of ethnic and gender identification are closely related--perhaps even interdependent. In the course of confrontation with an educational system based on the chinese language and suffused with notions of modernization, atheism, and nationalism that serve to transmit an eroticized, exoticized and feminized image of non-Han peoples, the salience of the complex interconnectedness of ethnic and gender identities stands out. School system usually represents the minorities as backwardness, and demanding for development. Female minority girls feel shamed.

Reference matters:
Dru C. Gladney, 1994, Representing nationality in China: refiguring majority/minority identities, in journal of asian studies, iss 1.
Louise Schein, 1997, Gender and internal orientalism in China, in Modern China, 23, no.1.
Norma Diamond, 1988, The Miao and poison: interactions on China's southwest frontier, in Ethnology 27, no.1.

Women under one-child policy

In this presentation, we will talk about women rights and status under China's one-child policy. Many studies and news reports in the west highly criticized this policy as a violation against universal human rights, one of the accusations is it resulted in large amount of missing girls, through gender-selective abortion and infanticide. It is thought to have reinforced of son preference in Chinese society.

On the other hand, the birth control policy is popularized among Chinese public for numerous reasons. Many accept the reason given by the Chinese state that the limited resources within the country could hardly afford too much population, the nation's modernization will be hindered by the overpopulation problem. To raise the quality of life of the masses, the country should adopt birth control policy. So the policy is essentially good, the serious problems occurr during the implementation process.

However, in this presentation, we would like to take a standpoint that seeing the one-child policy itself neutral as a tool or a strategy used by the Chinese state to deal with its population issue. We argue that the various social conditions in diverse places as the independent variable [within the conditions, they are correlated and interplayed with each other, such as economic, social, cultural and political factors] help to shape the implementation process and the results of the state birth control policy which is the dependent variable in local places. So far we have heard the negative consequences of the policy like the missing girls in some places, there may also be some different or definitely positive outcomes. We will discuss the possible positive ones in terms of woman's status in family and society in this presentaion.

The presentation is organized as......

Frank, 1998, PRC in Imperfect conceptions

Air, water and food: the foetus and the environment
经济改革和人口政策的实施创造了优生学讨论的空间，许多出版社出版了健康手册，性教育和生育健康手册，这反应并塑造了消费者的消费欲求(reflect and shape the concerns of consumers eager for better knowledge in reproductive matters)。当优生学讨论与母婴健康的关注结合时，它从社会中受过教育的人群中获得了大量共识。当一孩政策进行时，只有一个孩子的压力让父母更加焦心于怎样使这唯一的孩子健康出生和成长。新的出版品无疑满足了人们的日常需要，但同时，这些材料给出的关于生殖健康的优生建议由于偏见和无知的缘故，常常是非常有限的(eugenic advice on reproductive health is constrained by prejudice and ignorance)。The medical knowledge provided is structured by cultural, social and political values which portray the individual as an organic part of a broader collectivity: rather than enabling parents to make informed choices, medical knowledge stresses the duties and responsibilities of individuals in the achievement of a eugenic future. 人类再生产被视作可以通过优生来提高的生物性的机制(Biological mechanism)。这种想象又因为因果力量(causal power)被归咎于病原体(Pathogenic agent)而得到强化，即关注微生物，细菌等病原体如何侵扰受孕的妇女。整体论(Holistic approach)连接了生理报应(biological retribution)和社会失调(social disorder)，妇女在怀孕期得病被认为是她无力在外力侵袭中自我保护[外在的方面，outer environment]。另一方面，the health of individual is linked to a particular way of life: a causal chain is established between illness and morality, as biological disorders are explained as a consequence of a breakdown in social order and human conduct。现代社会的空气和水都已非自然，被污染和人为制造的生存环境有可能就会在生殖问题上有所反映。

胎儿和外在环境的关系中，两者是脆弱的联系着的。The foetus is part of a larger environment in so far as the individual belongs to a collectivity. It listens to external sounds，比如母亲胃/腹部的隆隆声，血液流动的声音，心脏跳动的声音，这些都是胎儿面对的外在环境。超声波探测器就是探测胎儿对外在刺激反应的器械。胎儿能健康的一个基本要求是由一个良好健康的外在环境，父母因此有责任创造这样一个健康的环境。

在饮食和健康的关系中，医学家借用了传统观念中的阴阳平衡等概念。这种观念在偏食问题上表现的最明显，孕妇的饮食被认为应该平衡营养，冷热均衡，而其他产品有可能被认为是不健康的，如罐装食品，因为它们是人工制造的且有可能添加了各种化学成分。

