Last December, I noted that the actual condition of China belied fawning assessments, from the left and right, of the Chinese government. A recent Wall Street Journal report brings further evidence of this reality. The abandonment of the infamous one-child policy has not had the effects government officials hoped for. As the Journal put it: “When Beijing said it would abolish its 35-year-old one-child policy in 2015, officials expected a baby boom. Instead, they got a baby bust.”

Once thought overpopulated, China now faces the prospect of a declining population. Chinese women, acculturated in a state-enforced anti-child mentality, are resisting increasingly heavy-handed state efforts — one woman interviewed is getting texts urging her to have more kids — to enforce this about-face.

These are not the signs of a competent government, or of a healthy society. Its admirers should stop pretending otherwise.