China’s recent announcement of tighter guidelines for foreign adoption, together with a claim that the supply of available babies could not meet growing demand, surprised many.

How could there be a shortage when even the government-controlled Chinese press reports that thousands of babies are abandoned or killed shortly after birth, while many others are forcibly aborted?

Looking at the 2005 Unicef annual birth report and the Chinese government 2006 report of the country’s boys-to-girls ratio, one would expect to find 1.7 million more girls than appear.

The gap in the boy-to-girl ratio has been growing, particularly in regions where the one-child policy collides with traditional favoring of boys, to a national average ratio of 122-to-100, and in some regions to a ratio of 140-to-100 — not to mention places like Xicun village in southern Guangxi province where there are five boys to every girl. The average worldwide ratio is 105-to-100.

Of the 1.7 million “missing” girls, activists and Western charity workers believe, hundreds of thousands are due to sex-selection abortions, many are unregistered, living “illegally” with their or adoptive families, and hundreds of thousands are abandoned. Presumably, those found are sent to orphanages, although the 2005 China Quarterly reports between 200,000 and 300,000 abandoned children for whom local jurisdictions disclaim responsibility and who therefore never reach orphanages.

In 1995, before blocking information on its orphanages, China reported 40,000 such institutions. While hundreds have since been either disbanded or improved thanks to Western charities, estimates are that over 39,000 orphanages still operate. As may be gleaned from the government’s published miniscule budgets, “orphans,” or more accurately, abandoned infants, most likely are living in inhuman conditions or suffering fatal neglect.

So what gives? The fewer than 10,000 female infants adopted by foreigners last year represent a drop of water in the sea of unwanted babies. Are the Chinese so concerned about their babies’ future that they want to ensure they don’t fall into the arms of fat or ugly parents—whom the new criteria consider inappropriate — or those who, after shelling out close to $30,000 for the adoption process, might be unable to pay college tuition?

Possible reasons for China’s stance lie with its internal problems.

Corruption is one reason. A new opportunity for corruption has appeared this past decade with the flow of over $100 million directly into the hands of orphanage directors. According to one report, only 10% of the between $3,000 and $5,000 Western adoptive parents leave behind ever reaches the children of the orphanages.

Since American cash “donations” are a lot of money in a country where average monthly income is about $25, the incentive to sell more babies is great. Directors of orphanages designated for foreign adoptions therefore have been tempted to purchase babies for, say, $150, and the operators they deal with often buy babies for as low as $8. Or, as has been reported, they just kidnap them.

Another reason is a totalitarian government’s need for control. An editor at the Epoch Times newspaper, Janet Xiong, explains that whenever there is a surge in activity of any kind, the Chinese government seeks to maintain control. “The government must make sure everyone knows who’s in charge,” she says. “Tightening the rules — for adoption or anything that shows a surge — is the end goal of a Communist regime.”

“Saving face” is yet another reason. China is interested in its international image, and from its perspective, the availability of so many of its infants doesn’t look good. So it denies their existence, and hence, the “shortage.” Furthermore, according to New York-based human-rights activist, Dr. Wenyi Wang, the Chinese government cannot accept that life in a democratic society may be more advantageous for Chinese children.

What about humane considerations? The abandoned infants adopted by foreigners are otherwise doomed. And the new stringent adoption rules that limit the qualified pool of adoptive parents by age, weight, income, health, sexual orientation, and marital status deny disabled or older Chinese children the medical care and life in a family they desperately need.

But such “humane considerations never come into play,” Dr. Wang says. “Nothing matters. China has never catered to individuals’ needs, nor shown regard for human suffering.”

So why are we surprised that babies are not made available?

Western attention has focused on a myriad of China’s human rights abuses. But gendercide is not covered in Human Rights Watch’s report released this month, is given five words in the 2005 U.S. State Department report, gets a passing nod in the World Health Organization report, and is not even mentioned by the 2006 U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China, mandated in 2000 with monitoring human rights in China.

Perhaps if we raise our collective indignation about this most basic human right — the right to live — we will send a clear message to China. Let’s ask tough questions and, with the upcoming 2008 Olympics in Beijing, send journalists to poke around. Ms. Xiong believes that adoption rules may relax as suddenly as they were imposed. Or maybe not.

Ms. Carner, author of the novel “China Doll” and other novels on social issues, maintains the Web site TaliaCarner.com.