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PRI's Weekly Briefing
(PRI is the acronym for Population Research Institute which is a branch of Human Life International based in Front Royal, Virginia, U.S.A.)

Japanese Translation 日本語訳

Dear Friends and Colleagues:

New England, long a bastion of population control sentiment, home to the lowest birthrates in the nation, is suffering from a growing labor shortage. New Englanders find themselves in the awkward position of having to choose between more immigrants or face the social and economic consequences of depopulation. Another Baby Boom, the " natural" solution to the problem, does not seem in the offing.

Steven W. Mosher,
President

PRI's Weekly Briefing
Vol. 1. No. 29
16 December 1999

DEPOPULATION STRIKES NEW ENGLAND
Greenspan's Answer: Increase Net Immigration

POPULATION RESEARCH INSTITUTE --- The UNFPA seized upon 12 October 1999 -- the date world population was to reach 6 billion -- to once again raise the tired specter of overpopulation. Joined by the International Planned Parenthood Federation, they sought to frighten Washington into spending more money on family planning programs, both at home and abroad.

The most significant aspects of the birth of Baby Six Billion were
deliberately left unmentioned: World population will never double again. If
there is any population crisis in the developed world, it is one of looming
depopulation, not overpopulation.

Take the growing labor shortage in the United States. Early in November, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan released a report stating that American productivity and market competitiveness were being threatened by an ever-tightening labor force. How did he propose to address the problem? One suggestion was to increase imports, thus moving American jobs offshore. A second was to expand the workforce, which is hardly possible in a time of record-low unemployment unless you raise the age of retirement. Greenspan's preferred option, however, was to increase immigration.

What Greenspan didn't say was this: America's birthrate has been below replacement since about 1970. There are simply too few young people coming into the workforce to fill available jobs. Another way of putting this is that America's population growth rate is too low to sustain its current rate of economic growth, which will in turn increasingly affect its competitiveness on the world market. According to the Census Bureau, the present US rate of natural increase is only about one half of one percent annually, and is dropping rapidly. By 2030, barring either a significant increase in the birthrate, or a massive increase in immigration, the US population will be in absolute decline.

The problems this will cause are already apparent in the Northeast. A report issued jointly last week by the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University and the non-profit organization Mass INC underscores the social and economic impact of falling birthrates. Entitled The Changing Workforce: Immigrants and the New Economy in Massachusetts, the report highlights Massachusetts' falling birthrates, and hence its increasing dependence upon foreign immigration for sustaining both the state's population, and the growth and success of its economy.

The study placed Massachusetts as one of the five US states most dependent on foreign immigration -- a dependence resulting from a combination of falling birthrates and domestic out-migration. The report found that, absent foreign immigration, the Massachusetts population would be smaller today than it was in 1970, and that foreign immigrants in Massachusetts were responsible for 82 percent of the net growth in the state's civilian labor force between the mid-1980s and 1997.

This dependence on immigration for sustaining economic productivity extends throughout the entire Northeast Corridor. New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Connecticut together with Massachusetts make up the five US states most dependent on immigration to generate labor force growth. If not for foreign immigration, the current labor force of the entire New England region would be 200,000 workers less than it was in 1990.

" Many New Englander's have voluntarily adopted a one-child policy, justifying their selfishness by an appeal to the myth of overpopulation," said PRI President, Steven W. Mosher. " Having chosen fewer children, they will either admit more immigrants or watch creeping economic stagnation infect the entire region. 'Give me your tired huddled masses yearning to breath free' will be in effect rewritten to say 'Give me your tired huddled masses . . . to fill our emptying classrooms, take our vacant jobs, and support us in our old age.'"

If birthrates continue to fall according to current projections, Massachusetts and the Northeast Corridor will be joined by more and more states in their dependence on foreign immigration. This slow-burning demographic implosion will be one of the principal challenges facing the US during the next millennium.

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Copyright 1999 by PRI. Unlimited use granted. Please circulate widely.
Credit requested.

Dear Friend and Colleague:

We report on two victories achieved during the recent session of Congress.
President Ronald Reagan's Mexico City Policy was signed permanently into law
by President William Jefferson Clinton, who overturned this same executive
order upon taking office seven years ago. And, as a result of a series of
last-minute maneuvers, a significant cut was made in the FY 2000 population
planning budget. With " family planning" scandals breaking out in Kosovo,
China, and other parts of the world, the downsizing of the population
planning budget may turn out to be permanent.

Steven W. Mosher
President

PRI's Weekly Briefing
Vol. 1 / No. 25
10 December 1999

Albright Scrambles to Appease Population Control Allies

WASHINGTON, DC --- US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, decrying cuts
in the (FY) 2000 population planning budget as the result of an " extremist
agenda," has promised that President Clinton will work to restore funding to
the record levels of 1995. (Washington Post, " Albright Pledges Funds..." 25
November 1999).

This is a sharp turnabout from the position taken by the Administration
before the budget compromise was signed. At that time, Administration
officials were saying that the family planning restrictions championed by US
Representative Christopher Smith (R-NJ) would " not harm our fundamental
position" on international family planning (New York Times, " Albright Is
Offering Compromise...," 12 November 1999).

The Administration shifted course in order to placate pro-abortion,
pro-population control activists, who were furious over the codification of
the Mexico City language in US law, which will be much more difficult to
reverse than a mere executive order. They were equally upset that the
Administration allowed itself to be maneuvered into--what is for them--a
lose-lose situation by Smith and other pro-life Republicans.

