Abstract (eng)
With the introduction of the one child policy in 1979 China initiated perhaps the most consequential social experiment of the twentieth century. The policy has achieved what it was originally intended to do, yet the implications and effects of its thirty-five year duration may create social inequity and burden for generations to come. Questions continue to surround the necessity of the policy’s implementation, why China was so willing to sacrifice the rights of its individual citizens for the benefit of the nation as a whole, and why it has taken so long to end a policy which so obviously violates the human rights of the Chinese people. Restrictions over family planning still remain and there are growing concerns from both internal and external sources regarding the role of individual rights within Chinese society. As a result, the position of human rights within the functioning of Chinese society and culture, along with its international compliance continues to be precarious.