Annie Park

Since South Korean adoption began in 1953, more than 72,000 South Korean children have entered the USA until 1998.[1]  In the past forty years, sending orphans to foreign countries like the United States has become as one of the widespread essential social phenomena in South Korea.  For most part of adoption history, the South Korean government has encouraged international adoption of its abandoned children in order to resolve economic and social problems.[2]  When the Korean War ended, the South Korean government started allowing the emigration of orphans to the United States, since it lacked the ability to support a number of war-orphans while putting all its efforts into reconstructing the damaged nation.  At that time, many children, who were born as a result of liaisons between American armies stationing in South Korea and Korean mothers, were abandoned by their biological mothers because of the societal taboo that attached to biracial children and single mothered children.  Primarily as a response to these abandoned children, the South Korean government established Child Placement Services in 1954, which made adoption procedures easier and faster for foreign couples who adopted babies from South Korea. [3] 

Although the Korean War caused a drastic increase in abandoned Korean children, the war itself was not the only contributor to the increasing number of Korean adoptees.  Traditional prejudices against fatherless children in Korean society have continually caused the abandonment of children.  Domestic adoption was not a familiar practice for Korean families, who cherish blood-line and family names according to Confucian tradition.  During the 70s and 80s, as more Korean girls left their homes to be employed in factories during the industrialization period in South Korea, teenage pregnancy increased among the girl workers, and the number of abandoned children also increased.[4] Until 1995, when China took the lead, Korea had sent the more adoptees to the United States than any other country. 

After the war, the Korean government encouraged the emigration of Korean children in order to save spending on its child welfare system.  After the Korean War ended, the Korean government was preoccupied with achieving industrialization and   economic growth, rather than developing its social welfare system.[5]  Right after the Korean War, international adoption seemed to be an inevitable choice for the Korean government.  However, the continuously increasing number of Korean adoptees sent abroad even after Korea achieved economic growth has not been an inevitable choice, but a favored option.  Sarri argues, “Greater effort has been shown by the government toward facilitating intercountry adoption policy than in providing services and resources to these at-risk children.”[6]  Compared to other developed nations, the Korean social welfare system was not well-developed until recently, despite Korea’s fast and continuous economic growth.  In 1993, the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, the government sector that oversees social welfare, received 4.4% of the total government budget, and only 9.7% of those resources were spent on family welfare.  The budget for child welfare was only 14.5% of the total budget for family welfare.[7]   South Korea reduced spending on needy children by using the practice of international adoption as an outlet for the increasing number of orphans. 

Rather than simply seeking the best interests of needy children, the Korean government has reacted to adoption issues based on its political and economic needs.  Korean adoption policy has corresponded to changing national interest.  Most of the time, the Korean government has tried to advance its economic interests through international adoption, and even today, social welfare issues are not still fully addressed.  However, after achieving stable economic growth and national pride as a developed nation, the Korean government became more concerned about its national reputation as a “baby-exporting country.” [8]   When the total number of Korean children sent to the U.S. exceeded 5,000 in 1974, North Korea accused South Korea of marketing babies.  In response, the South Korean government established a “Five Year Plan for Adoption and Foster Care between 1976-1981” planning on reducing the number of oversea adoptees by 1,000 while increasing domestic adoption cases by 500 annually.[9]  However, due to inefficient management, the plan failed: The number of international adoption cases continued to increase.  In 1885, the number of children adopted internationally reached a peak of 8,837.  In 1988, during the Olympics in Seoul, NBC broadcaster Bryant Gumbel called Korea’s international adoption situation ‘embarrassing, perhaps even a national shame.’[10]  Starting in 1989, the Korean government started actively encouraging domestic adoption by offering economic benefits for adoptive families, while making a seven year schedule for reducing the number of children given up for international adoption.[11]   From the late 1990s, the government began to discourage international adoption because of concerns about their national reputation, regardless of the high number of children still remaining in Korean orphanages.  Thus, in following its national interests, the Korean government sought not only mere economic benefits, but also a reputation as an economically developed nation.

