If the elders who forced Hu Yaobang from office had retired from politics, Hu and Zhao Ziyang would have had time and space to deepen economic and political reforms, a scenario that would have reduced the chances of protests and violence in 1989. The two-child policy proposed by demographer Liang Zhongtang would have been less harsh than the one-child policy, but a cultural shift in sexual norms would have been necessary to prevent the traumas experienced by Chai Ling, Lu Decheng, and Wang Qiuping.