WEBVTT 00:10.570 --> 00:12.420 Prof: This is one family's experience, 00:12.420 --> 00:15.150 and, as Qing said, it's quite different for 00:15.150 --> 00:18.860 different people, but what you should realize is 00:18.861 --> 00:22.561 that this is one of 300 million such stories. 00:22.560 --> 00:25.130 The stories may be different but there's 300 million of them. 00:25.130 --> 00:28.620 That's what the Chinese government is now saying, 00:28.618 --> 00:32.828 that the one child policy has averted 300 million births in 00:32.833 --> 00:33.563 China. 00:33.560 --> 00:38.720 Their population, instead of being 1.3 billion 00:38.719 --> 00:41.929 now, would be 1.6 billion. 00:41.930 --> 00:46.820 300 million people is the total population of the United States. 00:46.820 --> 00:50.600 China has, as they perceive it, as they claim, 00:50.603 --> 00:55.733 averted putting another United States worth of population into 00:55.732 --> 00:56.912 the world. 00:56.910 --> 01:00.850 That's the significance of spending two full lectures on 01:00.853 --> 01:02.613 China, and we could of course spend a 01:02.612 --> 01:04.802 lot more, is that China is just so big 01:04.798 --> 01:08.228 that everything that happens there has these tremendous 01:08.227 --> 01:10.847 significances, both on an individual personal 01:10.852 --> 01:13.722 level for each individual or family that experiences it, 01:13.719 --> 01:17.429 but also on the global level. 01:17.430 --> 01:21.850 One out of every five human beings lives in China, 01:21.854 --> 01:23.664 so it is very big. 01:23.659 --> 01:26.929 We'll talk in a later lecture explicitly about the one-child 01:26.927 --> 01:30.137 policy, but there's information I have to give you today to 01:30.141 --> 01:31.861 understand what it's about. 01:31.860 --> 01:34.130 Let me just say, now, that the Chinese 01:34.126 --> 01:37.556 government is of course well aware of the human and human 01:37.558 --> 01:40.498 rights sacrifices of the individual people, 01:40.500 --> 01:45.680 but they argue that the benefits outweigh the suffering. 01:45.680 --> 01:50.040 Just to give you a little hint of the way the government thinks 01:50.036 --> 01:53.616 about it, and many other people in China, 01:53.616 --> 01:58.026 that the great economic boom that China has had-- 01:58.030 --> 02:02.440 most economists now around the world attribute the kick off of 02:02.435 --> 02:05.175 that to the reduction in fertility, 02:05.180 --> 02:08.720 that they didn't have to cope with so many children and that's 02:08.724 --> 02:11.054 the cause of their economy taking off. 02:11.050 --> 02:14.470 They perceive that the one-child policy has allowed 02:14.467 --> 02:18.287 China to emerge from this grinding poverty that they were 02:18.294 --> 02:21.864 in and become a modern-- at least start to become a 02:21.855 --> 02:23.625 modern nation in the world. 02:23.628 --> 02:27.998 Another story--another data set that I just recently came across 02:27.996 --> 02:30.696 was--had to do with carbon emissions. 02:30.699 --> 02:34.439 02:34.440 --> 02:37.010 At a world average of carbon usage, 02:37.008 --> 02:40.768 which is probably below what China is actually using, 02:40.770 --> 02:44.870 300 extra million people would have produced 1.5 billion, 02:44.870 --> 02:47.010 that's billion with a "b," 02:47.009 --> 02:50.439 tons of CO_2 each year and that's more than the 02:50.436 --> 02:53.976 total CO_2 production of an industrial giant like 02:53.983 --> 02:54.843 Germany. 02:54.840 --> 02:57.470 If you're looking at this issue from an environmental point of 02:57.465 --> 02:59.555 view, the reduction of people and 02:59.560 --> 03:01.830 their environmental impact makes, 03:01.830 --> 03:04.400 again, a huge difference. 03:04.400 --> 03:06.250 The Chinese, for instance, 03:06.254 --> 03:10.044 feel that because of the one-child policy alone, 03:10.038 --> 03:14.788 they have done more than any other country to ameliorate the 03:14.788 --> 03:16.638 environmental crisis. 03:16.639 --> 03:21.139 That's just a hint of the very difficult things-- 03:21.139 --> 03:25.779 how do you weigh the story of a family and 300 million families 03:25.782 --> 03:30.052 like you just heard against these sort of macro issues. 03:30.050 --> 03:32.500 It is not easy. 03:32.500 --> 03:38.940 The question I want to set up today, which is to go backwards, 03:38.943 --> 03:43.913 is this kind of policy happens only in China. 03:43.910 --> 03:47.130 This kind of enormous population, as the Chinese 03:47.133 --> 03:51.113 perceive it, overpopulation, happens in China really and in 03:51.110 --> 03:53.580 India in terms of massive stuff. 03:53.580 --> 03:56.540 We've talked a little about India and South Asia. 03:56.538 --> 04:00.148 The question is, what's special about China? 04:00.150 --> 04:03.350 Why did this happen in China? 04:03.348 --> 04:06.678 Why did, as they perceive it, population get so out of 04:06.680 --> 04:10.640 control that the government felt that they had to introduce such 04:10.639 --> 04:16.249 a Draconian policy as this, such a stringent kind of policy. 04:16.250 --> 04:20.840 The flip side of that coin is, why is China just now digging 04:20.836 --> 04:25.656 out from the abject poverty that the people were in when Europe 04:25.656 --> 04:28.606 and America dug out 200 years ago? 04:28.610 --> 04:33.680 I mean England started it, but all of Europe and America 04:33.680 --> 04:39.120 went through this phase 200 years ago, and why not China? 