孕妇的责任：孕妇生育是有很大责任的，她是胎儿的携有者，她要保证胎儿在母体中的健康成长。在许多发达社会也如是。母亲饮酒和抽烟是被禁止的，because it may lead to foetal malformations or mental retardation，因为这些不健康的成分会通过各种生理循环营养到胎儿健康；父亲抽烟也要避免，因为抽烟污染环境，也会影响胎儿。生育手册也要求规范婚姻年龄(marital age)，它用统计数字表明超过30岁和少于20岁的女性生育缺陷儿的比率会较大。Adolescent mothers are thought to be not fully developed, 比如年青女孩的骨盆尚未完全钙化(硬化)，而胎儿生长需要损耗母亲的钙量，可能会引发她的疾病，并最终影响到胎儿。她们也有高血压(high blood-pressure)，风湿病(rheumatic fever)，心脏病(heart diseases)和肾脏的疾病(renal problems)。而父亲一方的精液(semen and sperm)的质量对胎儿形成也至关重要。

关于年龄的限制可能得到医学证明，但也有其他一些措施来源于内在生育观念。比如季节(晚秋出生的孩子被认为多天资)，生物钟(biological clock)等观念对生育的影响。

Blood, genes and DNA: the inheritance of social deviance
健康手册为防治幼儿医学疾病和遗传病有重要作用。但是很多疾病和遗传病并不是可见/预见的，有些甚至隐性基因(hidden genes)造成的，因此genetic counselling is part of this process of medical assessment。事实上很多人身上都带有良性的和恶性的基因，于是关于这些疾病/遗传病的监控和预防被列入国家生育政策的计划。以未来新一代和民族健康的名义，许多遗传病携带者，精神病和畸形者在法律上被确认为不适宜结婚生育的人，尤其是有家庭遗传病史的人。近亲结婚也容易造成defect births.

儿童的智力同样也很重要，教育被认为并不能完全提高人的智力水平，优生学因此仿佛更为紧要了。有研究表明，父母智力低下的生育的孩子成为呆子的可能性有55%-60%。高智商和智力低下都是不能更改的事。精神病也被认为是有基因基础的，精神病患者如果生育，其胎儿患有精神病的可能远超过平均水平。

近亲结婚(consanguineous marriage or intermarriage)被认为会导致更高的疾病/遗传病发生率，这被认为是在中国农村经常有智力迟钝和其他遗传性疾病频发的原因，因而被以collective health的名义尽力清除。Consanguinity is closely linked to older ideas of patrilineality, and represents isolation in a world of movement, symbolizes a closed and self-contained localism in an age of open and interdependent globalism, and backward rural ways in opposition to the modern city。有近亲结婚的村庄总被认为是对现代化的一种反抗。在乱伦禁忌解释科学化的年代，医学知识对近亲结婚的反对更多地出自于社会价值观念而非遗传学的现实。近亲结婚确认了可容忍的生殖活动的内极限(it identifies the inner limits of admissible reproductive behavior)，it defines the minimum level of participation of the individual in the social field and fixes a threshold(门槛) of tolerance below which intimate behavior is seen to be morally corrupt and biologically degenerative。政府对家庭和宗族生活的合法介入，使它能够以公共卫生健康的名义对个人施以前所未有的干预和管理。

农民和少数民族是优生学上经常饱受诟病的social groups，仿佛他们的政治和经济的边缘地位就是因为他们的遗传上的缺陷，他们常常有的近亲结婚的现实使其被认为是更为“封建”，“落后”的communities。中国的一些优生学杂志公开指认这些communities是cutural backwardness and genetic inferiority。比如说有文章研究新疆伊犁五个少数民族的近亲结婚增长，以及导致的大量的遗传病婴儿的产生。也有人呼吁政府介入这些民族的生育行为，强调他们经济和社会发展程度的落后源自于inbreeding同系繁殖/近亲交配。但这不过是scientised version of Han prejudice against Hui endogamic practices.

