China is the most populated country in the world. According to reports by world population statistics which were released on September 2013, china is ranked as the world’s most populated country with 1.354 billion people which is a 0.01% increase from the previous records. Its population is approximated to be 19% of the world’s population (World, 1). Its population density is 363.3 persons per square mile. Han Chinese is the largest ethnic group in China with an approximated 91.6% of the country’s totality inhabitants. The rest of the populace is composed of the minority ethnic groups which are 55 in total. The people’s republic of china is dominated by the Buddhism religion which also impacts on most of the country’s society. The Han Buddhism has 8,000 temples around china making it the largest sect. though Confucianism is not an actual religion per say, it has an important influence in china. Other religions present in china are Taoism, Islam and Christianity. However, it is important to note that Christianity was banned after 1949.
Infrastructure has been a major area of development for the Chinese government. The government is well aware that in order to achieve its economic goals, it has to invest on reliable roads, rail, electricity and telecommunication (World, 1). The government has invested adequately in the infrastructure sector so as to create a good environment that will foster economic growth. The Chinese government aims at upgrading the entire infrastructure in the urban centers to attain the level of a middle-income economy as it looks for ways in which to improve its status to a developed economy.
Why china is still a developing country
Rating using the western standards, China is considered a middle-income economy. However, its growth rate has pulled a large number of its citizens out of poverty. This is evident from the statistics that shows that only 10% of its citizens live below a dollar a day compared to the 64% in the last 35 years. Its population growth has been a major concern for political leaders in the country. Due to the rapid population growth, the government introduced the one child policy in order to regulate and control its population. The policy has been successful as the birth rate per woman has decreased from 2.1 to 1.4. However, this is a worry to economic experts who are concerned with the aging population and its impact on the future economy of china. In the rural areas, the policy is bleached and parents are therefore forced to lie during the national census in order to escape the associated punishment (Zhe, 1). This makes the national; population be skewed. The country has a high male birth ratio in relation to females; this will have an impact as women are perceived as the primary caregivers in this society. The country’s population projection is estimated that by 2026, the population will be at its peak characterized by a shrinking labor force a population of 240 million people over the age of 65. Another demographic is the disparities between the male and female ratio.
In the recent past, China has recorded a high growth in its GDP to a point of coming to second after the United States. This rise in GDP has raised concerns whether China is a developed or a developing country. The debate has emerged due to the country’s strong economic power and it has been a matter of discussion in most European media. Song Zhe, the People’s Republic of China Ambassador to the EU says that despite the dramatic increase in China’s GDP, China is yet to become a developed country that is comparable to countries such as Japan (Zhe, 1). If judgment were to be made based entirely on the size of the GDP, China is undoubtedly the second largest economy after the United States. The country has enjoyed significant growth and it enjoys stronger international standings.
GDP is one among many indicators of development. China might have achieved this one aspect but the others are also important in the determination of a country’s performance. Song says that China cannot compare with Japan‘s science and technology, production level and living standards. China’s per capital GDP is ranked among the middle and low income level countries. Judging from this criterion advocated by the International Monetary Fund, China is by far a developing country. China has a very low per capita due to its large population thus making it rank as a developing country. To justify the ranking, IMF classifies countries into four categories according to their per-capital. By the end of 2009, china was a middle-income country.
The UN Development Program uses Human Development Index (HDI) to measure the quality of life considering such factors as income, schooling and life expectancy. The report released in 2011 shows that China lies at position 101 in a list of 187 countries with a human development index of 0.687 thus being classified in the category of medium human development (Zhe, 1). China has a huge population which increases its carbon dioxide to be higher than that of the United States. The United States of America president said that it was about time that china became responsible for it had grown up.
China has many similar characteristics with the developing countries than it has with the developed world. Out of the country’s 1.3 billion people, 700 million live in the rural areas that are extremely unequal with the urban areas. According to the United Nations, 150 million Chinese are poor. These portions of the population live on less than one US dollar a day. Additionally, 12 million people enter the job market annually and it has been difficult to provide them with jobs (Zhe, 1). These few facts justify the position that indeed China is a developing country that requires a lot of servicing before attaining the developed country status.
One Child Policy in China
Background information
China’s one child policy is a policy that was formulated in the late 1970s and 1980s by the Chinese government. The aim of this policy was to reduce the growing population of china through regulating the number of children per family into one child each. The main purpose for initiating this policy was to control the enormous population growth rate in the country.
Since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the country has been promoting various birth control programs such as family planning. However, those periodic and voluntary efforts remained influential until 1976 after the death of Mao Zedong. During his time he was the chairman of the People’s Republic of China and also the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party. The Chinese population in the late 1970 was rapidly reaching a one billion mark. This scenario influenced the pragmatic leadership under Deng Xiaoping to start focusing on the serious consideration to mitigate the rapid population growth rate. Consequently, a voluntary program was introduced in 1978 that required families to have at least two children per family, with preference to one child only. Later in 1979, the demand for having one child per family escalated. However, this regulation was seen uneven because it was practiced unevenly within the country particularly among the provinces. This resulted to the standardization of the policy nationally by the central government in the early 1980s. In 1980, on 25th September, the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party published a letter addressing the entire public to adhere to the one child policy. This date is also considered as the official date for the establishment of this policy.
