China stops foreign adoptions of its children after three decades

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00:00for more on that. In today's edition of Asia View, we're going to cross to Patrick Fock this week in

00:05Singapore. Patrick, an end then of a three-decade policy, what have been the reactions to this so

00:12far then? Well Stuart, the reaction from within China has been somewhat muted. That's not necessarily

00:19surprising given that any sort of criticism or negative commentary around government policy is

00:25likely to land individuals in hot water. But the move itself doesn't come as much of a surprise

00:32either, really, because as we know, a lot of these adoptions have been suspended since COVID into

00:38country or international adoptions out of China. So a lot of people had expected this. They thought

00:44this was on their cards anyway. Nevertheless, there has been concern, particularly from the

00:49US, trying to understand what exactly are the reasons behind this. And also concern for the

00:55many families, the hundreds of families that have been going through this adoption process for some

00:59years now and have been left in limbo. Understandably, a lot of them are upset and disappointed. There are

01:06also others that are somewhat relieved that there is a sort of finality to all of this. Certainly

01:12those that have accepted that these adoptions are probably not going to move ahead now. But one US

01:18based adoption agency that deals with adoptions from China said this really is the end of an era

01:24and it hopes that children in China get all the love and care that they need. So what's been the

01:29scope then, if you like, of China's international adoption programme? Where did most of these

01:33children actually go? Well, look, in terms of the scope, this is really one of the reasons why this

01:38is such a big issue. As you mentioned, 160,000 children that have been adopted from the country

01:44over the last three decades. The vast majority have gone to the US, 82,000 we're told, but also

01:50to many other Western countries, Australia, Canada, Spain, notably has the second highest

01:57number of children adopted from China. And most of these children were girls. As a consequence of

02:04China's one child policy, boys were favoured. A lot of girls were put up for adoption. But,

02:11you know, things have changed considerably in China and China's economic fortunes have

02:15changed a lot over the last decade or so. So why, Patrick, do you think China is actually

02:19ending this now then? Look, well, officially, China has said that it's doing this in line

02:27with international norms. It's not clear exactly what that means. But there are other countries

02:32that have scrapped international adoption programmes as well, including Denmark and the

02:38Netherlands, because of various reasons, including problematic cases, things like fraudulent

02:43documents, and in more serious instances, issues related to human trafficking and abductions. And

02:50these are things that China's tackled with some success over the last few years. There are also

02:56reports that have framed this as being part of souring relations between Beijing and the West.

03:02The Times newspaper in the UK notably said this was China telling the West that it could no

03:08longer have its children. But of course, there is a much more practical element to this, which is

03:13that, as we know, China has had a falling birth rate. It's something that it's been grappling

03:19with for years, and it has introduced lots of measures to try and reverse that trend,

03:25including scrapping limits on children altogether. So this really is part and parcel of that in many

03:31ways. And as we understand, there are 160,000 orphans in China that currently need families,

03:39need homes, but Beijing has decided that domestic adoption is more appropriate right now.

03:45Patrick, thanks so much. Good to talk to you. Patrick Fonk there,

03:47joining us from Singapore for this week's Asia View.

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