04:39.120 --> 04:46.160 Of course this is a very, very hotly contested issue 04:46.158 --> 04:48.778 among historians. 04:48.779 --> 04:52.409 The basic set up of the story is that in about 1800, 04:52.410 --> 04:56.380 when Malthus was writing, China was very powerful, 04:56.379 --> 05:00.519 very strong, a very rich country and the 05:00.524 --> 05:04.354 West was beginning to be that way. 05:04.350 --> 05:06.650 The industrial revolution was just starting in England, 05:06.649 --> 05:09.949 and you would have seen enormous differences between 05:09.954 --> 05:12.744 China and say England or Europe in 1800, 05:12.740 --> 05:16.120 but you would not have been able to predict which model was 05:16.115 --> 05:19.115 going to take over the world, which country was going to 05:19.122 --> 05:20.972 become bigger and stronger in the future. 05:20.970 --> 05:24.970 China was a very impressive place in 1800 and Europe was 05:24.971 --> 05:28.611 beginning to be a very impressive place in 1800. 05:28.610 --> 05:32.690 Then I may go into a little bit the history a little bit more. 05:32.689 --> 05:36.789 By 1840, when the British invaded with the opium war, 05:36.790 --> 05:41.290 the British started to addict the Chinese to opium and the 05:41.286 --> 05:43.806 Chinese government said, No. 05:43.810 --> 05:49.460 The British cried free trade and invaded to force China to 05:49.461 --> 05:54.621 accept British opium, which they got out of India. 05:54.620 --> 05:58.390 That's a separate story which we may or may not have time for. 05:58.389 --> 06:02.809 Then in a very short period of time China goes from being one 06:02.814 --> 06:07.464 of the dominant countries in the world to being sort of the pawn 06:07.461 --> 06:11.521 in the world that the British start colonizing it, 06:11.519 --> 06:13.799 the Germans start colonizing it, the Americans take 06:13.797 --> 06:15.787 advantage, everybody starts taking 06:15.790 --> 06:20.160 advantage of China, the colonization of China 06:20.158 --> 06:24.358 starts the dismembering of China. 06:24.360 --> 06:28.640 Why did this happen is one of the major issues in world 06:28.637 --> 06:29.427 history. 06:29.430 --> 06:31.790 There's many, many different points of view 06:31.786 --> 06:34.646 on this, there's ten major theories or something. 06:34.649 --> 06:38.309 In this class, I just have time to unwind one 06:38.307 --> 06:40.877 thread-- one version of the story and 06:40.875 --> 06:44.345 only one thread of that story and that's the relationship 06:44.348 --> 06:48.118 between the population of China, the wealth of China, 06:48.122 --> 06:50.132 and the poverty of China. 06:50.129 --> 06:54.459 This particular thread about population was obvious to 06:54.461 --> 06:58.711 Europeans visiting China, even in the European Middle 06:58.714 --> 06:59.454 Ages. 06:59.449 --> 07:03.529 Marco Polo visited China in the 1200s, 07:03.528 --> 07:06.348 and he described China's cultivation, 07:06.350 --> 07:08.910 how every little bit of land was under very intense 07:08.911 --> 07:11.111 cultivation already, populousness, 07:11.113 --> 07:15.603 that the population was already incredibly dense as viewed 07:15.601 --> 07:18.911 through European eyes of the same time. 07:18.910 --> 07:22.490 And industry, the people worked very hard and 07:22.488 --> 07:26.718 whatever they did they were very productive at it. 07:26.720 --> 07:31.840 The stories of Kublai Khan and all that were from Marco Polo 07:31.838 --> 07:36.778 that he sort of idolized China as this incredibly rich but 07:36.783 --> 07:39.303 very, very crowded place. 07:39.300 --> 07:40.970 Adam Smith, in the seventeenth century, 07:40.970 --> 07:42.890 the guy who started modern economics, 07:42.889 --> 07:46.249 said "China has long been one of the richest, 07:46.250 --> 07:48.360 most fertile, best cultivated, 07:48.360 --> 07:52.290 and most industrious and most populous countries in the 07:52.291 --> 07:55.641 world" so Adam Smith was aware of it. 07:55.639 --> 08:00.299 All of these great scholars of the late 1700s were looking 08:00.300 --> 08:02.510 around the world finally. 08:02.509 --> 08:05.719 There was enough seafaring; they could go around the world 08:05.720 --> 08:08.750 and compare different things, and try to figure out what was 08:08.750 --> 08:11.010 the best system for people to live under. 08:11.009 --> 08:14.319 A few years after Adam Smith, Malthus writes and he quotes 08:14.324 --> 08:17.754 the information that Europeans were getting were mostly from 08:17.754 --> 08:21.364 Jesuit priests who had gone over to China to try to convert the 08:21.360 --> 08:22.350 population. 08:22.350 --> 08:27.520 He quotes one rather well known Jesuit priest then, 08:27.519 --> 08:31.699 China is "The richest and most flourishing empire in the 08:31.701 --> 08:34.421 world," but the priest goes on, 08:34.418 --> 08:39.528 but, because of overpopulation, the people are 'the poorest and 08:39.532 --> 08:43.492 most miserable of all.'" Right from way, 08:43.490 --> 08:46.660 way back, people are aware that China was basically a very rich 08:46.657 --> 08:48.487 country, but because of the huge 08:48.485 --> 08:51.305 population, the individual families were 08:51.307 --> 08:53.187 often in abject poverty. 08:53.190 --> 08:58.210 While if you looked at the emperor and the nobles, 08:58.212 --> 09:02.112 of course, they had enormous wealth. 09:02.110 --> 09:05.140 These early observers were certainly correct about the 09:05.139 --> 09:06.569 population issue there. 