关于农民不优生的问题，杭州浙江医科大学的人口研究中心有专门的期刊《人口与优生》撰文指出农民的优生知识缺乏，他们有许多生育上面的陈规陋习，经常intermarry or reproduce outside the marital bond。即使是比较富裕的农村也同样存在这些问题；除此之外，学者指出除近亲繁殖外，第二大问题在于农民不健康的生活方式，可能威胁到下一代的健康。那些文盲和半文盲的农民越生越多，优胜劣汰的自然法则不再奏效，成了劣胜优汰。另外也有研究城镇地区的农村移民，这些游民有超高的生育率和近亲结婚率，他们在城镇参与各种犯罪，而且他们中很多是弱智者。学者要求采取新加坡式的的人口管理政策，让社会当中高素质的人多生而限制“低素质”的节制生育。

城市当中的人对于计划生育提高人口素质政策在城乡不同的实施感到愤怒，他们要求限制移民，农民和贫民减少“劣质”人口的再生产，学者也有这样的意见，政府遂也作出类似决策，鼓励城镇的“优质”人口多多生产，而乡村的则discourage peasants from doing so, on the grounds that quality stock is indispensable to China's modernization。

计划生育已造成一个社会环境，父母们热衷于生育“优质”的下一代，出版业也开始从出版医学健康的内容转向the identification of what is thought to be socially desirable。有本小册子讨论怎样初生儿的身高，作者认为身材矮小是遗传造成的，他鼓励那些长得高的父母生育，那么他们身高高的特征将会在他们的下一代延续下去。

Superior births: the science of foetal education
受到传统生育观念影响，科学试验试图去证明胎儿发展和母亲情绪之间的关系(the strong link between the emotions of the mother and the development of the foetus)。有研究206个唐山大地震期间出生的儿童和144个出生在未发生地震地区的儿童，结果发现前者的IQ是86.43低于后者的91.95，these results are thought to illustrate how a natural disaster chould upset the emotional economy of pregnant women, influencing in turn the development of the foetus's nervous system。

即使是微小的情绪变化(minor emotional shocks)也有可能影响到胎儿的成长，在popular culture and medical discourse中moral character and emotional disposition of a pregnant woman have a direct relationship with birth defects。因此负面的情绪被认为是intensify the activity of the vegetative nervous system and liberate harmful particles that can affect the development of foetus,尤其是在怀孕的前三个月。强烈的情感冲动对胎儿会造成非常负面的影响，为了生育优质的孕妇被要求在怀孕期间保持良好的心态和情绪(maintain emontional stability)，而其他家庭成员也尽力营造出一个好的家庭环境, because positive environment can enhance the mental capacity and physical appearance of the foetus; 比如读书可以create an ideal atmosphere for pregnant women。这些关于prenatal health内容在发达国家的medical literature中也不少见，并不是非常特别的优生学特征, however, it is important not too dismiss such ideas as superstitious迷信的 or even ridiculous荒谬的, but to underline how advice on reproductive health is offered within a broadly eugenist framework with strong normative values。Moreover, medical discourse is governed by representations of female vulnerability弱点and assigns the principal responsibility over reproduction to women。

在关于性别差异(gender distinction)的表述中，男女被认为是biologically determined structures naturally complementing each other, medical discourse also attributes duties to the male partner。父亲要保证自己精子的质量，因为精子生命力和胎儿的体质很有关系。很多健康册子都强调了生育父母双方的责任，它们stress the importance of human agency and locate the causes of illness in the behavior of both parents, they are part of a mode of causality which explains the universe in terms of individual behavior and human responsibility: the link between behavior, morality and health is reconfigured into a medical discourse that represents the monster as a biological retribution for social deviation。除此之外，一些使得孕妇健康的做法还包括她经常去公园花园海边散步，这些没有污染的环境can exert its beneficial influence on the foetus。正常的作息，有规律的生活(a regulated lifestyle with clear rules) will engender a disciplined child, and the pregnant mother should follow a strict routine to instil a sense of measure into the foetus。古典音乐 which symbolising ordered harmony, can help to convey a notion of balance, whereas popular music performed by socially deviant categories of people is thought to transmit deviance, since rock and roll music can bring about negative reactions in the foetus。

Society is thought to influence and shape the foetus's development, marking it with its signature even before it can breathe, the external forces should be harnessed and guided in a eugenic direction。很重要的方面比如胎教[foetal education], mother transmit educational materials will contribute to building the character and developing the intelligence of the future child。比如有多电子胎教仪的存在，可以传输一些外界的欢快的声音给胎儿。以及胎教内容的录音磁带since 1985，销量很大。也有相关的胎教机构的创立。最近reproductive technologies and genetic engineering的发展有利于推进positive eugenics的实现。Embryo transplants胚胎移植, artificial insemination人工授精, external fertilization体外受精, test-tube babies试管婴儿，都是能够给人类优生未来的有效的医学科技。还有模仿Robert K.Graham 1971年创立的精子库的中国机构。

