Intercountry Adoption and China: Emerging Questions and Developing Chinese Perspectives
![handle is hein.journals/cumlr35 and id is 605 raw text is: RAY RUSHTON DISTINGUISHED
LECTURER SERIES
INTERCOUNTRY ADOPTION AND CHINA: EMERGING
QUESTIONS AND DEVELOPING CHINESE PERSPECTIVES
NILI Luo*
DAVID M. SMOLIN**
China has a unique position in the intercountry adoption sys-
tem, having emerged as the most important sending country in the
world in terms of numbers of children placed. For the last five
years, China has been the top sending country for the United
States, which is the most significant recipient nation.' China has
been placing 5,000 to 7,000 children per year in the United States,
comprising twenty-five percent or more of all children coming to
the United States for intercountry adoption.2 China's dominance
as a sending country is even greater in Canada, which in 2003 re-
ceived more than 1,100 children from China, comprising a majority
of Canada's intercountry adoptees.
With a population of more than 1.3 billion people, China is
the most populous country in the world and comprises more than
one-fifth of the world's population. Even these statistics understate
Associate Professor, University of Montana-Western School of Education. Pro-
fessor Luo delivered this paper in the program Reforming Intercountry Adop-
tion: Present Realities and Future Prospects, as part of The Ray Rushton Distin-
guished Lecture Series held on April 15, 2005, at Cumberland School of Law in
Birmingham, Alabama.
Professor of Law, Cumberland Law School, Samford University. Professor
Smolin wishes to thank Ken Scheinert for his research assistance.
Indeed, China has been either the first or second sending nation for the United
States since 1995. See U.S. Dept. of State, Bureau of Consular Affairs, Immigrant
Visas Issued to Orphans Coming to the U.S., at http://travel.state.gov/family/adop-
tion/stats/stats_451.html (last visited March 6, 2005) [hereinafter Immigrant Vi-
sas]. See also KAY ANN JOHNSON, WANTING A DAUGHTER, NEEDING A SON:
ABANDONMENT, ADOPTION, AND ORPHANAGE CARE IN CHINA 137 (2004).
2 See Immigrant Visas, supra note 1. For fiscal year 2004, there were a record 7,044
adoptions from China to the United States. Id.
'Adoption Council of Canada, International Adoptions Up: 2,181 in 2003-
Adoptions by Country, at http://www.adoption.ca (June 28, 2004) (select the Statis-
tics tab; select the title of the article above).](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/cumlr35&div=26&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Intercountry Adoption and China: Emerging Questions and Developing Chinese Perspectives
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