09:06.570 --> 09:11.270 We have data from, say 1750, and China had 500 09:11.268 --> 09:15.548 people per cultivated square kilometer. 09:15.548 --> 09:19.558 At the same time Europe had about 70 people per the square 09:19.556 --> 09:21.386 kilometer, so China had to, 09:21.388 --> 09:25.468 on the same farmland, had to support seven times as 09:25.471 --> 09:26.711 many people. 09:26.710 --> 09:30.960 Of course, the numbers are from 1750, so don't take them as any 09:30.956 --> 09:32.596 kind of exact numbers. 09:32.600 --> 09:35.950 Up to today, China has something like 20% of 09:35.951 --> 09:37.901 the world's population. 09:37.899 --> 09:40.909 Because of the one child policy, the ratio was higher, 09:40.908 --> 09:44.308 they had more than 20% but now it's down to about 20% because 09:44.312 --> 09:45.962 India is still coming up. 09:45.960 --> 09:48.280 A lot of the world is still coming up and China, 09:48.278 --> 09:50.888 the population is still increasing but increasing at a 09:50.893 --> 09:51.933 rather slow rate. 09:51.928 --> 09:57.948 It has now 20% of the world's population but only 6% to 7% of 09:57.951 --> 10:02.971 the arable land, the farmable land in the world. 10:02.970 --> 10:08.550 The amount of farmland per person is 0.2 acres per person, 10:08.551 --> 10:12.861 ten times less than the United States has. 10:12.860 --> 10:17.550 There's a real problem with China's population and the 10:17.548 --> 10:22.328 question is why did China's population press up against 10:22.327 --> 10:27.727 their resources and riches of the land so much more so than in 10:27.725 --> 10:29.225 say Europe? 10:29.230 --> 10:34.570 For most of history, China's population does not 10:34.565 --> 10:37.625 look terribly different-- 10:37.629 --> 10:49.119 10:49.120 --> 10:53.210 you can see this, that in the Han Dynasty, 10:53.210 --> 10:58.370 which was the first unifying dynasty of China, 10:58.370 --> 11:00.540 very much the same time as the Roman Empire. 11:00.538 --> 11:03.658 It had a population of 50 or 60 million, 11:03.658 --> 11:05.978 then according to this reconstruction of China's 11:05.976 --> 11:07.616 history, and all these reconstructions 11:07.620 --> 11:10.630 are very iffy, you notice the population stays 11:10.634 --> 11:12.424 stable for 1000 years. 11:12.418 --> 11:16.408 Then, during the Song Dynasty, which is one of the very most 11:16.413 --> 11:19.573 important dynasties in China, very successful, 11:19.572 --> 11:22.802 population rises and then it falls back down again. 11:22.798 --> 11:26.368 Yuan, which are the Mongol invasions, this decline is 11:26.369 --> 11:30.419 probably very much characterized by the Mongol invasions. 11:30.418 --> 11:33.388 The particular dates here are dates when we have censuses, 11:33.389 --> 11:36.099 when the various emperors took censuses, 11:36.100 --> 11:38.670 and in between we really don't know what's happening, 11:38.668 --> 11:42.648 and you're also not sure how complete these censuses are. 11:42.649 --> 11:44.659 Anyway, the Mongol invasion. 11:44.658 --> 11:47.998 Then it stays constant, and then sometime in this 11:47.995 --> 11:51.125 period, probably there's no census 11:51.134 --> 11:56.874 really, they don't have any data between 1400 and 1750 so this 11:56.873 --> 12:01.913 curve in here is guesswork, but sometime in the 1700s, 12:01.908 --> 12:06.218 as in Europe, the population takes off. 12:06.220 --> 12:09.650 Something like this doesn't look wildly, in shape, 12:09.649 --> 12:13.569 in magnitude it's different, but in shape it doesn't look 12:13.570 --> 12:15.740 very different than Europe. 12:15.740 --> 12:19.390 12:19.389 --> 12:22.119 In the Han Dynasty 60 million Chinese-- 12:22.120 --> 12:27.950 1,400 years later in 1393 they counted 60.5 million people and 12:27.948 --> 12:33.108 in between the population went as low as 37 million. 12:33.110 --> 12:36.390 Then as I said the Mongol invasions decimated the 12:36.394 --> 12:40.444 population and then just-- before the European Black Death 12:40.442 --> 12:44.572 but decimation the same sense as the European Black Death and 12:44.570 --> 12:48.630 then it took a long time for China's population to come back 12:48.629 --> 12:49.179 up. 12:49.178 --> 12:50.828 By the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, 12:50.830 --> 12:53.720 one of the also very flourishing periods in Chinese 12:53.722 --> 12:56.472 history, China had maybe 75 million 12:56.467 --> 12:58.737 people, up from 60 million. 12:58.740 --> 13:03.990 Then it starts doubling, in the next 200 years it 13:03.989 --> 13:07.269 doubles and continues on up. 13:07.269 --> 13:09.509 As in Europe there were major epidemics. 13:09.509 --> 13:13.919 In the 1640s there was some major epidemic that we can liken 13:13.923 --> 13:18.343 to plague, but people really don't know what kind of disease 13:18.336 --> 13:19.156 it was. 13:19.158 --> 13:21.878 A Chinese scholar wrote in 1642, "The 13:21.878 --> 13:24.528 pestilence," we don't know what, 13:24.528 --> 13:28.198 "The pestilence arose again on a large scale affecting 13:28.198 --> 13:30.728 eight or nine of every ten households. 13:30.730 --> 13:35.470 In a household of ten or 20 people all would be afflicted 13:35.469 --> 13:37.669 and often all would die. 13:37.668 --> 13:41.618 At first the bodies were buried in coffins and next in grasses, 13:41.620 --> 13:45.120 but finally they were just left in the places where they 13:45.124 --> 13:46.084 died." 13:46.080 --> 13:50.160 In one big city in 1643 there were few-- 13:50.158 --> 13:53.368 there was basically no signs of human life in the streets, 13:53.370 --> 13:56.290 "only the buzzing of flies broke the silence." 