Sex selection is a problem. But a national security threat?
This argument is elaborated in a 2004 book titled Bare Branches: The Security Implications of Asia's Surplus Male Population. Hartmann writes that the book “has circulated widely in academic and policy circles and its arguments have attracted the attention of media pundits as well as the CIA.” The term “bare branches,” she explains, is
a Chinese expression for males who lack a spouse and offspring, are more likely to be poor, transient, uneducated and most importantly, prone to violent crime, substance abuse and collective aggression.From Hartmann’s article, The Testosterone Threat: Sociobiology, National Security and Population:
Though conservative, [Bare Branches] plays to liberal interests concerned about the very real problem of distorted sex ratios in Asia. Therein lies the danger. In the name of women's rights, it could make more palatable the continuing stereotyping and scapegoating of young men in the global south and migrants in the global north.