Current Problems

1. Environment and Resource Degradation

China has been extremely successful in quickly developing its industrial ventures. As the country becomes more and more industrialized, and the population transitions further into a more material oriented society like other developed countries, there becomes an increased demand for numerous products and a raise in resource consumption per person. Additionally, with rapid growth, there also has been an increasing demand for energy use to run production. Most of this energy is from coal, oil and other natural resources. China was the 5th largest producer of oil at about 3.991 million bbl/day of which they consumed 8.2 million bbl/day and imported about 4.393 million bbl/day. In 2009 China was the 3rd largest consumer of oil in the world and the 4th country to import the most oil (K).

As would be expected, the large consumption of natural resources, and the increased acquisition of land for industrialization and urbanization has had very serious consequences on the environment. Currently, only about 14 percent of China’s 9,596,961 sq. km of land is arable. So nearly 84 percent cannot sustain crops or is industrialized (K). Additionally the unprecedented amounts of greenhouse gasses released into the atmosphere has not only become a concern for the Chinese government, but has also caught international attention.

The U.S. Department of State reported “China surpassed the United States as the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in 2007” (C.) and the World Health Organization wrote in their report on air quality in 272 cities worldwide that “7 of the world's 10 most polluted cities were in China. According to China's own evaluation, 2/3 of the 338 cities for which air-quality data are available are considered polluted and 2/3 of them moderately or severely so” (C.). Regrettably, the issue of air pollution is of international interest and concern, as the world strengthens their effort to reduce the amount of greenhouse gasses released in the atmosphere.



2. Rapidly Aging Population

In 1979, the Chinese government formulated a new policy in wake of the economic reforms in effort to slow population growth. Perhaps it was not foreseen that although such a drastic measure would help to greatly boost economic progress, would also lead to a growing population of elderly with insufficient support from a highly imbalanced younger and working age population and an under developed government support system. Furthermore, perhaps no one could have predicted how large of a role traditional Chinese views on the importance of male children would lead to an increase in female infant mortality rates, contributing to a problematic imbalance of men to women ratio in future generations.

Today, China is experiencing a rapidly aging population which succeeds the economic carrying capacity not due to development, like other first world nations, but due partly to the 1980 One-Child Policy, that is both a fantastic show of the power of the government, but also a potentially fatally flawed piece of legislature that could potentially spell economic and social disaster for the nation.



Under the One-Child Policy, families are allowed to have 1 child each or perhaps 2 children with 3 years in between (N). But was this policy really necessary? Before the One-Child Policy, fertility rates had already drastically dropped due largely in part by predating campaigns from the government to lower fertility rates. In fact during this pre-policy time, fertility rates had declined more than 50 percent from 5.8 to 2.7 in 1979 (O).

The drastic drop in fertility has also had an immediate affect on the population’s economy. Between 1990 and 2008, 60 percent of elementary schools were closed down because the number of new students dropped from 25.3 million to 16.7 million.

3. Economic Disparity

Since the Chinese government began its series of economic reforms that were heavily focused on urbanization and industry in 1978, there has become an ever-widening income disparity between those living in rural and urban areas. In 2007 the income of the top 10 percent of the richest in China were 23 times that of the bottom 10 percent. Part of the disparity between rural and urban populations may be because the incomes of farmers are increasing at a slower rate than for urban residents (C).



4. Media Censorship

China’s constitution gives its citizens the freedom of speech and press, but there are media regulatory laws that use ambiguous language that give “authorities use to claim stories endanger the country by sharing state secrets” (W). There are several different censoring agencies. The main monitoring agency is the Communist Party’s Central Propaganda Department that coordinates with General Administration of Press and Publications and State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television. The main functions of the censoring agencies are to prevent media that would challenge the government’s political authority and to make sure media content promotes the party’s doctrine (W).

Even with the tight control of the media by the government, some citizens are able to bypass news censorship. Mainly thought the use of blogs and online journals. Journalists face a number of different punishments if they do not censor themselves. A few tactics the government uses include dismissal and demoted, they can be sued for libel, fined or even jailed.

5. Government Corruption

China’s government is facing a hug problem with corrupt officials who will accept bribes and other forms of incentives. In a 2008 case, a powerful party boss in Shanghai was jailed for 18 years for assisting in a pension fund scandal (X). Other cases of government corruption include the embezzlement of extremely large sums of money and tampering with the income and investment reports. Recently the government has began a crackdown to reduce corruption, but some say that because corruption is so ingrained in the system and because of the role it has played in Chinese politics from the very beginning, it will be very difficult to eliminate (W).