13:56.288 --> 13:59.748 Those are quotes from Chinese observers. 13:59.750 --> 14:02.770 Very interestingly, it was at this time in the 14:02.765 --> 14:06.205 1640s that the Chinese, having experienced this massive 14:06.211 --> 14:09.111 disease, developed a new medical theory 14:09.107 --> 14:12.237 of disease and epidemics based on Chi, 14:12.240 --> 14:15.500 and you've all heard of Chi, which is supposedly sort of the 14:15.495 --> 14:18.745 life force that's involved in acupuncture and everything. 14:18.750 --> 14:23.270 Their view was that there was this sort of non-material 14:23.270 --> 14:26.800 substance, force, kind of like phlogiston 14:26.801 --> 14:30.221 in the West and it had to be in balance, 14:30.220 --> 14:33.070 and when the Chi on heaven and earth, 14:33.070 --> 14:35.010 there was Chi in heaven and Chi on earth, 14:35.009 --> 14:39.349 got disrupted then plague--then chaos broke out on earth and 14:39.354 --> 14:42.524 people started dying of various diseases. 14:42.519 --> 14:46.729 Of course you know Americans have recently become wildly 14:46.725 --> 14:51.615 infatuated with Chinese medicine and the Chi theory of things and 14:51.620 --> 14:54.680 acupuncture, and we can talk a lot about 14:54.678 --> 14:58.718 that privately if you wish but the point is it did not help the 14:58.716 --> 14:59.886 Chinese at all. 14:59.889 --> 15:02.439 You can see the birth--the medical statistics, 15:02.440 --> 15:06.160 again as far as we have them, and up until recent times from 15:06.160 --> 15:09.950 the practice of acupuncture you don't see any form of disease 15:09.945 --> 15:13.535 lessened at all and the only thing you see in China, 15:13.538 --> 15:15.728 and Japan also, is a tremendous rise in 15:15.726 --> 15:18.776 hepatitis because of the transmission from the needles 15:18.775 --> 15:22.455 because they didn't understand anything about sterilization. 15:22.460 --> 15:26.960 Then these plagues caused enormous political changes just 15:26.955 --> 15:28.155 as in Europe. 15:28.158 --> 15:30.938 The Ming Dynasty, for instance, 15:30.937 --> 15:33.367 fell, possibly as a result of the 15:33.370 --> 15:36.880 depopulation and chaos of the plague and that allowed the 15:36.875 --> 15:40.125 Mongol's to come in and set up their own dynasty. 15:40.129 --> 15:45.019 I'm sorry the Manchu from Manchuria, the Manchu to come in 15:45.017 --> 15:47.587 and set up the Qing Dynasty. 15:47.590 --> 15:52.430 Similarly to Europe, after one of these decimations 15:52.428 --> 15:56.918 of the population, good land became available and 15:56.923 --> 16:01.773 people moved into the good land and they had a blossoming of 16:01.767 --> 16:05.377 wealth and culture even for the peasants. 16:05.379 --> 16:08.999 It's a cycle not very different than what Malthus talked about, 16:09.000 --> 16:12.580 balancing the relationship between the number of people and 16:12.583 --> 16:14.503 the amount of land available. 16:14.500 --> 16:19.410 Throughout this whole period, life expectancy was very poor. 16:19.408 --> 16:23.038 We have scattered statistics, so a village in the 1790s 16:23.041 --> 16:26.871 showed that one-third of male children died in their first 16:26.874 --> 16:30.914 year of life and half of them died before they were 20, 16:30.908 --> 16:34.248 and the female situation was comparable but probably worse 16:34.246 --> 16:37.446 because of infanticide, so they're probably counting 16:37.450 --> 16:40.750 only those that got through the period of infanticide. 16:40.750 --> 16:46.400 Life expectancy was 32 in this particular village and only 4% 16:46.398 --> 16:49.598 of the population lived past 65. 16:49.600 --> 16:52.860 Again, it's not terribly different than what we saw in 16:52.855 --> 16:55.605 the statistic-- the graph for CisAlpine Gall, 16:55.605 --> 16:59.015 where about a third of the women are dead before they start 16:59.019 --> 17:00.609 their reproductive life. 17:00.610 --> 17:04.050 17:04.048 --> 17:10.568 When the Ming came to power there was still land--unoccupied 17:10.570 --> 17:12.450 land available. 17:12.450 --> 17:15.110 As Malthus said, the best land was already used 17:15.112 --> 17:18.762 for agriculture but there was less good land still available. 17:18.759 --> 17:24.779 Under the Ming the population grew, we're talking 1600s into 17:24.775 --> 17:30.175 1700s, the Ming--I'm sorry that ends in 1650 or so. 17:30.180 --> 17:32.310 The population grew, what did the people do? 17:32.308 --> 17:36.148 They moved onto the marginal land and that meant higher into 17:36.154 --> 17:40.134 the mountains on steeper--trying to farm on steeper slopes. 17:40.130 --> 17:44.230 They cleared forested areas, they moved into dry areas, 17:44.230 --> 17:48.220 and the result of all this was enormous soil erosion, 17:48.220 --> 17:51.690 especially on the mountainsides in the dry areas. 17:51.690 --> 17:55.270 The productivity dropped because this land is just not 17:55.270 --> 17:59.800 good and the erosion--the forest couldn't hold the water anymore. 17:59.798 --> 18:02.338 The period of China--China's always had floods, 18:02.338 --> 18:03.788 it's a big part of the Chinese history, 18:03.788 --> 18:06.988 but these really massive, massive uncontrollable floods 18:06.990 --> 18:09.480 date from this period where the people-- 18:09.480 --> 18:13.420 the population increased and people started going into areas 18:13.421 --> 18:16.161 where it's ecologically very unstable, 18:16.160 --> 18:20.820 cutting down the forests and then when it rains you get these 18:20.820 --> 18:22.220 enormous floods. 