Chinese people, used as they maybe to babies abandoned or killed by parents because of their government's constrictive one-child policy, still cry out whenever a helpless child is maltreated severely.

A photo is currently making the rounds among China netizens, invoking for assistance to help identify the poor baby. The photo showed a newborn baby apparently dumped, left to drown and die in a river in south east China. It showed the dead baby wearing a romper suit and a nappy.

Admitting such behaviour is nothing new in China, yet netizens acknowledge it still strikes a chord seeing such babies in wanton state.

"Abandoning babies is not new but most people do it at a place where the child will have a choice of a new life," the Daily Mail quoted an unidentified netizen from China.

"Dumping a baby in a river to die is inhuman."

Ultrasound image of a fetus in the womb, viewed at 12 weeks of pregnancy (bidimensional-scan)

It is not immediately clear if the baby was a girl, a gender disfavoured under China's one-child policy.

Enforced in 1979, China's constrictive one-child policy has resulted to many forced abortions as well as rampant abandonment of babies in the country. The most common form of cruelty is the female infanticide. Baby girls are immediately either abandoned or killed by own parents because the one-child policy simply favours the male population, a method to curb population growth numbers.

However, a study in March 2013 disclosed that China's population will eventually suffer a great imbalance by 2020 as there will be 30 million more men than women reaching adulthood, thus eligible for mating and having children.

China Netizens Scramble to Help Identify of Newborn Dumped, Left to Die in River