试管婴儿在1988年在中国试验成功，在宣传材料上，这项技术被认为对提高婴儿质量有很大作用。还有人体细胞的无性繁殖(the cloning of human germ cells)。

Liminal figures: the medical semiology of monsters
Framed by an image, the body of the monster is a culturally constructed object which symbolically represents the physical retribution of unregulated reproduction。在PRC，怪胎有许多的意思，which represent almost anything from a pregnant women's failure to control her emotions to modern man's alienation from a polluted environment。怪胎同时也成功大众娱乐的一个点，an entire range of liminal figures occupy a prominent position in a cultural field structured by a fascination with the abnormal，比如野人的盛传。Hairly people毛人被认为是racial atavisms返祖现象的结果。

Eugenic laws and reproductive health

Frank Dikotter, 1998, Imperfect Conceptions: Medical knowledge, birth defects and eugenics in China, Columbia U Press

I. Introduction
PRC在1995年通过了致力于限制残疾婴儿出生的《母婴保健法》，该法支持系统的婚前检查措施以查明是否婚姻任何一方具有严重的遗传病或精神病症(serious hereditary & mental disorder)，并防止有先天性疾病等的胎儿(Inferior births)的出生。那些不适合生产(deemed unsuitable for reproduction)的夫妻应当绝育(undergo sterilization)，对已有的胎儿进行人工流产(abortion)，尚未结婚的单身人士继续单身(remain celibate)。

本书讨论中国优生学的更广阔的历史，文化，社会和政治语境(broader historical, cultural, social and political context)。1995年的母婴保健法应被视为一种广泛的优生学运动(a much wider eugenic campaign)，因为它向普通大众散播关于人类生育健康的医学知识，并向社会中的个人灌输对社会和国家的生育责任。在普及优生的政策措施中，国家广泛参与和监控婚姻和生育的各个过程，包括婚姻对象的选择，婚姻年龄的控制，怀孕时间的限制甚至是精子的质量，这些都被认为会对下一代健康成长至关重要的因素。国家对生育知识的传输并不是为了使个人拥有足够信息量以便做出更好的生育选择，而是向他们灌输关于性节制和对社会整体健康的生育责任等道德性的信息(not designed to enable informed individual choices in reproductive matters, but to instil a moral message of sexual restraint and reproductive duty in the name of collective health)。优生学实际上是从生命科学角度出发推行一种个人权益应该服从(subordinated)社会集体利益的观念。

如果认为PRC的优生学只是被少数医学专家掌控的边缘领域那就大错特错了。它实际上为人类在生产和社会改革提供了全局性的理据。许多在发达国家与优生学不太相关的重要问题，在中国，政府都通过政策的明确表述加以限制，这其中包括地方资源分配和家庭如何处理残疾人问题，生育前的胎儿检查技术的需求以求获得健康的新生儿等等，这些都使国家和社会的集体利益凌驾于个人权益之上，归纳来说是为了提高人口“素质/质量”。中国的优生学与20世纪六七十年代北欧福利国家的优胜政策相似，而与纳粹德国的不同。像北欧国家一样，在社会整体上为变得更为开放和富裕之前，并没有很多的声音挑战优生学的科学可靠性(Scientific credibility) 和政治暗示(political implications of eugenic practices)。

本书声称目前中国在生殖健康方面的进步受惠于两次世界大战中关于优生学理论的细致探讨。以下章节将显示，在民国时期优生学已经受到广泛讨论(Eugenic discourse)，而民国时期实际上是关于种族卫生学(racial hygiene)观念在巨大的社会转型中渗透到各个领域，而优生学本身与种族，民族和性等观念都非常相关。它也是关于人类发展演化，退化，文明和现代化(Evolution, degeneration, civilization and modernity)等诸多讨论的一部分，受到学界，压力集团和政治机构和体制的支持。优生学本身能够给予社会恐惧和道德恐慌以科学权威等(Eugenics gave scientific authority to social fears and moral panics, lent respectability to racial prejudice and class bias, and legitimised sterilization acts and immigration laws)。

优生学对不同社会团体有不同的意义，it was appropriated and used in a variety of ways to accommodate radically divergent purposes and interests, being flexible enough to unite individuals or constituencies with contradictory agendas.优生学讨论当中有两个方向，a hard approach to heredity（遗传) based on genetics (英国和德国); a soft approach combining an emphasis on the environment with hereditarian explanations (民国中国，法国和巴西)。