18:22.220 --> 18:26.420 The floods not only--they devastated the agriculture in 18:26.423 --> 18:31.333 the lowlands so you not only had a poorer agriculture per capita 18:31.327 --> 18:35.757 in the highlands, but you also reduced the per 18:35.759 --> 18:38.869 capita farming in the lowlands. 18:38.868 --> 18:46.408 Again, population growth can make it difficult for everybody. 18:46.410 --> 18:49.560 Again, like Europe and like Africa, 18:49.558 --> 18:52.278 American foods, when they were discovered, 18:52.279 --> 18:54.299 went into China because they, as I said, 18:54.298 --> 18:58.268 have something like twice the caloric content of anything 18:58.268 --> 18:59.258 except rice. 18:59.259 --> 19:02.739 If you can grow rice, rice is as good as potatoes or 19:02.737 --> 19:04.167 just about as good. 19:04.170 --> 19:09.400 China picked up sweet potatoes especially, peanuts especially, 19:09.403 --> 19:12.923 some white potatoes, and they doubled food 19:12.922 --> 19:14.212 production. 19:14.210 --> 19:16.030 Guess what happened? 19:16.028 --> 19:19.428 The population doubled, so again, the introduction of 19:19.429 --> 19:23.089 these foods and the tremendous improvement in agriculture 19:23.089 --> 19:25.639 didn't help the per capita eating, 19:25.640 --> 19:28.510 the per capita amount of food for individuals. 19:28.509 --> 19:33.119 19:33.118 --> 19:34.878 During this same period, as people increased, 19:34.880 --> 19:38.340 one farmer could grow more food, but the people that could 19:38.340 --> 19:40.710 eat needed more land for themselves, 19:40.710 --> 19:44.580 so they moved farther out and the land under cultivation 19:44.577 --> 19:47.177 increased by a factor of 4.5 times. 19:47.180 --> 19:51.810 But, again, during this sort of second round of population 19:51.807 --> 19:55.067 growth, one is--when the Ming take over 19:55.067 --> 19:58.937 and one is after American foods are introduced, 19:58.940 --> 20:01.880 the erosion becomes extreme. 20:01.880 --> 20:06.330 It's so extreme that, by 1978, about one-third of all 20:06.330 --> 20:11.640 arable land in China had to be abandoned because of erosion. 20:11.640 --> 20:16.290 So, it's an enormous problem in China. 20:16.288 --> 20:20.168 This is really--China experienced Malthus, 20:20.170 --> 20:22.250 what I call Malthus with a vengeance, 20:22.250 --> 20:31.670 so this is the cultivated land and you can see that here 1700 20:31.673 --> 20:41.263 or so basically American foods come in and you can plant stuff 20:41.256 --> 20:45.466 everywhere, and the amount of land under 20:45.468 --> 20:47.408 cultivation goes up like crazy. 20:47.410 --> 20:51.320 Some of this decline is very recent, is industrialization, 20:51.315 --> 20:54.325 cities growing, and some of it is erosion. 20:54.328 --> 20:57.578 The land thing looks like an enormous increase in the amount 20:57.575 --> 21:00.595 of land available for farming but here is the per capita 21:00.598 --> 21:03.768 amount of land, the cultivated land hectares 21:03.769 --> 21:08.549 per capita, where this is simple hectares 21:08.551 --> 21:11.511 and it grows, then it crashes, 21:11.505 --> 21:15.095 probably again to do with the Mongol invasions so just fewer 21:15.099 --> 21:15.709 people. 21:15.710 --> 21:18.000 I'm sorry I've got this backwards, 21:18.000 --> 21:22.250 it rises here the land per capita because you just get rid 21:22.250 --> 21:26.260 of the people and then, in the modern population 21:26.258 --> 21:30.308 growth, the land per capita just crashes down. 21:30.308 --> 21:36.548 Now it's--this is 0.2 hectares now were 0.1 hectare per person, 21:36.554 --> 21:42.304 which is like a quarter of an acre, a very small amount of 21:42.295 --> 21:44.305 land per person. 21:44.308 --> 21:48.178 Of course the Chinese realized this, as well as anybody, 21:48.180 --> 21:52.540 and it was a matter of official concern during the Ming and the 21:52.542 --> 21:53.882 Qing dynasties. 21:53.880 --> 21:57.380 In 1790, just before Malthus wrote, 21:57.380 --> 22:00.480 a Chinese scholar and high government official, 22:00.480 --> 22:03.720 Hong Liang-ji, he started warning the Chinese 22:03.722 --> 22:08.072 about the difficulties that unchecked population would cause 22:08.070 --> 22:11.610 as it outraced Chinese productive capacity, 22:11.609 --> 22:15.389 that's the way he phrased it. 22:15.390 --> 22:18.860 It's clear that the original understanding of China, 22:18.858 --> 22:22.098 that its population was pressing really severely against 22:22.097 --> 22:24.977 its resources, was accurate but it still 22:24.980 --> 22:28.970 doesn't explain why was it in China that you got these 22:28.971 --> 22:31.381 incredibly dense populations. 22:31.380 --> 22:36.320 Why didn't that happen elsewhere say in China or 22:36.318 --> 22:37.368 England? 22:37.369 --> 22:39.329 What jumps to your mind? 22:39.328 --> 22:43.088 Probably a very high fertility, they had no--in England we 22:43.092 --> 22:47.182 talked about the late marriage system and everything which kept 22:47.184 --> 22:48.444 fertility down. 22:48.440 --> 22:52.470 Americans generally have the image and Westerners generally 22:52.470 --> 22:56.290 have the image that the Chinese reproduce--have a lot of 22:56.292 --> 22:59.782 children all the time; it's like your grandparents or 22:59.775 --> 23:00.385 something. 