Yi Fuxian could be right he could be wrong. The Chinese one birth policy is estimated to have reduced China’s potential population by approximately 320 million people, close to the total population of the USA. In a world pressing already on its potential resources the Malthusian threats are worth considering. The policy has always be under attract in US because of abortion issue but it is only one of many issues where the nations differ. Curiously, the US would also, along with western Europe, be in the same dropping population classification if it were not for immigration (dreaded by some it appears).
In China minority groups were not under the one-child rule but here in an Autonomous Miao district two children or more is rare for reasons of the expense of education beyond the middle school level where public education ends. All recognize advanced education as essential and save accordingly for their children’s future. Yi fuxian’s data does not seem to notice that explanation. His findings would hold for any modern society without immigration from higher population growth area and there China fits the model.
In China minority groups were not under the one-child rule but here in an Autonomous Miao district two children or more is rare for reasons of the expense of education beyond the middle school level where public education ends. All recognize advanced education as essential and save accordingly for their children’s future. Yi fuxian’s data does not seem to notice that explanation. His findings would hold for any modern society without immigration from higher population growth area and there China fits the model.
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"“People say we can be two to three times the size of America’s economy,” Dr. Yi said. “I say it’s totally impossible. It will never overtake America’s, because of the decrease in the labor force and the aging of the population.”
China's economy surpassed America's years ago. Here are the CIA's current rankings:
United States: $17,970,000,000
European Union: $19,180,000,000.
China: $19,510,000,000,000,000.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/20...
Dr. Yi is a medical researcher who clearly doesn't understand how economies work. The key to growth is productivity, not population. Otherwise India would already have surpassed China.
China's productivity has been more than doubling every ten years since 1965 and it's currently on track to continue.
China's economy surpassed America's years ago. Here are the CIA's current rankings:
United States: $17,970,000,000
European Union: $19,180,000,000.
China: $19,510,000,000,000,000.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/20...
Dr. Yi is a medical researcher who clearly doesn't understand how economies work. The key to growth is productivity, not population. Otherwise India would already have surpassed China.
China's productivity has been more than doubling every ten years since 1965 and it's currently on track to continue.
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China is now the world's largest economy in PPP terms, according to the CIA World Factbook:-
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/20...
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/20...
Demographically, China is headed the way of Japan, with a population top-heavy with senior citizens, and not enough workers to support them. But that's only one of the many problems facing China.
To start with, its education system is a shambles, with 50-60 kids per class being the norm in the cities (don't believe what you read about Chinese test scores...those reported to international agencies are selected from the top schools and are not representative), and an overwhelming emphasis on test preparation. Combined with the required ideological indoctrination, this leaves students without many of the skills needed in be successful as adults, such as the ability to think independently, problem solve, and work in teams.
It's economy is being hampered by the fact that as wages rise, China is no longer the world's lowest cost producer.
Its' health care system is a disorganized mess, and as currently structured will be incapable of dealing with the problems of the rapidly aging population.
And lastly, there are China's huge environmental problems...not just the air, but more importantly the water. For example, the water table underneath Beijing has dropped by an estimated 150-200 meters over the past twenty years, and China as a whole is facing a severe shortage of potable water thanks to the pollution of most of its groundwater and waterways.
Add everything together, and you have a group of problems that the CCP and its leadership are ill equipped to address.
To start with, its education system is a shambles, with 50-60 kids per class being the norm in the cities (don't believe what you read about Chinese test scores...those reported to international agencies are selected from the top schools and are not representative), and an overwhelming emphasis on test preparation. Combined with the required ideological indoctrination, this leaves students without many of the skills needed in be successful as adults, such as the ability to think independently, problem solve, and work in teams.
It's economy is being hampered by the fact that as wages rise, China is no longer the world's lowest cost producer.
Its' health care system is a disorganized mess, and as currently structured will be incapable of dealing with the problems of the rapidly aging population.
And lastly, there are China's huge environmental problems...not just the air, but more importantly the water. For example, the water table underneath Beijing has dropped by an estimated 150-200 meters over the past twenty years, and China as a whole is facing a severe shortage of potable water thanks to the pollution of most of its groundwater and waterways.
