Everyone likes to talk about the idea that one of the biggest changes was the "One Child Policy" of China was s a population planning initiative in China implemented between 1979 and 2015 to curb the country's population growth by restricting many families to a single child. The program had wide-ranging social, cultural, economic, and demographic effects, although the contribution of one-child restrictions to the broader program has been the subject of controversy. Its efficacy in reducing birth rates and defensibility from a human rights perspective have been subjects of controversy. Your mission should you decide to accept, is to flag how would history change if the policy was never proposed. I admit this will get political pretty quickly, but please feel free to change things. Does China become a military behemoth? Does it collapse into ethnic states? Does it declare war on India or Russia? Also, do scientific, political or cultural icons develop out of the Generation X and Millenials?
"All the Children of China": A Collaborative TL
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Population growth was already in decline by 1978.
TFR had already fallen from the Mao peak of 6 to 3.
Efforts prior to the One Child Policy were incredibly effective, with the Later, Longer, Fewer program - "wan, xi, shao" - a huge success. Promoting later marriages, longer waiting between births, and fewer children as a whole already addressed any overpopulation crisis. Deng Xiaoping overreacted, bought into the extreme malthusianism of an aerospace engineer, Song Jian, and concluded a radical response was necessary to a problem that was already going away.
Evidence for the OCP actually working is contested. As you can see on graph two the TFR briefly went up in the late 80s. I would say that TFR collapsed below replacement in the 90s not because of direct family planning but due to a mixture of urbanisation and the cost of raising a child.
1. China is an expensive place to raise a child and that trend began in the 90s when the private education market began to grow. As cities developed and expanded, the further loss of state sponsored or factory-adjacent daycares that were seen under Mao's natalist and socialist policies led to a rise in children being partially or wholly raised by grandparents as it was no longer possible to take care of infants while working. New white collar or blue collar workers had much less support for their children, as they migrated away from their families. This turning of children into a burden on the older generation for parents who barely saw their children played a role in the "Little Emperor" phenomenon of having fewer children but giving them grandparents who spoiled them with attention and heavily monitored their education.
2. The rapid economic development of the 90s also pushed the migration of rural workers to cities where they lacked Hukou, denying access to local education services led to their children either being sent back to their village, or being raised locally at a higher cost, again incentivising smaller families. These two factors have led to many children identifying more with their grandparents than their parents as well. This is not unusual, developed countries generally have higher costs for raising children. China is unusual in how it's Hukou system uniquely raised the cost of urbanisation, lack of extensive daycare even in developed regions, and high emphasis on tutoring and education for a developing country. I would argue that those played a significant role of pushing TFR down during the 90s as part of overall economic acceleration and were directly linked to urbanisation breaking up family structures.
Additionally, it's important to know that the One Child Policy was inconsistently implemented. Many rural and minority families received an exemption or outright flouted the rules. Many more people had unregistered births and then paid a fine when their kid was old enough to go to school so they could be registered - every year sees a slight boost to the population of five and six year olds as a result and many of these undocumented children are women for obvious reasons. I know some people offline who were registered later and in my experience these undocumented or exempted children grew up to have normal experiences for their age and class group.
None of this is to say that forced abortions or sterilisations never happened. They unequivocally have and in less developed regions still do, both on the judgement of individual officials towards individual families but also sometimes in large scale county-wide campaigns. Most rural towns might have overlooked large families but others enforced the rules strictly and cruelly. It's just that implementation did not happen often enough to meaningfully impact demographics.
So in conclusion the One Child Policy was not only an inhumane monstrosity, it was inconsistently implemented and completely pointless. Even without the One Child Policy, China's population still declines roughly on schedule unless the government flips back to natalism
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Something that comes to mind is the idea of Mao Tse-tung having a different Cultural Revolution starting in 1966-1976. As such, the political and military purges go a long way to explaining the massive waves of people who left China or were killed during the period. It didn't help matters that the Cultural Revolution only further created famines and violent purges across the country. I am guessing that changing the objectives could go a long way to at least preventing a large number of the deaths...
Godot
Gone Fishin'
Changing the cultural revolution is a way different pod than just butterflying the OCP
Alrighty then, what should be done in regards to policies to increase the population, considering the "overpopulation scare" of the early 1970s?
Godot
Gone Fishin'
I don't know how or why China would realistically promote pro-natalist policies. Demographic transition is inevitable in any developing economy.