23:00.390 --> 23:03.700 This makes good sense in the Chinese culture. 23:03.700 --> 23:07.480 The principal goal of life was to produce sons, 23:07.480 --> 23:09.510 as you've heard over and over again, 23:09.509 --> 23:13.819 and this origin of ancestor worship I think as you just 23:13.820 --> 23:16.210 said, goes back at least to the 23:16.213 --> 23:20.423 second and third millennia B.C., so 5000 years, 23:20.420 --> 23:25.620 what Qing said is the scholarly number. 23:25.618 --> 23:27.578 They did all kinds of things to get a son, 23:27.578 --> 23:28.848 adoption was very, very common, 23:28.853 --> 23:31.573 you'll read about that in the reading if you haven't already, 23:31.568 --> 23:34.378 James Lee talks about very high rates of adoption, 23:34.380 --> 23:38.510 people who didn't have a son would get an adoption. 23:38.509 --> 23:42.149 The filial piety that they had, a Confucian system, 23:42.150 --> 23:45.850 which I'll talk about in a moment, where the older-- 23:45.848 --> 23:48.608 the younger brothers for instance had to pay absolute 23:48.605 --> 23:51.935 obedience to the older brothers and they all had to pay absolute 23:51.944 --> 23:53.434 obedience to the father. 23:53.430 --> 23:57.050 If a younger brother had a son and the older brother didn't, 23:57.050 --> 24:00.980 the younger brother had to give that son to the older brother. 24:00.980 --> 24:03.290 By modern times that was the same situation in Qing's family, 24:03.288 --> 24:06.378 of course that Confucian, that strict Confucian thing 24:06.382 --> 24:09.492 doesn't exist anymore, but in the old days it would 24:09.492 --> 24:13.092 always be the younger son's no matter what the biological story 24:13.088 --> 24:16.338 was it would always be the younger sons that did not have 24:16.336 --> 24:17.436 male children. 24:17.440 --> 24:25.180 In China, everyone was expected to marry, 24:25.180 --> 24:28.050 and they married very young in order to secure a bride because, 24:28.048 --> 24:31.878 as I mentioned to you, I think with respect to the sex 24:31.880 --> 24:35.120 selective abortion, traditionally China has always 24:35.116 --> 24:37.476 done away with 10% to 25% of its females, 24:37.480 --> 24:41.280 so there was always--not always but as much as we have data, 24:41.279 --> 24:46.029 and so there's always been an excess of males and a lot of-- 24:46.029 --> 24:50.409 they can't get married so they did all kinds of things to 24:50.414 --> 24:55.044 secure a bride for a son and that included getting betrothed 24:55.036 --> 24:59.056 very, very young and starting 24:59.064 --> 25:03.724 reproduction as puberty allowed. 25:03.720 --> 25:07.220 It was made worse by the fact that it was quite acceptable for 25:07.219 --> 25:10.039 males to take second wives, or third wives, 25:10.042 --> 25:14.022 or fourth wives down into concubines and every time one 25:14.016 --> 25:18.576 male had more than one wife then some other male got no wife at 25:18.577 --> 25:19.237 all. 25:19.240 --> 25:22.490 25:22.490 --> 25:25.570 Let's look--so one of the possibilities is the obvious 25:25.569 --> 25:28.709 one, is China had very high fertility, and we'll see if 25:28.709 --> 25:29.639 that's true. 25:29.640 --> 25:32.870 Here's a bunch of data, and what this is, 25:32.868 --> 25:37.318 is the age of the woman and they don't have much 25:37.324 --> 25:41.594 reproduction beyond age 40 in this sample, 25:41.589 --> 25:46.199 although modernly we would have; the age of the woman and what 25:46.204 --> 25:50.274 her rate is per--I guess per 1000 women. 25:50.269 --> 25:54.449 You can see--women start out at age 20 with a very high rate and 25:54.454 --> 25:57.914 all these curves with a high rate of reproduction. 25:57.910 --> 26:01.880 It either goes down a little bit by age 25 or in some places 26:01.884 --> 26:04.314 increases a little bit by age 25, 26:04.308 --> 26:08.768 and then as the woman gets older fertility drops off, 26:08.769 --> 26:11.039 there's fewer and fewer children per year. 26:11.038 --> 26:14.658 Forty year olds just have fewer children then 20 or 25 year 26:14.662 --> 26:17.412 olds, that's a very obvious kind of thing. 26:17.410 --> 26:20.600 Now these are two different sets of population and this is 26:20.597 --> 26:24.007 data from one area of the world, data from another area of the 26:24.009 --> 26:24.569 world. 26:24.568 --> 26:29.168 One area is all the data from China with one line from Japan 26:29.171 --> 26:33.541 and the other set of data is Europe, and various European 26:33.538 --> 26:34.628 countries. 26:34.630 --> 26:36.480 Guess which is which? 26:36.480 --> 26:41.230 Some hands; a big difference in fertility. 26:41.230 --> 26:44.420 26:44.420 --> 26:48.230 Student: Is China the one on the bottom? 26:48.230 --> 26:50.030 Prof: You think China's the one at the bottom. 26:50.029 --> 26:52.479 Student: One of the articles they're talking about 26:52.480 --> 26:55.460 how a lot-- like some of these families 26:55.462 --> 27:00.672 actually have low fertility because of marital restraint. 27:00.670 --> 27:02.140 Prof: That's right, that's the Lee article. 27:02.140 --> 27:05.680 We're one lecture behind as you've probably realized 27:05.683 --> 27:09.993 already, and so the reading that you should do tonight actually 27:09.991 --> 27:11.731 gave away the answer. 27:11.730 --> 27:15.680 Yes, this is the European population, this is the Chinese 27:15.682 --> 27:16.602 population. 