One Child Nation

One Child Nation chronicles the 1979 China mandatory one-child policy that lasted for nearly three decades. The policy was to address the population crisis and the potential of mass starvation. Families were only allowed one child per household. In rural areas, two children were permitted and having boys was strongly encouraged. Propaganda was put all over the country to emphasize the importance of following this rule. This way of life leads to forced sterilization, infanticide, and mandated abortions. The film comes from Nanfu Wang who was born in China during this period. As documentarian Nanfu Wang was preparing to give birth to her first child she decided to return home to China to talk with family members, neighbors, journalists, abortionists and others who lived during the policy. The documentary sheds a light on the harsh facts and tactics this policy was enacted with.


The documentary frames the issues through the lens of the first-person point of view with Wang's personal recount of her past. Her family was allowed the exception of her younger brother and growing up during these laws affected her own ideas about motherhood. The documentary takes a turn into a deeper and darker area.


Wang uses her own connection to the law to discuss the population war against the people of China. Interviews with village leaders reveal locals who were forced to terminate pregnancies. Rural doctor participants who were unwilling to terminate pregnancies with staying in the good grace of the government. Medical practitioners talked of performing thousands of late-term forced abortions and sterilizations over the course of the policy. The details of these operations are discussed in detail. There are also interviews with artists and photographers whose work was inspired by junkyard photos that included dead abandoned fetus. They also interview people arrested for child trafficking.


This documentary offers a look into a law that made its own people complicit to this crime. Interviewees constantly repeat we had no choice and that orders were being followed. There are no interviews with anyone high up on the chain of command but only normal people. This policy and confessions exemplify how an authoritarian government can construct harsh policies that can't be questioned or ignored by anyone. The images of children missing and stories about pregnant women trying to save their unborn children is horrifying. The documentary paints a portrait of collective trauma among the people of China.


Wang concludes her story with the new "two child" policy that celebrates the success of the one child policy.