Policy implementation
One child policy was projected to be universally applied, although it came with some exceptions. For instance those parents that were having a handicapped first born and those who belonged to some ethnic minority were allowed to get more than child. This policy was more effective in the urban areas than in the rural areas. This is because in the urban environments, the population was much high and was constituted of small nuclear families who in better position to comply with this policy. In the rural environments, the public held their traditional agrarian norms that opposed the one child policy. Moreover, the applicability of the policy has continued to be unevenly practiced over time, due to the fact that it was relatively effective in the cities compared to rural areas.
Enforcement methods associated with one child policy involved the use of different methods of contraceptive that were available, offering employment opportunities and financial incentives to the parents complying with the policy, imposition of economic sanction or otherwise against the parents violating the program, and appeal to stronger measures that involved forced sterilizations and abortions in the early 1980s (Croll, Elisabeth, Davin& Kane, P. 139).
Results of the policy
The policy has resulted to the decline of the fertility and birth rates in China since 1980 accompanied by the decline of fertility rate, in mid 1990s that dropped below two children per woman. However, these results have been dominated by the effect of rise in life expectancy and low death rates. However, the overall natural increase in the country has significantly declined. Therefore, due to the decrease in the level of population in china the policy was considered successful.
Consequences
Beyond the objective of cutting down the rapid population growth, the China One Child Policy has on the other hand produced several consequences. Firstly among them, the major consequence has been that, the China’s overall sex ratio has increasingly tilted towards males. In the tradition China the male child has been more preferred than the female child especially in the rural areas. This is because the male has been considered the appropriate inheritor of family property and name, and also responsible for nursing elderly parents (Altschwager, Ian, & Taylor, p.134).
Therefore, due to the restriction of one child per family, having a girl was considered undesirable, and as a result, there was a rise in the number of abortion of female fetuses. This was effective due to the availability of the ultrasound sex determination in the country. There were also an increase number of abandoned female children; some were taken to the orphanage and some infanticide. As a result, thousands of Chinese girls were adopted by the United States families among others. In the long run, there was an increase gap between the number of females and males children, and during adulthood, there was a situation where the female available for marriage was lower compared to males who were searching for marriage partners.
Secondly, in China the policy has resulted to an increasing proportion of elderly people. This was due to the contemporaneous decline in the birth rate and the increase in prolonged existence since 1980. Consequently, there has been a rise in the dependency ration because majority of the elderly citizens in the country depend on their children for sustenance after their retirement, and only a few children are available for such support.
Another consequence has been as a result of the situation where the birth of the second children has gone unreported and some children are veiled from the authorities (Greenhalgh, Susan, p.78). Those undocumented children were subjected to various challenges in their lives such as obtaining employment and education. Although the exact number of the undocumented children is unknown, they are estimated to range from hundreds of thousands to quite a few millions.
Impact of the policy on the China Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
One of the greatest goals in the China MDGs is to reduce the extreme poverty and hunger in the country. Contrary, the one child policy has failed to support this goal since it has lead to high dependency ratio and fewer children who could offer support to their elders. In other words, the number of elderly citizens has outnumbered the number of the productive population, hence lowering the productivity level in the country.
This impact has raised concern over the intermittent efforts to amend the one child policy. The central government has introduced additional exceptions that allow rural families to have a maximum of three children and also allow parents with first born girl to have a second child. Zhang Weiqing, Minister for the State Commission of Population and Family Planning, approved the consistency of modified one child policy with the country’s plan for population growth. In my point of view, without adding exceptions to the one child policy, this policy will continue to undermine population control programs and as a result hinder the development goals in the country.
Conclusion
In conclusion, china, the world most populated country has an approximate of 1.354 billion people which is approximated to be 19% of the world’s population. It is found in Asia and it is one of the fastest growing world economies which have risen to be second after the United States. However, despite the good performance of its GDP, it is still ranked as a developing country due to its large population. The government implements the one child policy which was meant to control the population. However, there has been an imbalance in the number of male births ad female birth. Additionally, the policy will cause an aging population in the near future which will hinder the country’s economic growth (World, 1). The policy has contributed to increased female fetus termination due to the value given to a son in the Chinese culture. The projected aging problem has prompted the government to exempt rural dwellers to have a maximum of three children as the aging population might outnumber the productive population causing the country to experience an economic standstill.
Works Cited
Altschwager, Ian, and John Taylor.China: One Child. New York Print.
Croll, Elisabeth, Delia Davin, and Penny Kane.China's One-Child Family Policy. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1985. Print.
Greenhalgh, Susan. Just One Child: Science and Policy in Deng's China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008. Print.
World Population Review. "China Population 2013." World Population Review. Web. 2 Dec. 2013.
Zhe, Song. "Why is China still a developing country? | EurActiv." EurActiv.com 2013. Web. 2 Dec. 2013. <http://www.euractiv.com/global-europe/china-developing-country-analysis-498377>.