与西方国家不同的是，中国的优生学界并不做很多研究和统计，而在其他国家，譬如在法国种族卫生学是政治团体的惯用词汇，许多知识分子也因为对现代性，民族主义和对政府社会改革的期待而关注优生学。而在民国中国，由于相对缺乏推广优生学的正式机制，官方和专业组织，它便更多的在教育系统中传输。它缺乏组织基础，而吸引来自各个领域的社会人士的关注，他们所关心的是如何建设一个更优生的国家。A shift away from prominent intellectuals to the more anonymous supporters of eugenics, a greater focus on the reception of eugenics at more popular levels of culture, and a more sustained analysis of traditional hereditarian attitudes，这些解释了为何民国时优生学的广泛传播(popularized)。

关于优生学历史的比较研究强调地方性因素如何动员和转化医学知识，而这些地方性是基于地方政治，经济，社会和文化等制度变量的基础上的表达(It highlights how common medical knoweldge is mobilized and transformed by the distinct local styles of expression dependent on the political, economic, social and cultural variables of particular institutions, social groups or countries)。本书致力于探讨地方性，尤其是传统观点如何影响优生学观念的产生，传播和接受。在清末中国，许多医学作品细致探讨了如何提高血统质量，而草率随意的人类再生产方式将会给下代人带来危险。These older medical ideas contributed to the shaping of eugenic discourse in the 20th century, recasting more traditional notions of reproductive health in the radically new language of science, eugenic discourse in 2oth century China was more of a cultural reconfiguration （重构） structured by older modes of representation than a radical rupture(断裂) with tradition. 在欧洲，传统的遗传论和性别假设(traditional hereditarian and gender assumptions)造就了优生学讨论，在中国父系文化(Patrilineal culture)使之兴盛。在父系文化中，家庭人口再生产对家庭未来延续是非常重要的，因而必须有良好的保证和规范(Safeguarded and regulated)。

再生产过程另一个优生学关注的点是先天缺陷(birth defects)。由于健康的下一代作为家庭延续而被重视，怪胎的出生被认同是极为不同寻常的事(extraordinary events)。文化历史学家强调关于事物的正常性和不正常性是如何被社会化的型构的(how boundaries of normality and abnormality are socially constructed)，但关于disabled people的材料非常稀见。在父系家庭中健康的儿子是被重视的，而女性则已经开始在宗谱中被忽视，更何况那些怪胎。这些怪胎一般活不久[不仅由于本身健康原因，也有一些社会性的原因]，即使他们能存活下来，他们在历史记录中也是失声的。

Fascination with the deviant, the horror(恐惧) of otherness, the desire to demarcate(区分) the normal form the abnormal are some important aspects in the cultural history of birth defects. 从畸形 (malformation)到mild defects,这些历史记录反映出关于人体的普遍认识。整体论(Holistic approach) 否认denies the existence of a disembodied and autonomous self,它认为个体是与环境紧密联系的，环境可以导致人体疾病。同时，causal power is attributed to pathogenic致病的 agents：包括古代的spirits和魔鬼，现代医学的病菌，微生物，毒素等等，在他们这些social environment 影响下,human body就可能得病了。但是畸形也不仅只是环境影响的结果，整体论认为与社会失调和报应有关(social disorder and biological retribution), which means the illness of offspring is often analogically related to the moral failure of the progenitors [An analogies constructed between morality and health, the fear of excess and the importance of self-control]. Holism 强调个人对a broader collectivity 的从属性，近代以来随着民族和国家危机的深入和现代化，political holism也出现了, which demands/portarys each person as an organic unit belonging to a larger collectivity. Frank suggested the emphasis on individual duties in the name of group rights is a thoroughly modern phenomenon which has little to do with traditional values. He proposes a politically conservative vision of the relationship between the state and the individual in the radically fashionable language of science. In other words, the identification of distinct approaches to and understandings of eugenics does not imply a recognition of their cultural relativity. Science is employed as legitimising force in the modernizing discourses. That a one-party state in which the possibilities for the expression of dissenting voices is limited not only enables but actively promotes a vision of eugenic control only highlights the necessity for scholarly engagement.

Paper Content of Eugenics in China

The acceptance of eugenics in China?
1. The importance of studying eugenics in China: one aspect of the birth control (family planning) plicy, namely the slogan of controlling the population size has already internalized Chinese people to accept and popular support it. [Although there are also many critics], however, the other part, to improve the population quality, not many people pay attention to it [outside China, many China watchers and critics thought it was eugenics similar to the Nazi's scientific racism that emphasizes the racial supremacy of certain groups (e.g. by race and ethnicity) and depresses others. So is it really something just like the western critics claimed?