Add everything together, and you have a group of problems that the CCP and its leadership are ill equipped to address.
China's education a 'shambles'? Hardly.
The average Chinese kid is better educated than the average Chinese kid and the best-educated public school child in China is much better educated than the best-educated American public school child. Class size, incidentally, takes a back seat to culture. Here's some good reading on the subject:
OECD: http://www.oecd.org/countries/hongkongchina/46581016.pdf
http://www.forbes.com/sites/nickmorrison/2014/02/05/what-we-can-learn-fr..., http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/education/what-shanghai-can...
Are the Chinese cheating in PISA or are we cheating ourselves? http://oecdeducationtoday.blogspot.com/2013/12/are-chinese-cheating-in-p...
The average Chinese kid is better educated than the average Chinese kid and the best-educated public school child in China is much better educated than the best-educated American public school child. Class size, incidentally, takes a back seat to culture. Here's some good reading on the subject:
OECD: http://www.oecd.org/countries/hongkongchina/46581016.pdf
http://www.forbes.com/sites/nickmorrison/2014/02/05/what-we-can-learn-fr..., http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/education/what-shanghai-can...
Are the Chinese cheating in PISA or are we cheating ourselves? http://oecdeducationtoday.blogspot.com/2013/12/are-chinese-cheating-in-p...
Trust me....I lived in China for five years and spent a fair amount of time in Chinese classrooms...Chinese students are the world's best when it comes to studying for tests and finding creative ways to cheat on them.
But they sorely lack the skills that really matter....creativity, problem solving skills, and teamwork.
But they sorely lack the skills that really matter....creativity, problem solving skills, and teamwork.
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A medical researcher thinks he can make economic predictions with high confidence? He seems unaware that the most important driver of economic growth is productivity increases rather than population increases. There is apparently a lot of hubris.
The Chinese government can change the birth rate quickly with economic incentives for more children. Work out the cost of not having them and then make the payments to families to have more kids. Isn't this what the USA does ? We pay school taxes for people that cannot essentially afford to educate their children and there are lots of other examples as well.
The great difference between China and India's current situations is the result of the One Child Policy. China has a future of raising wages and improved quality of life for its residents. India has no hope as swelling populations enslave each other and compete for land and resources. Anyone who thinks it is negative that China's declining population will cause wages to increase and make human labor more valuable simply doesn't value human life and dignity.
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What about the 4-2-1 problem that China faces? Four grandparents, two parents and the one child who has to take care of them.
Your comment is premised on the "received wisdom" that the family planning bureaucracy in China has faithfully recited for decades... but independent studies suggest that this perspective is based not on fact but self interest (CF: http://www.prb.org/pdf04/59.2chinaspopnewtrends.pdf ).
It is worth citing another study to effectively refute the fallacy that the One Child Policy was essential to reducing the average fertility rate in China after 1970:
"Despite the coercive ferocity of the [one-child] campaign, China’s rapid economic development since 1980 deserves the lion’s share of the credit for the (much more modest) numbers of reduced births that have occurred as the country’s total fertility rate further declined ... It is a damning indictment of the Chinese record that all of her Confucian neighbors in East Asia achieved rapid declines to their present sub-replacement fertility rates via robust economic growth supplemented by voluntary birth planning campaigns, thus avoiding the massive abuses that China’s misguided launching of the one-child program produced."
(CF: Australia, ANU, Martin King Whte, Wang Feng and Yong Cai, Myths About China’s One-Child Policy, The China Journal, no. 74. 1324-9347/2015/7401-0008. Copyright 2015 by The Australian National University, http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/martinwhyte/files/challenging_myths_pub...
