The Chinese government announced Friday that it would no longer allow foreign families to adopt Chinese children, ending a program that has found homes overseas for more than 160,000 children since 1992. Beijing refused to provide a clear explanation for the decision, but most observers suspect it is a response to China's falling birth rate.
The termination of foreign adoptions was so sudden that families with backlogged cases were unsure whether their adoptions would be able to go forward. When asked for clarification by the U.S. State Department, Chinese officials said said They said they would “not continue processing the case at any stage.”
“We understand that there are hundreds of families still waiting for their adoptions to be completed and we sympathize with their plight,” the State Department said.
China's Foreign Ministry muttered something about bringing foreign adoptions into line with “the spirit of relevant international treaties.”
This may have been a vague reference to Denmark and the Netherlands. say Earlier this year, the government announced that it would no longer allow overseas adoptions. Bureaucratic misconduct and Claims The government launched an investigation into suspected documentation fraud after foreign adoptions in Wuhan fell sharply during the coronavirus pandemic.
China is perhaps more worried about no longer being able to afford to support children. Adoption of Chinese children overseas became common in the final years of China's dreaded one-child policy, which tried to curb overpopulation by forcing families to have just one child.
The one-child policy was notorious for its implementation as it disadvantaged girls, as families viewed them as a luxury they could no longer afford. According to Child International, a Chinese international child protection organization: Nonprofit Organizations Founded in 2011 to support Chinese adoptees around the world, it has adopted approximately 82,000 Chinese children. Adopted They have been born many times to American families over the past 30 years, most of them girls.
China has gone from worrying about overpopulation to worrying about population collapse ever since the one-child policy ended in 2016. There is widespread panic within the Chinese Communist Party that the policy cannot be reversed. Falling birth rateIn the space of a few years, Beijing has gone from forcing women to abort over-births to offering numerous economic incentives to become mothers, effectively Beggar Young families having children, and Suggest Those who don't breed fast enough may become traitors. None of these measures work very well.
Wang Feng, a sociology professor at the University of California, Irvine, said China's ban on foreign adoptions “marks the end of an era and the end of one of the most shameful chapters in 35 years of social engineering known as the one-child policy.”
“The Chinese government created the problem, then could not cope with financial constraints and allowed foreign adoption as a last resort,” Wang said. said of The New York Times (New York Times) Friday.
Guo Wu, an associate professor of Chinese studies at Allegheny College, suggested rising Chinese nationalism may also be driving a halt to foreign adoptions.
Guo said the idea that China cannot raise its own children may be offensive to Chinese nationalists, especially with half of all foreign adoptions going to the United States and growing tensions between Washington and Beijing.
“This policy may satisfy the feeling that, 'We don't need to send our children to America,'” he said.
Hopeful adoptive families in the United States The New York Times They were shocked that China suddenly halted the process.
“It's really hard to sit here with our hands tied and no hope when hundreds of families are waiting and spaces are available. We love this country and we love these people. Part of my sadness is the connection to China,” said adoptive mother-to-be Courtney Moore.
