Created by: Political Economy Group of the Proletarian Liberation Struggle Association
On March 9, an eight-month-old baby girl, weighing only six jin (about 3 kg), was hospitalized due to vomiting and risk of suffocation. After diagnosis, the baby was found to have symptoms of septicemia, disseminated intravascular coagulation, electrolyte imbalance, severe malnutrition with emaciation, hypoproteinemia, liver dysfunction, pneumonia, and pulmonary consolidation, equivalent to multiple organ failure. She also had brain developmental disorders, which could likely lead to intellectual disabilities and even inability to care for herself in the future. An eight-month-old infant should weigh between 14-18 jin (7-9 kg), but this baby weighed only half of the normal weight, equivalent to the birth weight of a normal infant, and suffered from so many illnesses. This first attracted the attention of some petty-bourgeois “well-meaning people” and many netizens, who raised funds for the baby’s treatment. Upon investigation, the baby’s condition was not due to any congenital disease but was the result of her father feeding her yam powder over a long period.
Yam powder is nutritionally far inferior to milk powder; its protein content is one-fifth that of milk powder, and the types and amounts of vitamins are also far below those in milk powder, even lacking lactose essential for infants. Infants can only start consuming complementary foods like rice cereal at six months; yam powder, which contains many medicinal components, cannot be metabolized by infants. Clearly, it was the long-term feeding of yam powder that led to the baby’s severe condition. The father, however, shirked responsibility, claiming his wife has a level 4 intellectual disability and lacks experience, not knowing why the child kept getting thinner; that the child vomits milk powder and can only be fed yam powder; he even swore to heaven that he absolutely did not abuse his daughter… Yet relatives who initially cared for the baby could feed her milk powder, making her plump and healthy, proving that the child can consume milk powder. However, the father insisted the baby could not drink milk powder; yam powder is very cheap, costing only one-fifth the price of normal milk powder. If this “father” truly loved his daughter, why had he not registered her household registration after eight months, nor even obtained a marriage certificate with his intellectually disabled wife (which is suspicious, despite online claims that the wife agreed to the marriage)? Moreover, the wife’s intellectual disability further proves that the person who actively fed the baby yam powder was not her but the father. He makes solemn oaths, but such empty words cannot prove he did not abuse the child. However, through comments from “well-meaning people” in the video section, it was revealed that this father is not as “loving” as he claims; he covets the volunteers’ fundraising money and wants to control it himself, threatening to accuse volunteers of “illegal fundraising” otherwise. After volunteers raised a large sum, the father did not want further contact with them. When volunteers contacted him to come to the hospital, he often slept late into the day before setting off, even requiring volunteers to reimburse his travel expenses. Does such an attitude have anything to do with “loving his daughter”? This also proves that feeding the baby yam powder long-term, putting her life at risk, was entirely motivated by the evil purpose of not wanting to “waste money” on a “loser.” This is not a case of well-intentioned but misguided care, but a planned murder!
After this incident was exposed, the Chinese revisionist government quickly dismissed the public’s accusations of “abuse,” claiming the father was “improperly feeding,” not abusing, and even glorified the father as “willing to care for the child.” Is the willingness to care feeding a child yam powder until she is skin and bones, and then ignoring her after hospitalization? Faced with such bloody facts, the Chinese revisionist police still protect this father, not for other reasons but because the Chinese revisionist government needs patriarchy and male dominance, and Confucianism that favors males over females, to suppress the proletarian women and youth, forcing them to submit to filial piety, women’s roles, and other capitalist orders, making them loyal dogs of the regime. This father starving the baby to death exactly fits the government’s wishes, so they colluded to declare the father “willing to care for the child.” Some say the father is just a courier, economically struggling and busy with work, unable to care for the child. But his indifferent attitude after hospitalization proves that although he is a courier, his mindset is filled with disregard for life and a cold-hearted bourgeois worldview. A person’s behavior is determined by their worldview. This also proves that the near-starvation of the baby was not caused by economic reasons. Although the proletariat has nothing, and children may sometimes go hungry, they care about their children’s lives and would never starve a child to the brink of death or neglect them so completely. However, this father’s abuse of the baby is entirely uncharacteristic of the proletariat.
“The bourgeoisie has torn off the warm veil of family relations, turning these relations into purely monetary ones.”[1] The reason this father can torment his daughter so callously is not only personal indifference but also the long-term poisoning of Confucian patriarchal ideology. Under this reactionary ideology, girls are seen as “losers,” fathers have absolute control, and the state apparatus endorses this system. The Chinese revisionist regime and Confucian patriarchy support each other to oppress and enslave the proletarian masses. Only by thoroughly criticizing Confucian thought and overthrowing the Chinese revisionist patriarchal rule can such tragedies be prevented from happening again.
Marx, Engels: “The Communist Manifesto” ↩︎