It is worth citing another study to effectively refute the fallacy that the One Child Policy was essential to reducing the average fertility rate in China after 1970:
"Despite the coercive ferocity of the [one-child] campaign, China’s rapid economic development since 1980 deserves the lion’s share of the credit for the (much more modest) numbers of reduced births that have occurred as the country’s total fertility rate further declined ... It is a damning indictment of the Chinese record that all of her Confucian neighbors in East Asia achieved rapid declines to their present sub-replacement fertility rates via robust economic growth supplemented by voluntary birth planning campaigns, thus avoiding the massive abuses that China’s misguided launching of the one-child program produced."
(CF: Australia, ANU, Martin King Whte, Wang Feng and Yong Cai, Myths About China’s One-Child Policy, The China Journal, no. 74. 1324-9347/2015/7401-0008. Copyright 2015 by The Australian National University, http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/martinwhyte/files/challenging_myths_pub...
People in Europe, Japan, and most of the developed world have learned to voluntarily lower their birthrate to achieve a better life quality with limited land and resources. A steady state population is ideal. Constant population growth only benefits the 1%'ers who love cheap labor, expensive rent, and who speculate in resources. China is rapidly running out of breathable air and drinkable water, as is India.
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China obviously has too many people, as anyone who has been to China can
clearly see. Having less people isn't all bad, just as the goal of surpassing
US in GDP isn't all good. In countries like China, it is easier to have an increasing population than the other way around.
clearly see. Having less people isn't all bad, just as the goal of surpassing
US in GDP isn't all good. In countries like China, it is easier to have an increasing population than the other way around.
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What a comforting message for the readers of this paper; give the guy a medal!
One doctor, Dr. Jiang, saved the Politburo of Hu Jintao from extinction due to SARS that was at the gates of Beijing. Dr. Yi is yet another messenger sent to save the Chinese people from social/economic dysfunction. The Chinese people no longer need the Communist Party to ruin the country. Many talented and civic-minded people can guide China. Some of the best, like the rights lawyers, are in jail. There are Central Party members who recognize that good people have been marginalized or thrown in jail. Here with the reclassification of Dr. Yi, you can see that Xi Jinping’s polices on dissent are being challenged.
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“Before, they said I was a traitor because I opposed state birth policies. Where I used to be a traitor, I’m now being paid to fly, business class, from Madison to Chicago, to Beijing, to Hainan.”
China is changing in a way most outsiders missed badly. Why?
China is changing in a way most outsiders missed badly. Why?
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Someone with influence, if not perhaps with ultimate authority, has decided that Dr Yi's ideas need attention. But the problem goes back to Mao's crazy encouragement of unrestrained birth, which required the opposite extreme of the one child policy. Yi's blunt assertion that China's economy will never overtake America's is the ultimate rhetorical provocation, intended to get the attention of those who can do something about the birth policy. Growing population to strengthen the state was a concern of a state ruler in the 4th century BC, who asked Mencius how to do it. Another state ruler revived his defeated state by strict marriage regulations to foster population growth. Modern Chinese with a traditional mentality, like Mao, have assumed that having the world's largest population would be a decisive advantage leading to China's global predominance. Liang Ch'i-ch'ao's early 20th century for global integration assumes the same, with its plan to breed dark skin color out of Africans over generations.
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The invitation to Yi Fuxian reflects a shifting policy that had been under debate in China for over a decade. Despite various experiments with loosening the policy, it has taken a long time to reach a consensus for change strong enough to override the vested interests of the enormous family planning bureaucracy. I hope Dr. Yi has a good trip and gets good Chinese media coverage. It would still be a good idea to stay out of Hunan where local police undoubtedly remember him and may not be inclined to overlook past "crimes".
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Many reasonable people wonder whether the human population on our planet has not already exceeded the earth's natural capacity to sustain us (and the myriad other creatures that share this world with us). CF: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC123129/, http://darwin.bio.uci.edu/sustain/bio65/lec16/b65lec16.htm.
Coming up with a solid answer to the question of what the earth's carrying capacity might be is difficult, to be sure. Nonetheless, one would have thought that anyone who understood the scale of environmental destruction that has occurred in China during the past 60 years would be inclined to ponder this problem carefully.
At the very least, I would argue that a gradual reduction in the size of China's population would not necessarily be the disaster that Dr. Yi suggests it would be.