2. What eugenics is? Review of eugenics in western world, especially in US. Is it always a negative term?

3. The history of eugenics in China is significant since late Qing dynasty till The current PRC. Why is it important in Chinese modern history? (See Frank, 1998). How Chinese governments and Eugenicists advocated and promoted it? And how it caused to popular support from the Chinese gerenal public?

4. In the present day, different attitudes to the eugenics in the birth control policy, especially the the "Mother and infant law" came to effect in 1995.

5. The current debate: Overseas Uyghurs and Tibetans claimed the Chinese government adopted this policy to exterminate their races/ethnic groups. But Chinese eugenicists claimed that the national policy was not a eugenic one, because it was not based on racism, and women who were pregnant were only persuaded/suggested but not forced to terminate pregnancy [non-coercive implementation]. However, Frank (1998) thought the CCP authoritarian political system practised the so-called healthy birth policy more to be something eugenic [selective breeding]......

6. Popular support for the eugenics: in the slogan, to improve the population quality, the "quality" as regarded as "educational, cultural and manner good performances" rather than what it really means, the new generations with no congenital diseases. So popular support comes from mis-understanding of the policy? why?

7. Eugenics, some people divided as positive and negative eugenics. How can it becomes positive, who define it....

少数民族计划生育政策

计划生育是我国的基本国策，是每一个公民应尽的义务。1982年2月，中共中央、国务院《关于进一步做好计划生育工作的指示》中指出：对于少数民族，也要提倡计划生育，在具体要求上，可适当放宽一些。具体规定由民族自治地方和有关省、自治区，根据当地实际情况，报上一级人大常委会或人民政府批准执行。从全国范围来看，对少数民族计划生育的政策规定主要有三类。

一是民族八省区的计划生育政策。
内蒙古自治区规定：蒙古族公民，一对夫妻可生育两个子女；非城镇户籍，经批准可生育第三胎。对达翰尔、鄂伦春、鄂温克等民族的公民，提倡优生，适当少生；要求节育的，给予技术服务。上述四个民族以外的少数民族公民，一对夫妻只可生育两个子女，不准生第三胎。

新疆维吾尔自治区规定；城镇少数民族居民一对夫妻只准生育两个子女，少数民族农牧民一对夫妻可生育三个子女。符合特定条件的可再生生育一个子女。

广西壮族自治区规定：夫妻双方为瑶、苗、侗、仡佬、毛南、回、京、彝、水等一千万以下人口少数民族的，经批准可生育第二胎，但生育间隔不得少于4周年。

宁夏回族自治区规定：夫妻双方或一方是少数民族的，可生育两个子女；一些山区县的少数民族农民可生育三个子女。

西藏自治区规定：少数民族干部、职工和城镇居民，提倡一对夫妻生育两个子女。对农牧区的少数民族农牧民只提倡优生优育、晚婚晚育，对自愿实行计划生育，给予技术服务。

云南、贵州、青海三省的大致规定是：少数民族可生育两个子女，有特殊情况的少数民族农牧民，经批准可再生一个子女。对总人口很少的少数民族不限定生育指标。

二是黑龙江、吉林、辽宁、河北、浙江、湖北、湖南、广东、海南、四川、重庆、甘肃等省（市）的计划生育政策。这些地方都有少数民族聚居区，建有自治州或自治县，一般都规定少数民族夫妻可生育两个子女。

三是除前两类以外的省（市）的计划生育政策。这类地方基本属于少数民族杂散居少数民族地区，在制定计划生育政策中均考虑了少数民族的特殊情况。北京、天津、上海都规定符合一定条件的少数民族夫妻可生两个子女；其他省规定夫妻双方是少数民族的均可生两个子女。

http://news.xinhuanet.com/zhengfu/2001-05/18/content_39036.htm

Is China's law eugenic?

China’s approach to family planning has been attacked in the West as authoritarian and an infringement on individual rights. Below, Chinese Academician Qiu Renzong rejects claims that his country’s Law on Maternal and Infant Health is eugenic. Overleaf, a German Sinologist challenges Qiu Renzong’s position.

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Qiu Renzong, Bioethics program director, Chinese Academy of Social Science.

