In China, Old Fears Return About 'Quality Of Race'

by Antoaneta Bezlova

(IPS) BEIJING -- The liberalization of China's marriage law is reviving old fears about the 'quality' of race in the world's most populous country, as eugenics experts sound the alarm about the growing number of babies born with birth defects or diseases.

At present, one million babies, or one in 17, are born every year with disabilities in China.

But this number may increase in the future, health experts say, as the majority of newlywed couples opt to forgo medical examinations that are aimed at proving their fitness to be parents.

In October, China abolished mandatory premarital health checks that were deeply unpopular with the general public and condemned by human rights activists for leading to forced abortions and sterilizations.

The move came as Beijing was preparing to include a special clause in the Chinese constitution on the protection of human rights.

But Professor Liang Jimin, vice director of the China Population Association's reproduction institute, has warned that premarital physical examinations were actually essential in reducing the number of babies with birth defects.

Some 25 percent of birth defects attributed to hereditary factors can be prevented by the routine medical examinations, he said.

Speaking at a recent seminar on reproductive health, Liang said that 300,000 babies were born with defects and another 700,000 were diagnosed with defects or other health problems at a later date. "Pre-natal care is essential to breed clever and healthy babies," Liang was quoted as saying by the state Xinhua news agency.

In addition, China has about four million children under 14 years old with low intelligence due to hereditary, environmental, nutritional and other factors, the professor added.

The prevention of "inferior births" has been one of the cornerstones of the state's eugenics policy.

In 1995, China promulgated a National Eugenics Law that was later renamed the Maternal and Infant Health Law in response to public outrage abroad. It authorized officials to carry out premarital check-ups to see if either parent suffers from a serious hereditary, venereal or contagious disease in order to prevent "inferior births."

According to Frank Dikotter, a Dutch expert on history of Chinese eugenics, the Chinese government has actively fostered the perception that it is the duty of the state to intervene in the intimate lives of its subjects -- both to restrict population growth and to improve the quality of the Chinese nation.

"The medical knowledge dispensed in the eugenics campaigns is not designed to interfere with informed individual choices in reproductive matters, but to instill a moral message of sexual restraint and reproductive duty in the name of collective health," Dikotter wrote in his study 'Imperfect Conceptions.'

The desire to make the Chinese race more fit and strong has a history that goes back to the time before communist rule. At the start of the twentieth century, Chinese scholars embraced Western empirical science and medicine in an attempt to rejuvenate a nation they feared had become inferior to other countries.

Various books on eugenics appeared, proposing different ways in which to purify the Chinese race. The reformer Kang Youwei advocated the pre-natal education of children and the sterilization of the disabled and the mentally deficient.

Dr. Pan Guangdan, regarded as the father of Chinese eugenics, established a Chinese Committee for Racial Hygiene with the aim of promoting the "science of racial advancement."

This historical preoccupation with inherited genes has led Chinese health officials to somewhat overlook the importance of environmental and nutritional factors in health.

For instance, the absence of minerals in many of China's infertile mountainous areas is responsible for diseases like Kashin Beck that are peculiar to China. And the western province of Shanxi has one of the highest rates of birth defects in the world, attributed both to water and air pollution as well as the lack of Vitamin B.

In fact, some 65 percent of the babies born with disabilities are the result of poor nutrition and health care, and 15 percent are the result of pollution, admits Liang.

A joint report published in 1997 by the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine and the UN Children's Fund revealed that 39 percent of all rural children suffer from lower than normal growth rates as a result of malnutrition.

According to the World Bank, more than a quarter of pre-school children in rural counties suffer from anaemia, rickets or other illnesses related to vitamin and protein deficiencies.

A nationwide scandal with tainted milk powder, which led to the tragic death of at least 13 babies and the deformation of many more recently, has served China a brutal reminder about how important food and health safety is.

The bogus milk powder sold in the eastern province of Anhui was found to contain only tiny fractions of the recommended amounts of protein, iron and other nutrients. Up to 200 babies who were fed the formula developed what doctors called "big head disease," causing the infants' heads to grow abnormally large while their bodies atrophied.

Since the reports of the deaths appeared in mid-April, the scope of the scam has been found to be much larger than initially imagined. Some 45 milk-producing companies from several provinces were included in a warning list by the Food and Drug Administration after their milk formula failed to meet approved standards.