W&L Professor Quoted in Wall Street Journal Article Politics professor Clyde Wang offers perspective on government intervention to combat declining birth rates in China.

By Brian Laubscher
January 8, 2024

Clyde Wang, assistant professor of politics at Washington and Lee University, was recently quoted in an article published in The Wall Street Journal.

The article, titled “China is Pressing Women to Have More Babies. Many are Saying No,” explores the declining birth rates in what was once the most populous country in the world. India has now assumed that position after China introduced a one-child policy in 1980. Birth rates steadily declined until the Chinese government ended the policy in 2016. Today, China’s Communist Party is demanding that Chinese women have more children to rejuvenate China’s aging population – a request many women are refusing to honor.

In a speech by Chinese leader Xi Jinping from October, he urged the state-backed All-China Women’s Federation to “prevent and resolve risks in the women’s field.” The article then quotes Wang’s interpretation of what Jinping means by “risks.”

“It’s clear that he was not talking about risks faced by women but considering women as a major threat to social stability,” Wang said in the article, which cites a variety of factors as to why many women are choosing to ignore the government’s request to have more children.

China’s current population of 1.4 billion is expected to drop to 500 million by 2100.

Wang’s research focuses on ideology and media politics in authoritarian countries, with a particular focus on Chinese foreign policy, nationalism and intellectual history. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in biochemistry from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, a Master of Science in China studies from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a Master of Arts in political science from Boston University. He also earned a Ph.D. in political science from Boston University before joining the W&L faculty in the summer of 2023.

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