27:16.598 --> 27:18.318 The Chinese, once married, 27:18.320 --> 27:21.480 within marriage, and in both places extramarital 27:21.484 --> 27:23.944 fertility is not a big deal so this is-- 27:23.940 --> 27:27.940 you can take this as general reproduction but within marriage 27:27.941 --> 27:31.941 the Europeans had a much higher rate of childbearing then the 27:31.942 --> 27:33.012 Chinese did. 27:33.009 --> 27:36.829 In fact, it's almost a factor of two, from 200 to 300, 27:36.833 --> 27:39.433 from 400 to 500 that it was a lot. 27:39.430 --> 27:43.270 The Europeans, once married once having access 27:43.271 --> 27:48.141 to sex really had children uncontrollably as one says, 27:48.140 --> 27:53.590 whereas, the Chinese were doing something to control their 27:53.588 --> 27:54.448 births. 27:54.450 --> 27:56.930 That was a shocker when this data came out, 27:56.930 --> 27:59.620 it's fairly recent data, because the presumption, 27:59.618 --> 28:03.098 from at least Malthus' time, was that the Chinese just 28:03.102 --> 28:06.782 reproduced like flies or something and that the Europeans 28:06.781 --> 28:10.721 had this wonderful restraint and it turns out that's just the 28:10.724 --> 28:12.964 opposite of what it is true. 28:12.960 --> 28:18.790 It's very surprising given the cultural emphasis on 28:18.790 --> 28:22.290 reproduction by the Chinese. 28:22.288 --> 28:26.788 One of the big issues now under discussion is whether this is a 28:26.792 --> 28:31.082 sign whether the Chinese were consciously doing some kind of 28:31.078 --> 28:33.998 birth control, they were consciously trying to 28:33.998 --> 28:36.548 limit their families, or whether it was one of these 28:36.553 --> 28:39.143 cultural things where the culture in some sense stumbles 28:39.144 --> 28:41.834 onto a practice and it makes that culture successful, 28:41.828 --> 28:45.358 even though the people have no idea what the purpose of it is. 28:45.358 --> 28:48.688 It may just be sort of an artifact of culture and they 28:48.690 --> 28:51.820 will think, the population will think this 28:51.818 --> 28:56.168 is due to their following God's rules or proper decorum, 28:56.170 --> 28:59.450 or various cultural reasons, they will give you cultural 28:59.445 --> 29:01.705 reasons why they have few children, 29:01.710 --> 29:05.910 and not understand that that's what makes the whole society 29:05.913 --> 29:06.643 survive. 29:06.640 --> 29:12.930 James Lee, who is definitely the world's foremost demographer 29:12.931 --> 29:15.401 of China, he has no doubt, 29:15.395 --> 29:19.615 even though the data's not as solid as one would like, 29:19.618 --> 29:23.348 he has no doubt that it was infrequent sexual activity that 29:23.348 --> 29:27.998 led to the low birthrate, as a cultural thing not as a 29:27.997 --> 29:31.757 conscious way of reducing fertility. 29:31.759 --> 29:36.199 He describes a story where a young couple gets married and 29:36.204 --> 29:39.814 they're in the-- what we perceive as the height 29:39.806 --> 29:42.796 of sexual desire and-- but their sleeping arrangements 29:42.795 --> 29:45.675 are they have-- there's a double-decker bed and 29:45.683 --> 29:48.443 they're married-- the young married couple sleeps 29:48.444 --> 29:50.734 above and the grandmother is in the bed below, 29:50.730 --> 29:54.460 and the grandmother--carries her cane to bed and whenever 29:54.458 --> 29:57.918 upstairs she hears things starting to go on bang, 29:57.920 --> 30:03.100 bang, bang, cut it out and so that kind of thing that the old 30:03.097 --> 30:06.117 people didn't go along with this. 30:06.118 --> 30:10.488 The reason for this, as the Chinese would see it, 30:10.490 --> 30:14.210 is that the Confucian ethic, they don't have-- 30:14.210 --> 30:17.710 it's not a religious thing at all, there's no sense of a deity 30:17.713 --> 30:19.843 or anything supernatural going on, 30:19.838 --> 30:23.388 but personal relationships are what's important. 30:23.390 --> 30:27.980 They are a set of unequal personal relationship; 30:27.980 --> 30:31.190 a subject has to give absolute deference to the ruler, 30:31.191 --> 30:32.041 the emperor. 30:32.038 --> 30:35.688 Children have to give absolute deference to the parents and to 30:35.691 --> 30:36.231 elders. 30:36.230 --> 30:40.260 Women have to give absolute deference first to her brothers 30:40.259 --> 30:43.039 and then to her husband, women to men. 30:43.038 --> 30:46.468 Younger brothers have to give absolute deference to their 30:46.469 --> 30:47.509 older brothers. 30:47.509 --> 30:51.839 Of these, the only relationship that's equal is friend/friend 30:51.844 --> 30:54.334 relationship, that's the fifth relationship, 30:54.326 --> 30:57.066 so you can be buddies with your friend but you must be superior 30:57.067 --> 30:59.957 to your wife, and your wife must be inferior 30:59.958 --> 31:02.278 to you, and so you cannot be friends 31:02.278 --> 31:02.938 with them. 31:02.940 --> 31:06.100 Love or passion between a married couple not only didn't 31:06.104 --> 31:07.844 happen, it was not approved of, 31:07.839 --> 31:09.939 it was like being-- you're being bad if you love 31:09.942 --> 31:12.192 your wife, if you have passion for your 31:12.190 --> 31:14.290 wife, that was not a good thing. 31:14.288 --> 31:19.128 Husband and wife did not relate to each other as lovers or even 31:19.125 --> 31:20.135 as friends. 