Before commenting on this, there are two things you need to read.<p>"China - total fertility rate (graph)"[1]<p>"List of famines in China."[2]<p>"China - Population 1950 - 2015" [3]<p>In 1970, the fertility rate (babies born per woman) was 6. That's huge but not untypical for an undeveloped country, where a lot of people die young. Once some basic modern medicine was deployed, the number of people surviving went way up, and the population doubled in 50 years, even with the one-child policy. It would have been much, much worse without it. Something had to be done. China has a history of famines, and the last big one was in 1962, and 20 million to 40 million people starved to death. Keeping that from happening again is a major goal of policy in China.<p>The one-child policy worked. The population is leveling off. The fertility rate is now around 1.55, which is about typical for a developed country. Once a country develops, the fertility rate drops off without coercion. China has reached that point, and no longer needs a mandatory one-child policy.<p>India's population grew by a factor of 3.4 during that period, but India has more arable land. China is a big country, but most of it is desert, tundra, or mountains. The US has six times the arable land per capita as China. China has nothing like the Midwestern US.<p>Actually, the one-child policy was relaxed years ago. Only some provinces require it.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.china-profile.com/data/fig_WPP2010_TFR_1.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.china-profile.com/data/fig_WPP2010_TFR_1.htm</a>
[2] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines_in_China" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines_in_China</a>
[3] <a href="http://www.china-profile.com/data/fig_Pop_WPP2006.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.china-profile.com/data/fig_Pop_WPP2006.htm</a>