Outrage as scholar asks how can China make women ‘obediently, submissively have children’
Professor Wang Xianju was speaking to Kazakhstan’s Erlan Qarin, who said women in his country had free will regarding fertility
A Chinese professor has sparked a public backlash after he asked a visiting Kazakh diplomat how to make Chinese women “have children obediently, early and in large numbers” at a think tank event.
Qarin had given a speech on Kazakhstan’s domestic reforms and relations between the two countries at an event hosted by the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, a think tank based at the university.
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The institute published Wang’s remarks on its WeChat account in November but the article only gained online traction – and criticism – this week. It has since been deleted.
During the question-and-answer period, Wang said he was surprised to find there were many children when he visited Kazakhstan.
He said Kazakhstan apparently had effective policies encouraging births, and he wondered how that might be possible, given that Chinese women did not want to get married and have children, and would not listen to their parents or supervisors.
“I even heard that women in Kazakhstan immediately have children after they graduate college, they have children one after another,” Wang said in a now-deleted WeChat article by the think tank.
“How could they listen to you and obediently, submissively have children, have children early and have lots of children?”