Then again, this is the period immediately after the "Gang of Four" attempted coup failed, and just as China is withdrawing from Vietnam in March 1979. What if it claims that Western calls for "overpopulation" are "racist imperialism ", pointing out birth control being promoted in Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America?
Godot
Gone Fishin'
Concerns about overpopulation were homegrown and were a natural reaction to Mao's general preference for higher population growth rates.
However the impact of the OCP is massively overstated, other than perhaps the present gender disparity. The demographic transition was going to happen regardless, and there were plenty of exceptions for rural families (i.e. the group having the most kids anyhow).
Could a successful coup by the Gang of Four, especially led by Mao's widow make sure that the rural/ population policies continue? If anything, I can see it certainly not affecting the gender disparity issues of the country. In fact, I am more than willing to assume that it would expand the issues a full 25 years earlier (c. 1989-1997). This would certainly open the country to political and economic unrest....
Godot
Gone Fishin'
Continuing to not have a OCP wouldn't do very much to Chinese demographics as compared to OTL is me point. The demographic transition was happening regardless. A China without any sort of top-down family planning policy would have maybe a marginally larger population than OTL and perhaps a slightly more natural population pyramid.
The Gang of Four being in charge of China also definitely would not last. They lacked institutional support within both the party and the PLA and didn't have the ideological prestige or personal sway of Mao.
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I certainly understand that the rule of the Gang of Four wouldn't be permanent. In fact, I am willing to bet that it would open the doors to actual political and economic reforms to the post-Brezhnev period in the Soviet Union, and possibly into the realm of Mikhail Gorbachev. If anything, the timing would certainly breed a whole line of conspiracy theories for the TL. I also don't believe that it would become a Keynesian economy, but it would certainly different enough to make any "end of history" very different than OTL.
Godot
Gone Fishin'
I don't think I understand what you're getting at here, since you're kind of breaking off into a tangent. My point is that the one child policy's actual impact on PRC demographics was very dubious and is debated by scholars. If that's the POD the thread is aiming at, realistically you're going to get a China very similar to OTL.
A successful coup by the Gang of Four is a different POD altogether. I'm of the opinion that the institutional forces at work by the time Mao died made any longer-term continuation of his more radical GLF/Cultural Rev policies highly unlikely. You would need to fundamentally alter what was pursued in the tumultuous period of the 60s and 70s to really alter China's outlook.
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I am guessing that major political and social changes would be seen in a more positive light, in an environment wherein it can be argued, "we tried it the following ways, so I think we should try something different..." This includes the Gang of Four policies. Much like the Soviet policies of the post-Stalinist to Brezhnev era, while people wouldn't be rebellious, they would certainly open to new policies. Second, with a new set of political and societal benchmarks, Chinese society would be open to changes. If there was a long term occupation of Vietnam, I am guessing that there would be be a "baby boom" upon the return home, similar to how the United States experienced a mini-"baby boom", creating Generation X after teh Vietnam War.
Godot
Gone Fishin'
As far as I know the only baby boom the Vietnam War produced was in Vietnam after reunification. Other than that I can't find anything about Gen X being the product of Vietnam returnees.
I mean you could see more reforms but again the OTP just didn't have a huge impact. At best it was a marginally successful family planning program that mostly just skewed the ratio of women to men, for a bit.
The far more impactful demographic movement, after the 70s, would be explosion in size experienced by urban areas.
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The whole "Generation X Boom" was initially noted by Douglas Coupland in c. 1994. My guess is that without the OCP greater attention would only be noted only by c. 1989. I am guessing that much like the Arab/ North Africa World of OTL, the population boom in cities just as the Internet and cellular phones start becoming in demand. If anything, I see the young population utilizing the situation similar to the Arab Spring in 2011 or the Iranian Green Elections of c. 2009.
Godot
Gone Fishin'
But the urban population *did* boom as the Internet and cellular phones became highly demanded IOTL. You're describing real life.
I am trying to create a scenario wherein maybe the cities spread out into the rural areas, based on the births of youth in the rural communities. see if it is possible to build up the population, using the post-Mao policies.
Godot
Gone Fishin'
As said, it's going to be very difficult to attain population growth much higher than we got OTL. You're fighting against gravity.
What we have OTL is the scenario you're describing.
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Warning
As to whether China can afford a war. The answer is no! They are asking the Biden Administration now for economic aid:
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