Non-Fiction Reading Response

The article “A New Direction?” by Veronica Majerol in the magazine New York Times Upfront is about how China’s government has changed and tweaked certain laws to help improve China’s booming economy. According to the article in 1979, China began limiting most couples to one child; a measure to curb the country’s exploding population which by the way is not at 1.4 billion. The policy has long been a symbol of government control, violators undergoing forced abortions, and sterilizations, or paying exorbitant fines. But there was a big meeting in November, China’s communist leaders said they would relax the policy. Now if either the husband or wife were an only child they can have more than one kid. What’s for the sudden change you might ask?  Because of a preference for boys in the Chinese culture, many couples gave up their girls, creating a gender imbalance; that leaves millions of Chinese men without wives.

            Veronica Majerol’s article is unbiased and just accurately states the current conditions of China’s economy. Although the author’s article has no “loaded” words, it’s missing certain people’s perspective.  The article has the perspective of a China expert who states, “Today the agenda is largely off the table and that is the most serious long-term legacy of Tiananmen” (Joseph Fewsmith, Boston University). I believe Veronica is missing the perspective of a Chinese person who lives in America and a Chinese person who just emigrated from America to get more of a personal perspective. A personal perspective is key in this article because Chinese families are affected by the limiting of children in China; they might have their own stories related to this to share.  Also in the article Veronica states, “With its economy booming, China’s leaders also pledged to allow more private investment, moving China even further to a capitalist system”. This demonstrates that China has been improving itself to keep up with its thriving economy.

            After reading this article, I have come to understand not all countries give as much freedom to the people as America does. China for years have taken away children for the means of overpopulation and strict business, they have finally come to see how interfering with nature puts things out of order. But I appreciate the fact that China is moving forward and that the author Veronica Majerol has shown this. This has strengthen my opinion on how much power leaders should have over their people because ultimately over controlling leads to imbalance and unhappiness.