31:20.140 --> 31:24.720 And there's a very famous Chinese story where a young man 31:24.721 --> 31:29.441 had been married some years, is walking with a friend--with 31:29.439 --> 31:33.869 another male friend with whom he can befriend and converse and 31:33.868 --> 31:36.628 he's bemoaning his fate that here, 31:36.630 --> 31:39.560 he loves his wife so extremely but he can't have a-- 31:39.558 --> 31:43.168 he can't express his love for her to her, 31:43.170 --> 31:45.740 he can't have walks in the moonlight like he's having with 31:45.741 --> 31:48.531 his male friend, he can't have this kind of a 31:48.528 --> 31:52.658 chat with her because that is against the morality and ethics 31:52.659 --> 31:53.829 of the system. 31:53.829 --> 31:57.709 31:57.710 --> 32:01.700 These cultural things, which I think no Chinese of the 32:01.703 --> 32:06.233 time would describe as 'that's the way we keep our population 32:06.227 --> 32:09.767 down,' is what's the explanation for this, 32:09.769 --> 32:16.399 rather than some kind of conscious effort. 32:16.400 --> 32:20.350 Another factor that is not a conscious sort of thing is the 32:20.354 --> 32:23.154 Chinese married younger then Europeans. 32:23.150 --> 32:26.280 When you do an age adjusted thing, by 20 they had been 32:26.284 --> 32:29.754 married for several years, and there's what called the 32:29.747 --> 32:32.947 boredom factor going on, that no matter what age couples 32:32.951 --> 32:35.651 marry at they have sex a lot in the beginning and so-- 32:35.650 --> 32:37.960 if they're not protecting themselves they have a high 32:37.957 --> 32:39.507 birthrate and then it falls down. 32:39.509 --> 32:43.469 Some fraction of this difference here may just be due 32:43.473 --> 32:45.383 to the age of marriage. 32:45.380 --> 32:48.360 Student: So then why is that Chinese population is so 32:48.355 --> 32:49.245 much more dense? 32:49.250 --> 32:51.640 Prof: Yeah, we're going to get to that. 32:51.640 --> 32:55.040 Actually we may not get to it until next time but that's 32:55.042 --> 32:58.312 still, again we're pushing--we still 32:58.311 --> 33:03.271 haven't explained why the population is more dense-- 33:03.269 --> 33:07.299 it's getting time--let me just finish saying something about 33:07.304 --> 33:10.454 this 10% to 25% getting rid of the females, 33:10.450 --> 33:12.220 which again, would reduce the population 33:12.221 --> 33:14.721 would lead you to not think there was such a density. 33:14.720 --> 33:18.570 In the seventeenth century, again this is from Jesuit 33:18.568 --> 33:22.138 missionaries to China, reporting back to Europe, 33:22.140 --> 33:25.720 they were horrified to find that in Beijing along, 33:25.720 --> 33:28.880 Peking at the time, several thousand babies, 33:28.880 --> 33:32.750 almost exclusively females, were thrown into the streets 33:32.750 --> 33:37.110 like refuse to be collected each morning by carriers who dumped 33:37.114 --> 33:40.004 them into huge pits outside the city. 33:40.000 --> 33:45.230 It sounds very much like Europe of the similar time. 33:45.230 --> 33:48.510 What's interesting is that, right now, 33:48.509 --> 33:51.539 China is approaching pretty much the same female, 33:51.538 --> 33:54.398 with the sex selective infanticide, 33:54.400 --> 33:58.810 pretty the same female deficit that's been as far as we can 33:58.806 --> 34:02.896 tell a traditional level of it, but now there's all this 34:02.902 --> 34:06.812 moaning and groaning about all these unmarried males and how it 34:06.807 --> 34:10.587 will utterly disrupt Chinese society and it's a horrible sort 34:10.588 --> 34:11.468 of thing. 34:11.469 --> 34:13.259 Also, I think I mentioned this before, 34:13.260 --> 34:17.510 as you've seen in Europe rather than 10% to 25% of the males not 34:17.510 --> 34:20.880 being able to get married because of the deficit of 34:20.882 --> 34:23.492 females, 40%, 50%, and 60% of the males 34:23.490 --> 34:25.280 did not get married in Europe. 34:25.280 --> 34:31.370 I showed you the graphs of that when we discussed Europe. 34:31.369 --> 34:35.279 The Chinese system, fertility system, 34:35.280 --> 34:38.990 which keeps their population manageable, 34:38.989 --> 34:44.759 not small but manageable, is moderately early, 34:44.760 --> 34:47.390 not extremely early, moderately early and nearly 34:47.394 --> 34:49.754 universal marriage of surviving females. 34:49.750 --> 34:53.840 In 1998, for instance, only 1% of Chinese women were 34:53.835 --> 34:57.895 unmarried by age 30, whereas, in the west in that 34:57.904 --> 35:01.324 year 15% were unmarried 15 times as much, 35:01.320 --> 35:05.650 even by age 40 in the west. 35:05.650 --> 35:10.880 The European system was that only about half of everybody got 35:10.880 --> 35:14.310 married, but once married they had 35:14.306 --> 35:20.226 births at about twice the rate of Chinese and Chinese all the 35:20.228 --> 35:25.038 women got married, but within marriage they had a 35:25.043 --> 35:27.073 low rate of fertility. 35:27.070 --> 35:31.080 You have to--you cut your fertility down by half either by 35:31.077 --> 35:35.147 the European thing of less than complete marriage or by the 35:35.154 --> 35:38.674 Chinese thing of less than complete fertility. 35:38.670 --> 35:44.430 It looks like that fertility, the total fertility rates 35:44.425 --> 35:50.815 should be more or less the same between China and Europe, 35:50.820 --> 35:55.250 but by essentially opposite kinds of fertility systems. 35:55.250 --> 35:59.850 We'll see--I'm sorry next time we'll continue and we'll see 35:59.849 --> 36:04.049 what is one of the theories for why China got into the 36:04.052 --> 36:07.122 difficulties, it was not just uncontrolled 36:07.119 --> 36:07.939 reproduction. 36:07.940 --> 36:13.000