%0 Journal Article
%T An ¡°army of bachelors¡±?- China¡¯s male population as a world threat
%A Kaz Ross
%J Journal of Asia Pacific Studies
%D 2010
%I Guild of Independent Scholars
%X The recent formation of the field of security demographics hasdrawn attention to the importance of population as a security issue. For example, Hudson and den Boer argue that the populations of Asia¡¯slargest countries are a threat not because of size but because of asunusual composition ¨C excess males. Their argument is based on theobservation that, after thirty years of population limitation policies, the Chinese population has a distinct gender bias. There are millions more males than females, creating what has been dubbed a ¡®bachelor army.¡¯ Hudson and den Boer posit that the problems caused by this ¡®bachelor army¡¯ may lead to war. This paper argues that fear about China¡¯s population is not new but has shaped the way China has been portrayed since the foundation of the PRC. The large size of the Chinese population was originally seen as a weakness likely to bring down the government. However during the 1950s and 60s the industrious and organized nature of the Chinese population earned the Chinese people the moniker ¡®blue ants.¡¯ It seems more than coincidental that the development of recent fearsabout China¡¯s population coincides with the emergence of China as amajor economic power. After analyzing the development of the genderratio imbalance, this paper concludes that the re-surfacing of fear about China¡¯s male population continues a tradition of Orientalist stereotypes.
%K China
%K Population
%K Marriage
%K Public Policy
%U http://www.japss.org/upload/12.ross.pdf