"A concern for collective good"

China’s Law on Maternal and Infant Health has attracted considerable criticism in the Western media and scientific circles. Some of the criticism is valid but some is based on misunderstandings caused by linguistic or cultural barriers. Much of the confusion revolves around the word yousheng, which repeatedly occurs in the legal text. A tricky word with dual meanings, it is commonly used to mean “healthy births” in association with child-rearing. However, yousheng can also be used to describe eugenic programmes such as that practised by the Nazis. Unfortunately, English translations of the law tend to reflect this latter meaning.

Is the Maternal and Infant Health Law eugenic? I would argue that for a policy to be eugenic it must first reject individual consent and second, be based on racism. Neither of these conditions applies to China’s law. While doctors may advise two individuals at risk of passing on hereditary disease to refrain from marrying or to undergo sterilization, the ultimate decision is left to these adults. When prenatal testing reveals genetic disease, a doctor will offer advice—not a directive—concerning abortion.

The way to a higher domain
It is also crucial to recognize that the law is not motivated by racism but by a desire to reduce birth defects. Indeed, there is no racist tradition in China. The Chinese have been the victims of Western imperialism and Japanese militarism. They may have made grave mistakes, but they have never claimed superiority over another people, and their military actions have never been motivated by racism. Nor is racism part of China’s internal policies. The Han, China’s dominant ethnic group, do not claim superiority over China’s minorities.

Westerners are often shocked by Chinese attitudes to defective foetuses because they do not understand the cultural and economic factors involved. The great Confucianist Xun Zi (300-237 BC) said: “Birth is the beginning of a human being, and death is the end of a human being. A human being who has a good beginning and a good end fulfills the Tao [the Way to a higher spiritual domain].” Two major factors shaping genetic policy in China emerge from this Confucian view. First, abortion is morally and socially acceptable because life begins with birth. A foetus is not considered a human being. Second, congenital disease and deformity are considered a sign of sin committed by the parents or ancestors in their previous life. Given that a defective newborn child is traditionally called a “monster foetus”, it is not surprising to find little in the way of familial or social support. One of the parents of a deformed baby will usually have to stop working, and the costs of caring for such a child can amount to a third of an average worker’s salary.

Poverty
Changing these negative attitudes will take a great deal of time. There are now more than 50 million handicapped people, mostly living in poverty, and it is unreasonable to expect any major improvements in the treatment of handicapped children and their mothers in the near future. In this context, many feel that these children and their mothers would be better off if the handicapped had never been born. In fact, the Chinese Association of the Handicapped formally urged the government in 1989 to speed up legislation to prevent the birth of deformed babies, given their suffering and the burden they represent for society.

The concern for the collective good has at times led geneticists and others in China to infringe upon individual autonomy. They have confused what is technologically possible (genetic testing) with what is ethically permissible. However, I feel that the law is a positive step towards guaranteeing everyone access to genetic counselling and to prohibiting sex-selection. Chinese geneticists and bioethicists have criticized some articles of the law. Their suggestions include more explicit recognition of the principle of informed consent. Last year, the authorities consulted leading Chinese bioethicists and geneticists and will make the needed changes at an appropriate time. Meanwhile, I would ask Western colleagues to directly consult officials, geneticists and citizens instead of trying to sanction China, which may do more harm than good.
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Frank Dikotter, director of contemporary China Institute in SOAS, University of London

"The Legislation imposes decisions"

Supporters of China's maternal and infant health law often argue that the word Yousheng is mistranslated as "eugenics", instead of "health birth". Besides the simple observation that a term has no given meaning outside the context in which it is used, it might be noted that in European languages the word "eugenics" also etymologically refers to "health birth".

The term yousheng appeared in China during the 1920s when many publications on eugenics were translated or written in Chinese. The international eugenics movement, spanning from Sweden to Japan, was embraced by many intellectuals in China. Some openly praised Nazi racial policies, while others adopted a softer approach aimed at preventing “unfit” individuals from reproducing. While eugenics became taboo after the communist take-over in 1949—as it did elsewhere in the world given its association with Nazism—it reappeared as an intrinsic component of the one-child policy of 1978.

Today, large numbers of popular and scientific publications still hail the British scientist Francis Galton (1822-1911; Charles Darwin’s cousin, the founder of eugenics) as the father of yousheng which they clearly define as the science by which the state can improve the physical and mental features of its population by selective breeding.