Clinton agreed to sign the Mexico City policy, forbidding US tax dollars
from going to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that performed or
promoted abortions, into law. But at the same time he insisted on inserting
a waiver. If he invoked the waiver, then he could give up to $15 million to
abortion-promoting organizations like the International Planned Parenthood
Federation. Smith agreed to this, but insisted on a penalty: If the
President invoked the waiver, this would automatically trigger a $12.5
million cut in population planning spending. These funds would be shifted
into child survival programs and spent on things like polio and diphtheria
vaccinations for children in the developing world.

Forced to choose between abortion and population control, Clinton chose
abortion. Pro-abortion groups would get a slice of the pie, shrinking it in
the process. Population planning spending was reduced from $385 million to
$372.5 million.

With Albright's promise to increase American funding for population control
programs from $385 million to $541.6 million for fiscal year 2001, the stage
is set for a major confrontation between those who want the American
taxpayer to foot the bill for abortion, sterilization and contraception
around the world, and those who don't.

Dear Friend and Colleague:

PRI's International Conference, Human Rights in China: 50 Years Later, attracted the attention of the international community, and national and international media, to the plight of the persecuted Falun Gong, as well as to Christians, minorities and families under siege by the one-child policy. Citing human rights concerns, China's leading freedom fighters joined Wei Jingsheng in opposing China's unconditional entrance in the World Trade Organization.

Steven W. Mosher

PRI's Weekly Briefing
Vol. 1 / No. 24
23 November 1999

Wei Jingsheng Calls for Democracy in America
Chinese Freedom Fighters Slam WTO Agreement

POPULATION RESEARCH INSTITUTE --- China's leading democrat, a man jailed by China's communist government for two decades for advocating democracy in China, now says that America needs more democracy.

Wei Jingsheng's remarks came on the first day of PRI's international conference: Human Rights in China: 50 Years Later, and were made in reference to the World Trade Organization (WTO) bilateral trade agreement that was recently signed between Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji and the Clinton Administration.

Scholars throughout America, Europe and China, " have concluded that the WTO agreement does not represent American interests," said Wei Jingsheng. " If the White House believes it can make this decision independently without consulting with Congress, that's exactly the opposite of the way things proceed. If it was left to the American Congress to decide whether or not to sign the WTO agreement, it never would have happened."

Only weeks after Communist Party leaderJiang Zemin told his Central Military Commission " to be prepared for war with America.... The President decides to give China a piece of candy," Wei continued. " And it seems like they've also decided to tack on to this gift of permanent MFN (Most Favored Nation) status. Is the White House sending the message to China that human rights will have to be respected? No, they are sending the opposite message. Those concerned about human rights and democracy in China view this agreement as a catastrophe.

" Every area in China has human rights problems," Wei Jingsheng declared. China's one-child policy is no exception.

China's One-Child Policy

Is China's one-child policy coming to an end, as the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) asserts? Not at all, responds Steven W. Mosher, President of PRI, who has been tracking the one-child policy since its inception in the early eighties. " The Chinese government has made it clear that the one-child policy will be continued into the foreseeable future."

The UNFPA lost its US funding in October 1998 because, in violation of a promise to Congress, it resumed its collaboration with the Chinese government. In order to mitigate congressional anger at its duplicity, the UNFPA began a media campaign to try to convince the world that China's one-child policy was over. According to Mosher, " They did not reckon on word of this campaign getting back to China. But it did, and on 13 October Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji thought it necessary to correct the record. 'China will continue to enforce its effective family planning policy in the new century,' said Premier Zhu, stressing that China would continue to make 'family planning' a fundamental state policy."

What does China mean when it claims that its one-child policy is voluntary? " As long as the targeted women walk the last few steps to the local medical clinic," Mosher remarked, " then the abortion that follows is said to be 'voluntary.'" Women may be subjected to " psychological mauling, sleep-deprivation, arrest; grueling mistreatment... until eventually they break down."

" There are cases in China where brute force is used to perform abortion and sterilization. But more commonly, the Chinese government abides by its own Orwelian definition of voluntary, which is to say that you can fine the woman; you can lock her up; you can subject her to morning-to-night brainwashing sessions; you can cut off the electricity to her house; you can fire her from her job; you can fire her husband from his job, and you can fire her parents from their jobs."

The Chinese government has failed to consider the social consequences of its policy of so-called family planning.

" In enforcing a one child policy, the Chinese government has put the Chinese people in a position of having to turn on their daughters in their desire to have sons. It has put parents in the position of having to choose between a son, who will support them in old age, or having a daughter who will marry out and live with her husband's family. The result is that little girls have to run a gauntlet from conception through birth. Many of them do not survive that gauntlet."

The first part of that gauntlet is sex selective abortion, Mosher said. The second part is female infanticide. " Reports throughout the length and breadth of China reveal that little girls are dying shortly after birth in mysterious circumstances." Now there is a shortage of 30 million brides in China.

China's communist government desires its overall population to be in a state of decline, said a reporter from the Beijing Daily, China's national newspaper, and to have complete regulatory power over population and demographics through control of reproduction. The short-term challenge is how to bring China's population into a state of decline; the long-term challenge is how to " deal with" China's aging population. " If more people are needed," this reporter said, " we will raise the birth rate."

" China's 'family-planning' policy is particularly effective against minority populations, in accord with China's 1987 eugenics law which permits the attempt to 'breed a better Chinese man, and a better Chinese woman.'"

The state is targeting minorities such as the Uyghur people of China, Mosher said, to depress their birthrates below replacement. " In a few generations, the Uyghur people will cease to be a threat to China's 'territorial integrity.'"

Uyghur representative, Adil Ahmat, joined the conference on its second day to unveil a score of documented human rights abuses committed against his people by Chinese officials, including forced abortion and sterilization.

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