THE DRAGON IS A ZOMBIE:

China’s Cassandra prophecy: The Government’s 2020 vision has been blind-sided by a think tank's report on its population policy disaster (Constance Kong, 25 January 2010, MercatorNet)

The main concern raised by the CASS report is that 24 million men condemned to a life alone will result in a major strain on the State welfare system. Essentially, without families of their own to care for them as this generation starts ageing, the State will need to step in with sufficient pension funds and aged care facilities for the old bachelors of the latter decades of the 21st Century.

But other problems – such as a rising incidence of prostitution and violent crime - are on the horizon, judging by some current trends.

For example, while the number of baby girls being born has declined, the number of kidnappings and trafficking of young girls has risen. According to the National Population and Family Planning Commission – that’s right, the very organization responsible for the one child family policy -- abductions and trafficking of women and girls has become “rampant”.

Young girls are being kidnapped within China and also from neighboring countries (Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Thailand) by organized gangs who sell them to families with boys of a similar age. The girls will be raised by the families and given as brides to their sons as soon as they reach marriageable age. Others are shipped to brothels within China for a life as sex slaves.

Needless to say China’s neighbours are not enamored of the growing practice. Diplomatic tensions have risen over the issue and China has had to establish a special police unit to help its neighbours combat the very crime its policy has created.

Even more bizarre crimes have been reported in this patriarchal society where it is believed that a wife is necessary to tend to her husband even after death. A rising practice in some remote areas of China is to dig up the corpses of single women to sell to families whose sons may have recently perished. Posthumous wedding ceremonies are held to ensure the deceased son does not have to endure the next life alone. With higher prices commanded by fresh corpses of young women the practice has led to murders of young girls by some crime gangs looking to capitalize on distraught parents enduring the loss of a young son.