One Child Nation

The One-Child Policy is the main theme of ‘One Child Nation’ as Nanfu Wang explores its impact. Within the conducted interview with Zaodi Wang (Nanfu Wang’s mother), she reveals the struggles that she faced as a result of going against the one-child policy, and birthing two children: Nanfu Wang and Zhihao Wang. The audience is informed that Zaodi Wang’s father, Zhimei Wang, opposed the movement to sterilise Zaodi Wang after Nanfu Wang’s birth. They avoided this forced sterilisation by agreeing to wait five years before having another child. Not fully discussed within this documentary was the inclusion of this condition which allowed women to become pregnant again with a second child and would often cost the family a fine of approximately 4,000 yuan ($500 USD), and was more common in rural areas.[7] Zaodi reveals that if she had birthed another girl, she would have felt that she had no choice but to abandon her. Nanfu Wang also admits that she felt embarrassed growing up because she had a sibling, and was not an only child like the rest of her peers at school. The documentary goes on to discuss the prominent role of state propaganda, such as opera, in spreading the one-child policy. In many areas slogans, such as “Better blood flowing like streams than children born outside the state plan” were painted onto village walls, in order to fear-monger and spread the one-child policy further.[8]

The term ‘Child Infanticide’, usually and somewhat misleadingly referred to as ‘Female infanticide’, describes the act of killing a newborn. When used in association with China, this term also branches out to the act of abandoning a newborn for dead. Specific examples are explored within Nanfu Wang’s own family as her mother’s brother abandoned his child in the market, in the hope of somebody rescuing her, however nobody did and she died after having spent three days on the streets. In addition, Nanfu interviews artist Peng Wang whose artwork, focusing on the idea of ‘trash’, presents the horrors of the one-child policy as he incorporates graphic images of dead, abandoned babies in medical waste bags in the middle of rubbish heaps. In 2014, Peng Wang was evicted from his home in Songzhuang, by the Beijing state security police as a result of his outspoken opinions and controversial art.[9] His studio was also destroyed by state officials in 2021 as a result of his warnings to the world about China’s handling of the Covid-19 Pandemic.[10] The documentary’s interrogation of child infanticide aims to demonstrate the extent of state control within China. In the New Yorker’s Roundtable Discussion series, Nanfu Wang states “Ironically the people that we want to see the film most are the people who can’t see. It’s Chinese people.[11]” Thus highlighting the continuing problem of state control within China.

The act of both forced abortion and sterilization was present throughout the existence of the one-child policy in China. It should be clarified that the Chinese national government never officially legitimised coerced abortion.[12] However, throughout ‘One Child Nation’, those who implemented these policies disagree. Nanfu Wang’s interview with Tunde Wang describes the duties of the rural village officials in implementing the one-child policy. Tunde Wang talks of how women who refused to be sterilised would be collectively forced to by a group of village officials; he admits “I couldn’t bear to watch. Honestly, I couldn’t take part in that.[13]” In addition, Nanfu Wang speaks with Huaru Yuan, a rural midwife, to establish the role of village doctors and midwives in assisting the state policy. Huaru Yuan states “I’ve done a total of between 50,000 and 60,000 sterilizations and abortions. Many I have induced alive and killed. But I had no choice, it was the government’s policy.[13]” This section unveils the way that village doctors and midwives would travel around the county performing sterilizations and abortions. Some of these procedures would be carried out on unwilling, abducted women who had been brought to the medical station by government officials. The extent of trauma was somewhat dictated by the government official; some women describe being dragged from their beds in the middle of the night and being taken to be sterilised. The state guaranteed that overzealous government officials would be retrained and disciplined, however this rarely happened.[14]

The documentary explores the role of human trafficking within China during the domination of the one-child policy. In this instance, the role of Human Trafficking mostly outlines the act of collecting already abandoned babies. Nanfu Wang interviews ex-human trafficker Yueneng Duan to investigate his methods. Yueneng Duan, and his family, worked in the Guangdong and Hunan provinces in the 1990s, finding children to sell to orphanages. Yueneng Duan reveals “I used to walk on this road day and night to see if there were any abandoned babies. If so, I would bring them to the orphanages. The orphanages would pay me $200 for each baby I brought in. They then put them up for international adoption.[13]" Yueneng Duan was prosecuted and sentenced to 6 years in prison. Within this section, the documentary introduces Brian and Longlan Stuy and their mission to reunite Chinese families with their lost children who were adopted internationally by US citizens. Brian Stuy also publishes his research, Open Secret: Cash and Coercion in China’s International Adoption Program. He reveals that children were being supplied for adoption through three main ways: ‘baby buying’ schemes within Chinese orphanages, ‘education’ programs which facilitated the falsification of date of birth records, and ‘confiscation’ of children led by population control officials.[15]

The film opened at one theater in New York City and one in Los Angeles and grossed $22,244 in its opening weekend, with Amazon reporting "sold-out shows throughout the weekend.[17]"

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 98% of 100 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.4/10. The website's consensus reads: "As illuminating as it is accessible, One Child Nation probes a painful chapter in Chinese history with piercing clarity."[18] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 85 out of 100, based on 25 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[19]

David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter called the film "a valuable record and a sober but frightening illustration of the dark side of this government-controlled experiment" and praised the editing and musical score.[16] Ram Venkat Srikar of Cinema Sentries called the film "an unapologetic description of the unpleasant aftermath of China's One-Child Policy".[20] Inkoo Kang at Slate wrote that the film is "best viewed as an oral history of a desperate experiment in a fast-changing, selectively amnesiac country" but that "its directness and intimacy lend an indelibility that encyclopedic framing could never approximate."[21] An independent reviewer noted that the film primarily explores the policy’s impact on a few interconnected families in rural China rather than presenting a comprehensive view of the nation.[22]

ChinaFile published a set of critiques of "the film’s many lacunae, distortions (including overgeneralizations), and failures to address the policy in broader perspective, especially its clear and substantial benefits to significant numbers of women".[23]