New Book on Security Implication of Asia's Gender Imbalance; Xiao Qiang links to an article in the New York Times, and makes these comments: In an email discussion group, Professor Peter Gries of the University of Colorado asked in response to this article: "do we know about sex ratios and crime in China? Are crime rates among the unmarried higher than in other countries? Any data among the migrant population and sex/marriage ratios? And what of the international security link? Hudson suggests a diversionary war hypothesis, but Chen Jian has argued for a different kind of link in the Chinese context: the use of foreign wars for domestic mobilization. And the PLA is not expanding anymore. Any thoughts on either domestic or international security implications?" To me, these are excellent questions not only for China researchers, but also for all people who are concerned about China and this critically important subject. These are great questions. There seems to be a trend of late in academia connecting the status of women with economic growth, the development of democracy, and other positive effects. Of course the relationship cannot be entirely causal, but I don't doubt that there is a strong two-way reinforcing relation between them. --UPDATE: In the comments, Fons Tuinstra links to an article he wrote for ChinaBiz called Missing: 20 million women - the WTO column, about an investigation he made into a similar phenomenon in the Netherlands: The difference was caused by the fact that women marry earlier than men. So, for a country with 1.3 billion inhabitants, 'missing' 20 million women is not that much of a problem, although some of the men involved might not agree with me.