The Adoption from China

Americans’ demand for children to adopt has continuously increased since the American government began to allow international adoption.  While the Korean government, responding to pressure from North Korea, began reducing the number of children available for adoption from 1989, starting in 1991 the Chinese government began allowing the emigration of Chinese children from state orphanages, increasing the number of adoptees every year. From 1989 to 1990 the number of Korean children adopted by American parents decreased from 4,191 to 2,962.  Nevertheless, South Korea still sent the greatest number of children to the United States until 1994, when they allowed the emigration of 1,795 children.  In 1995, China sent 2,130 Chinese children to the U.S., overtaking South Korea, which sent only 1,666 children in that year.[12]  The number of Chinese adoptees has continued to increase since that time, and in 2005, 7,906 Chinese babies were adopted by American couples. Ninety-five percent of the Chinese adoptees are girls.[13]
 

 Through international adoption, the Chinese government has attempted to control their overpopulation problem.  Starting in 1979, the Chinese government has tried to resolve the overpopulation problem by establishing the one-child policy.[14]  Many Chinese couples, who could by law have only one child, began abandoning baby girls so that they could have a son.  As a result, Chinese girls comprised about 87% of the children in the state orphanages.  Domestic adoption is still rare in China.  Although many scholars assume that the concept of adoption should hardly exist in Chinese culture, because it is the country in which Confucianism originated, Kay Johnson argues, “In China today there is a popular culture of adoption that allows for the use of adoption in the construction of the family and the approximation of popularly imagined family ideals.”[15]  When the Chinese government first allowed adoption in 1991, the number of domestic adoption cases in fact exceeded international adoption cases, but the Chinese government soon started to discourage domestic adoption in order to reduce population, imposing strict criteria for Chinese adoptive parents.  In the article “Politics of International and Domestic Adoption in China,” Johnson argues;

The 1991 national adoption law, heralded as paving the way for international
adoption, simultaneously codified a highly restrictive adoption policy that limited the adoption of foundlings to childless parents over the age of 35.[16] 

By allowing adoptions only to childless couples who are over 35 years old, the Chinese government prevented most Chinese couples, who would unlikely be childless at the age of 35, from adopting children.  The government also imposed a fee that made domestic adoption as expensive as international adoption.  Considering the exchange rate in China, such domestic adoption is not economically feasible for most Chinese couples.  In order to reduce its population, the Chinese government deliberately created a difficult situation for domestic adoptions.  While there is a “national ministry-level organization, the China Adoption Center, dedicated to supervising, coordinating, and processing international adoptions as smoothly as possible,” an organization that promotes and coordinates domestic adoption is absent.[17]  As a result, international adoption cases in China kept increasing, whereas domestic adoptions stagnated and even declined.  Furthermore, the restrictions on domestic adoption contributed to the rising incidence of infant abandonment.[18]   Many Chinese couples used to pretend to abandon an “unwanted or over-quota child” and then adopt them back, but since adoption was only allowed for childless couples, “outright abandonment of the child” became an inevitable choice.    

Although China has had an overpopulation problem for a long time, and the one-child policy was established in the late 1970s.  The Chinese government only began allowing international adoption after the Cold War period ended in 1991 and relations between the U.S. and China became closer.[19]  Simon and Altstein argue;
 

Diplomatic relations between the two countries [the U.S. and China] have at times been strained.  The consequence of any political row could be the reduction or curtailment of the flow of children to the United States.[20] 

number of Chinese adoptees decreased from 5,053 in 2000 to 4,681.[21] This decrease can be attributed to the decline in U.S.-China relations after U.S.- Chinese diplomatic relations have directly influenced the number of Chinese adoptees sent to the United States.  Although the two countries’ relations have improved since the end of the Cold War, the two countries have sometimes contradicted each other concerning political and human right issues. Although the overall number of Chinese adoptees has increased in the last ten years, in both 1999 and 2001, the annual number of the adoptees declined. The decreases can be attributed to diplomatic conflicts between China and the United States that occurred in 1999 and in 2001.  In 1999, U.S.- China relations were severely strained by the NATO Bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in May 1999.[22]  From 1998 to 1999, the number of Chinese adoptees dropped from 4,206 to 4,101.  By the end of 1999, however, the relations between two countries began to gradually improve and they even reached agreement on making humanitarian payments for families of victims of the bombing.  By 2000, the number of Chinese adoptees increased once again to 4,269.  In 2001, the an incident in April 2001, when a Chinese J-8 fighter jet collided with a U.S. EP-3 reconnaissance aircraft flying over international waters south of China.[23]  The two countries began to negotiate regarding when the American pilot and aircraft could leave China.  Due to some disagreement in the process of negotiation, the U.S. and Chinese governments’ relations became strained.  However, their relations improved gradually and the number Chinese adoptees increased to 5,053 in 2002.  Since 2002, more Chinese adoptees have been sent to the United States every year.