Saying that “places like China and India kill baby girls” is a culturally biased and even racially discriminatory statement. The truth is, the tragic phenomenon of female infanticide in China was not rooted in traditional culture but rather in state-imposed violence and extreme policies during specific historical periods.
Clarification:
1. State violence, not cultural tradition:
The phenomenon of killing female infants was not a cultural norm but a result of Mao Zedong’s population control initiatives, later intensified during Deng Xiaoping’s one-child policy. These policies disproportionately targeted the Han ethnic majority, especially in rural areas.
2. Male labor tied to state benefits:
During the collectivist era, land and resources were allocated based on the number of able-bodied laborers in a family. A boy meant future labor and more land. The state demanded massive grain quotas from the Han population to trade for weapons with Stalin’s USSR. Under these pressures, families often saw baby girls as economic liabilities.
3. It wasn’t the people—it was the policy:
The government created a brutal environment in which families had to make tragic choices. These were not cultural acts, but desperate responses to a system that devalued human life.
4. Minorities exempted:
Ethnic minorities in China were generally exempt from the one-child policy, making it clear that these policies were not cultural but discriminatory in nature.
Thus, blaming “the people of such places” ignores the historical and political realities and inflicts secondary harm on those who were themselves victims of these policies. It is not “Chinese culture” that killed baby girls—it was the system.