The law’s supporters strongly emphasize its recognition of “individual consent”: but what real effect can “individual consent” have in a one-party state such as China, where political dissent is so often punished? These supporters tend not to mention the half a dozen provincial laws passed since 1988 which never mention individual wishes: in Gansu province, for instance, “idiots”, “cretins” and “imbeciles” (not defined in medical terms) are not allowed to marry unless they have been sterilized.

It is crucial to understand that racism is not a necessary component of eugenics. Thousands of individuals judged to be mentally impaired were forcibly sterilized in Scandinavian countries until the 1960s without being defined as "racially" different. To defend China's law by arguing that the Han do not think of themselves as superior to minorities is seriously misleading. Why not ask ethnic Tibetans what they think about this?

An inalienable right
Eugenic laws in China fall largely on two groups: peasants (about 70 per cent of the population) and ethnic minorities, (55 groups comprising about eight per cent of the population). In specialist and popular publications, Chinese geneticists claim to find higher rates of mental and physical handicap among the peasantry than the urban population. They also claim that there are higher rates among at least some ethnic minorities in comparison to the majority Han. These geneticists maintain that the economic backwardness of these groups is reinforced by inbreeding. I would argue that this is no more than a scientized version of Han prejudice against minority endogamic practices.

“Confucian values” are also evoked to justify the 1995 law. China is not frozen in time. To invoke Xun Zi in the 1990s is as useful as referring to the Spartans to explain Nazi policies. Reproductive freedom is not the prerogative of a few privileged cultures, but an inalienable part of individual rights. Coercive methods of controlling population growth cannot be defended on cultural grounds. The sterilization programmes used in India during the “emergency period” in the 1970s, for example, were overwhelmingly rejected once general elections were held. Besides, research shows that in China and elsewhere individuals have very different views on the treatment of handicapped people. In surveys by Chinese researchers in the late 1980s, up to 25 per cent of those questioned considered life to be sacred in all circumstances. Serious birth defects are one of the most painful challenges any family can face, and all possible ethical considerations and medical options should be carefully considered and openly debated. The present eugenic legislation does not reflect this consensus-making process; it imposes decisions.

Even in democratic countries, marginalized people may be treated in a discriminatory way, as social prejudice and economic interest affect the nature of genetic information made available to families, employers, insurance companies or welfare states. In a one-party state like China, eugenic laws have been used to suppress rather than assist vulnerable people.

Points of law

The following are key excerpts from the official translation of China’s Maternal and Infant Health Care Law, which came into effect in 1995.
Article 8: The pre-marital physical check-up shall include the examination of the following diseases: (i) genetic diseases of a serious nature; (ii) target infectious diseases; and (iii) relevant mental disease.
Article 10: Physicians shall, after performing the pre-marital physical check-up, explain and give medical advice to both the male and the female who have been diagnosed with certain genetic disease of a serious nature which is considered to be inappropriate for child-bearing from a medical point of view; the two may be married only if both sides agree to take long-term contraceptive measures or to take ligation operation for sterility.
Article 16: If a physician detects or suspects that a married couple in their child-bearing age suffer from genetic disease of a serious nature, the physician shall give medical advice to the couple, and the couple in their child-bearing age shall take measures in accordance with the physician’s medical advice.
Article 18: The physician shall explain to the married couple and give them medical advice for a termination of pregnancy if one of the following cases is detected in the prenatal diagnosis: (i) the foetus is suffering from genetic disease of a serious nature; (ii) the foetus is with defect of a serious nature; and (iii) continued pregnancy may threaten the life and safety of the pregnant woman or seriously impair her health.

Source from: http://www.unesco.org/courier/1999_09/uk/dossier/txt07.htm

值得研究的一些点：

1。当我询问时，我察觉到很多人对计划生育政策基本内容[口号]并不十分了解，由于“提高人口素质”，什么是素质呢？很多人回应是教育文化水平，文明礼貌习惯等等，而政策的基本内容应当更多是“人口质量”--实际上是避免残疾或有先天性遗传病的婴儿出生。某种程度上的优生学问题。那么一个可能的发现将会是，中国大众在政府强有力的宣传之下已经自觉不自觉地接受了计划生育制度，不论是关于人口控制还是人口质量提高。也有可能“素质”一词本身也有误导作用。Popular support of citizens comes from misunderstandings of the policy？

2。关于优生学的各种争议。谁来定义什么好“高素质”。而且掌握基因技术和改造力量会造成什么后果呢？Frank 关于（政治）制度与优生学施行的关系。

3。中国历史上的优生学。PRC历史上国家对于优生学的态度，和后来各种落实手段。引发的争议。