“Women are missing in their millions — aborted, killed, neglected to death. In 1990 an Indian economist, Amartya Sen, put the number at 100 million; the toll is higher now.
What does this quote from a recent Economist Magazine article on gendercide have to do with Asia? Quite a bit, not to mention a likely prophetic connection. Let us explain.
Firstly, just what is “gendercide”? The term was coined by the above-mentioned economist and refers to the practice of killing baby girls in order to have more sons. It is an atrocity that has become epidemic in many Asian nations … a horrible slaughter of human life. These heinous practices will surely not go unpunished, neither on earth nor heaven. We can only speak here to its earthly repercussions.
Normally, between 103 and 106 boys are born for every 100 girls. This ratio of slightly more boys has been stable over time. Yet, in many Asian nations this ratio has become sharply biased towards boys in the recent decade. For example, in China, the sex ratio for the generation born in 2000-2004 jumped to 124. By contrast, for the generation born between and 1985 and 1989, this ratio was only 108 boys for every 100 girls (a little above average). A similar trend is evident in India, the second most populous nation in the world after China. Documented here is a recent and dramatic shift.
Just what will be the consequences of this distortion in male births? They stand to be far-reaching. Writes the Economist ominously:
“Throughout human history, young men have been responsible for the vast preponderance of crime and violence — especially single men in countries where status and social acceptance depend on being married and having children, as it does in China and India. A rising population of frustrated single men spells trouble. […] Over the next generation, many of the problems associated with sex selection will get worse. […] within ten years, China faces the prospect of having the equivalent of the whole young male population of America, or almost twice that of Europe’s three largest countries with little prospect of marriage, untethered to a home of their own and without the stake in society that marriage and children provide.”
South Korea, an advanced nation (and a member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) early in the 1970s experienced a similar birth skew favoring boys. While the birth ratio since that time has nearly normalized, the impact of its earlier misalignment has been significant. In 2008, more than 11% of marriages were “mixed,” mostly between a Korean man and a foreign woman. But what will be the future implications for China and India? For one, it would be impossible for all of its future single men to find enough “mail order” brides in the world (certainly not without depriving other men) given that these two nations account for 40% of the entire world’s population.
In Revelation 9:14-16 is described a sombre picture. A command is given to the sixth angel of the Apocalypse holding the sixth trumpet.
“Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.” And the four angels who had been kept ready for this very hour and day and month and year were released to kill a third of mankind. The number of the mounted troops was two hundred million. I heard their number.” — Revelation 9:14
There are a number of interpretations as to the identity of the army mentioned here. What is not open to conjecture, however, is the number of the mounted troops — 200 million. At the time that Apostle John received this vision on the island of Patmos, most likely around 95 AD, the world had little need for such large numbers. Experts estimate that the earth’s entire population then was as little as only 165 million.
Seen from that time, an army of 200 million in just one region of the world must have seemed inconceivable. Yet, the Apostle John is sure of the incredible size of this army. “I heard their number,” he confirms.
But where could 200 million troops be found? The world’s population now exceeds 6.8 billion, more than 40 times the number of people that lived on the earth at the time thatthe book of Revelation was written. Significantly, approximately three-fifths of the world’s population lives on the land mass east of the Euphrates in Asia. Therefore, troops numbering as much as 200 million are clearly possible today … even just from one region of the world. It is now plausible sometime in the future that an army of this number could be marshaled from areas east of the Euphrates … in other words, Asia.
Today, China’s army (the People’s Liberation Army, or PLA) has a high number of recruits that are the single child in their family. Quoting Foreign Policy magazine, already in 2006 “only-child soldiers made up more than one half of the PLA force, giving China the largest-ever military with a majority of only-children.”1 With so many single, non-family-rooted men soon coming of military age in the future, events and trends could move into rapid alignment with events prophesied in Revelation 9:14.
The June to August 2010 editions of Midnight Call Magazine and future EVR issues will carry a series on Asia. In these articles we will lay out many more interesting facts and seek to answer pressing questions. Is China mentioned in the Bible? What prophetic roles will various Asian countries yet fulfill?
Endnotes
1. Drew Thompson, Think Again: China’s Military. Foreign Policy magazine, March/Aril 2010.