In China, a burden is a threat to future generations

A small child who seems to be carrying the entire weight of a Chinese era pyramid on his frail carefree shoulders. China is getting older. This is nothing new, but she is aging at an accelerated rate and is worried about it. After ending the one-child policy in 2016, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) now allows couples to have three children. A decision of the Politburo, which acted in question. Because the last census was not good. The number of annual births, 12 million, is the lowest since the creation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. Times are critical for Chinese President Xi Jinping, whose hunger for power continues to grow. Yet dynamic demography is one of the tools.

“It’s the magic of certain pictures, Comment Dimitri BeckDirector of Photography Polka, Rather than showing it consciously or unconsciously, the reality of the country can be told right in front of our eyes. » And in this case, he thinks, with this shot Noel Celis, from AFP, is taken at a shopping mall in Beijing on International Children’s Day, June 1, 2021, a day after the government announced an increase in the number of families. An announcement that did not inspire any enthusiasm, quite the opposite.

A cool image

“In one picture, Dimitri Beck continues, Sixty years of contemporary Chinese political, demographic, economic and cultural history are covered. » So what does this very aesthetic image show us? A lonely child lost in a cold adult world, almost a nightmare cliché. A lonely child in the country that always favors the only child, a lonely child in the world’s most populous country but with more and more elderly people and fewer and fewer children. A child who carries the burden of an aging society and faces a challenge whose image already tells us that he will not be able to meet it.

The photo recalls both the one-child policy imposed in the late 1970s, its cruelty “The coolness emanating from these metal-looking statues”and its failure. “The only living child, Comment by Dimitri Bek, It is a cold, almost inhuman image, like a caricature, a metaphor for a near future, even a metaphor for the current state of the country: in the foreground, a frank child; All are neatly arranged around him, wise and steady, in an arrangement reminiscent of a CCP meeting. They seem to stand at attention, ready to clap on command like party representatives. The child is in a relaxed, relaxed position. He eats, oblivious to what is happening around him. »

It’s the only touch of color in a metallic gray universe. “As if, Continuing his reflection, Dimitri Beck adds, The country was frozen and he, longing for freedom, was trapped there in this dystopian universe. » A mask at his neck level tells us we’re well into 2021. And he wears, observes the image expert, a cartoon character’s outfit, a world of innocence, kindness.

An image captured but carefully composed. Noel Celis, formerly based in the Philippines, likes to work on the aesthetics of his images, such as in this shot of window cleaners, treated like pawns in a great game of circling that surrounds them and outstrips them at the same time.

He often tries to embody a human drama in build, face or appearance, like the Philippines.

Building the pyramid The image of the Chinese child is here again, anything but anecdotal. “It gives a sense of mass, Comment Dimitri Bek_, with a child under the ladder._ “These silhouettes that seem metallic appear as a threat that surrounds him, dominates him, even suffocates him. “He is trapped and we imagine that at the top of this pyramid is President Xi Jinping. He who commands, who determines the fate of these billions of Chinese and the future of this child. »

Age Pyramid Vice

The photo still shows us, for this child who is unaware of it, the burden of all these soon-to-be grown adults that he must support. A child alone, as we have said, who can live well. Chinese families do not want to take advantage of the new freedom of three children. Very few couples had a second child when they were given the freedom to do so five years ago.

Housing in the city is very expensive, a hellish work schedule leaves little time to care for children, many women prioritize their careers and have first children later in life. Many also mention the difficulty of sharing resources among many children.

Social pressure is such that young parents who can afford it feel compelled to enroll their child in many private lessons to ensure a good education. Child kings, sometimes called “little emperors,” who have not learned to share and are growing up in a society that values ​​consumption. We are perfectly, in Noel Celis’ cliché, at the heart of the Temple of Vogue. Here is the child, a boy, the caption says At the center of the image, like society.

Another barrier invoked by couples wishing to have only one child. They themselves are only children, without brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, alone to take care of their own aged parents, when life expectancy increases. The wealth of the family does not allow to assume a new child. Comments on social media after the Politburo announcement were so negative that they were deleted. And South China Morning Post Reveals that the official Chinese agency Xinhua, which launched a survey of 31,000 people, withdrew its survey from the site after it emerged that 28,000 of them were not planning a third child.

Fragility of Chinese society

The image of this child alone also reveals its fragility and its inability to meet the needs of the older generation as it matures. The age pyramid leaves no doubt. A fertility rate of 1.3 children per woman does not allow for generational renewal. The aging of the Chinese population is intolerable. Not to mention the disaster of the one-child policy, which saw girl children being dropped in favor of boys. They are much more now. In 2020, there were 34.9 million more men than women in China.

This child therefore also embodies the fragility of Chinese society. He is China’s Achilles heel, which may have to mourn its superpower ambitions because of a contrary demographic.

Bets are important. It took weeks for the latest census figures to be released. With a population of 1.412 billion, China is closely followed by its neighbor (and rival) India. It may even be on its way to becoming obsolete in a few decades. Some researchers even doubt the veracity of current Chinese data, as population is a hot political, even strategic, issue. According to a study in the journal The Lancet Published last year, the decline is such that by the end of the century, China’s population could halve to 700 million.