Financial Markets, CIA, Ignored Demographics, Overestimated China's Economic Growth Potential

Regarding China’s one-child policy that former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping instituted over three decades ago, Eberstadt said that while lots of people were talking about the liberalization of China and the economic reforms under Deng Xiaoping, 'the heart of the society—the basic unit of society is the family—and the claim that the government has the right to decide how many babies parents have is much more totalitarian than anything that Lenin even planned. So the idea that Deng Xiaoping was going to transform the Chinese family and calibrate the Chinese family to perfect this future economic paradise of course has ended in a disaster,' he said. 'What else could it end in?' ”