Editing One-child policy (section)

=== Chinese population science ===
China was deprived of data, skills, and state support to conduct population studies. Due to [[Mao]]'s ambivalent attitude toward the population issue, population studies were abolished in the late 1950s. After Mao's death, family planning became a critical component and premise for reaching China's national goal: that is, to achieve "China's socialist modernization," which includes modernizing industry, agriculture, national defence, and technology.<ref name=":4">{{Cite journal |last=Greenhalgh |first=Susan |date=2003 |title=Science, Modernity, and the Making of China's One-Child Policy |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3115224 |journal=Population and Development Review |volume=29 |issue=2 |page=167 |doi=10.1111/j.1728-4457.2003.00163.x |jstor=3115224}}</ref> Therefore, at this point, population science was closely related and tied with state politics. There was a perceived need to redefine population as a domain of science, identify the population problem in China, and propose a solution to it.<ref name=":7">{{Cite journal |last=Greenhalgh |first=Susan |date=2003 |title=Science, Modernity, and the Making of China's One-Child Policy |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3115224 |journal=[[Population and Development Review]] |volume=29 |issue=2 |page=168 |doi=10.1111/j.1728-4457.2003.00163.x |jstor=3115224}}</ref> Such efforts included many groups of people with diverse backgrounds. Among these experts, two groups held the most influence in defining the population problem and providing a solution to it. They were a group of scientists led by [[Liu Zheng]], and another group led by [[Song Jian]]. Liu's group mainly came from a social science background, while Song's group came from natural science background.<ref name=":8">{{Cite journal |last=Greenhalgh |first=Susan |date=2003 |title=Science, Modernity, and the Making of China's One-Child Policy |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3115224 |journal=[[Population and Development Review]] |volume=29 |issue=2 |pages=168–169 |doi=10.1111/j.1728-4457.2003.00163.x |jstor=3115224}}</ref>

==== Social scientists ====
Social scientists involved in this discussion in the mid-1970s, including Liu Zheng, Wu Cangping, Lin Fude, and Zha Ruichuan, prioritized the Marxist formulation of the population problem. They saw the problem as an "imbalance between economic and demographic growth", and wished to design a reasonable policy that considered the social consequences.<ref name=":7" /> These scientists came from the fields of social science, statistics, genetics, history, and many others. However, they had limited access to resources compared to the natural scientists who became involved in population policy making in 1978.<ref name=":8" /> Since population studies were forbidden from the 1950s until 1979, population science had made no progress between these two decades.<!-- Once set free from the restrictions, socially-oriented scholars found it difficult to engage in socially-oriented discussion of the population problem due to intellectual isolation{{Clarification needed|date=December 2022}} as well as detachment from this field of academia for 20 years.  << Partially unclear and probably mostly redundant to the previous statements. --><ref name=":7" />

==== Natural scientists ====
Natural scientists were interested in using [[Control theory (sociology)|control theory]] and applying it to the actual policy. The leader of the group, [[Song Jian]], was a control theorist at the Ministry of Aerospace Industry. He was known for his career in missile science. Yu Jingyuan and Li Guangyuan were trained engineers in the field of [[cybernetics]].<ref name=":8" /> Compared to the social scientists, this group of natural scientists had numerous advantages. They were politically protected during the Maoist period due to their importance in national defense and technology. They also had access to Western science. Eventually, they took an important role in examining the population model as well as designing the details of one-child policies.<ref name=":8" /> After quantitative research and analysis, they showed the top state leaders that the only solution would be a policy "to encourage all couples to have only one child, regardless of the costs to individuals and society".<ref name=":8" />

Although Greenhalgh claims that Song Jian was the central architect of the one-child policy and that he "hijacked" the population policy making process,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Greenhalgh |first=Susan |title=Just One Child: Science and Policy in Deng's China |date=2008 |publisher=[[University of California Press]] |location=Berkeley |page=Dust Jacket |language=en}}</ref> that claim has been refuted by several leading scholars, including Liang Zhongtang, a leading internal critic of one-child restrictions and an eye-witness at the discussions in Chengdu.<ref name="Hvistendahl2010">{{Cite news |last=Mara |first=Hvistendahl |date=2010 |title=Has China outgrown the one-child policy? |agency=Science |issue=329}}</ref> In the words of Wang et al., "the idea of the one-child policy came from leaders within the Party, not from scientists who offered evidence to support it."<ref name="Wang Judge">{{Cite journal |last1=Feng |first1=Wang |last2=Yong |first2=Cai |last3=Gu |first3=Baochang |date=2012 |title=Population, Policy, and Politics: How Will History Judge China's One-Child Policy? |url=http://dragonreport.com/Dragon_Report/Challenges_files/Wang_pp115-129.pdf |url-status=live |journal=[[Population and Development Review]] |volume=38 |pages=115–29 |doi=10.1111/j.1728-4457.2013.00555.x |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190606203524/http://dragonreport.com/Dragon_Report/Challenges_files/Wang_pp115-129.pdf |archive-date=6 June 2019 |access-date=20 July 2015 |doi-access=free}}</ref> Central officials had already decided in 1979 to advocate for one-child restrictions before knowing of Song's work and, upon learning of his work in 1980, already seemed sympathetic to his position.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Tien |first=H.Y. |url=https://archive.org/details/chinasstrategicd0000tien |title=China's Strategic Demographic Initiative |date=1991 |publisher=[[Praeger Publishing]] |isbn=9780275938246 |location=New York |language=en |url-access=registration}}</ref><!-- Moreover, even if Song's work convinced them to proceed with universal one-child restrictions in 1980, the policy was loosened to a "1.5"-child policy just five years later, and it is that policy which has been misrepresented since as the "one-child policy". Thus, it is misleading to suggest that Jian was either the inventor or architect of the policy.  <<  Unclear line of argument and probably redundant to the previous statements. -->