So Let’s Take A Look At 5 Scary Chinese Laws That Should Be Illegal!
5. Fireworks!
Now fireworks are a pretty big deal in China. They were originally invented in Medieval China during the th century in an attempt to scare away evil spirits. Globally they are recognized as one of the four great inventions of ancient China and were derived from a natural application of gunpowder. Every year over 1.2 billion dollars worth of fireworks are exported to the United States alone purely for their 4th of July celebrations. So it kind of makes you wonder about a particular Chinese law that forbids householders from storing more than a tonne of explosives in their basements. I mean that kind of makes sense until you realize that for this law to even exist there must have been a pretty high number of people storing over a tonne of explosives in their own homes. That is a hell of a lot of fireworks.
4. Don’t Eat My Wife Law!
Okay now this one is a little bit of a head scratcher so just bare with me. There is an ancient obscure law that dates back to ancient China, but is still technically enforced to this day. Cannibalism is regularly detailed throughout Chinese history and was often practice as an obscure type of culinary appreciation. Even executioners would regularly eat the hearts and brains of criminals that they had dispatched. So a law that states a Chinese man can’t eat another man’s wife intentionally as in part of a meal. It kinda makes you question what the hell was going on. Does it mean he can eat her if she’s not part of a prepared meal? What if he finds himself eating unintentionally? Is that still illegal?
3. Emergency Response Law
This is where we turn this a little bit serious and take a look at how China’s more recent policies have stemmed the flow of information in their own country. As we covered before China heavily relies on state censorship to stem the flow of media information that their citizens can get their hands on. A lot of things are just straight up blocked on China’s internet and one particular law dubbed the Emergency Response Law was sold as preventing the spread of false information during times of disaster.
With the intention of stopping people from straight up lying and spreading false information during emergency situations what China has actually done is completely muzzle the media from providing their citizens with critical life saving information. This means that coverage of industrial accidents such as factory explosions or even natural disasters such as earthquakes are rarely reported with fear of provoking social unrest. They literally turn a blind eye and people’s lives are sadly lost.
2. One Child Policy
First introduced in 1979 as part of China’s family planning policy the One Child Law was incredibly controversial on a global scale. Before the s the government encouraged families to have as many children as possible and China’s population grew very rapidly. After that Chairman Mao’s blueprint of the one child limitation was put into action in fears of an overpopulation crisis. According to the Chinese government over million births were prevented in the first decade.
Families were physically prevented from having more than One Child with some couples paying thousands for IVF treatment so they could have twins which were legal. Governments imposed fines for any violations and local commissions carried out inspections to make sure no children were being hidden by a household. It’s crazy stuff and although recently the Chinese government has changed its one child policy to a two child policy the memory of the One Child era still lingers.
1. Presidential Term Limit
Okay we’ve covered this one before but it still deserves to be at the number one placement, purely for the fact that any democratic society should offer a limitation to leadership because if not we essentially just end up getting a dictator. In March 2018, the National People’s Congress passed a constitutional amendment that officially put an end to Presidential and Vice Presidential term limits. This formally allows now head of state Xi Jinping to stay in power beyond and more than likely forever.
Generally Xi Jinping is a pretty chill dude and holds an incredibly popular vote throughout the majority of China after his anti corruption campaign won him huge popularly with the Chinese people. But the point is if things go wrong and that popularity changes the Chinese people no longer have a vote out. Interesting.
