- 15 May 2013 20:43
#14235769
Preface courtesy of wiki:
I was married in Changsha, Hunan, China fourteen years ago. I seriously considered moving there. I have a fondness for China. Yet, I have no idea why. It is a shame it cannot get the act together.
It will be lucky to retain even what it has now. It would be beneficial to get rid of what it has now. If that seems contradictory, you will understand after you read the facts. You will also understand there is no way it is going to have any influence or power over another current power when looking at the destruction it is causing to the lives of the citizens of the People's Republic of China. I am not at all inclined to believe they know what they do. Family is indeed bigger than nation, self-interests are indeed better than the interests of the people. It is a judgment call but I wonder if the Chinese realize the fact is that self-interest is bigger than family.
These are the facts that China does not want those citizens to know. And this is perhaps 15% of the research I could post.
If anyone wants to dispute the following, I will post sources as the points are directly challenged. I am not going to bother showing the research ahead of time for anyone not bothering to do the research. That said, I can back up the following points and will do as stated.
Kids
Women
Families
Men and women
Male Crime Statistics
Child Trafficking Statistics
Poverty
Labor
Combine the above, throw in education and the elderly
Do the math. Consider the above doesn't even touch the matter of pollution, arable land, and infrastructure.
Now, consider what else should be considered.
I am not the author of any of the above. Those are just the chunks I chose to throw up for perusal.
China has all of those problems and people continue to call it a power, a threat, a force to be reckoned with
and then worry or cheer about expansion.
Gosh, ain't that sump'n?
wiki redux:
I do not think Xi is going to be attacking anyone. I think the cadres in China are afraid of the Chinese more than any other nation. I think those cadres are more aware of their own historical troubles more than any other troubles involving another nation. I guess it makes sense to keep the citizens pre-occupied with international matters than domestic matters because international matters can never be beyond hope. Nor can international matters escalate as quickly towards war as domestic matters can once the same amount of information is provided.
Perhaps the issuing of student visas will provide leaders who can soften the anger China fears.
But, boy, ain't it sump'n?
The Chinese Dream is a promise made by the new Chinese leadership in 2012-2013. It is used by the government and journalists in the People's Republic of China to describe the aspiration of individual self-improvement in Chinese society. [1] It has been promoted by the new leader Xi Jinping. In 2013 the slogan became widespread in the media.[2]
In May 2013 Xi called upon young people "to dare to dream, work assiduously to fulfill the dreams and contribute to the revitalization of the nation." He called upon all levels of the Party and the government to facilitate favorable conditions for their career development. Xi told young people to "cherish the glorious youth, strive with pioneer spirit and contribute their wisdom and energy to the realization of the Chinese dream."[3]
Reporters have noted that, "Mr Xi had seen the American dream up close, having spent a couple of weeks in 1985 with a rural family in Iowa. (He revisited them during a trip to America last year as leader-in-waiting.)"[4]
The concept of Chinese Dream is very similar to the idea of "American Dream". It Stress the importance of entrepreneurial spirit. It also glorifies a generation of self-made men and women in post-reform China. Such as those rural immigrates who moved to the urban centers and achieve magnificent improvement in terms of their living standards, and social life. Chinese Dream can be interpreted as the collective consciousness of Chinese people during the era of social transformation and economic progress.
I was married in Changsha, Hunan, China fourteen years ago. I seriously considered moving there. I have a fondness for China. Yet, I have no idea why. It is a shame it cannot get the act together.
It will be lucky to retain even what it has now. It would be beneficial to get rid of what it has now. If that seems contradictory, you will understand after you read the facts. You will also understand there is no way it is going to have any influence or power over another current power when looking at the destruction it is causing to the lives of the citizens of the People's Republic of China. I am not at all inclined to believe they know what they do. Family is indeed bigger than nation, self-interests are indeed better than the interests of the people. It is a judgment call but I wonder if the Chinese realize the fact is that self-interest is bigger than family.
These are the facts that China does not want those citizens to know. And this is perhaps 15% of the research I could post.
If anyone wants to dispute the following, I will post sources as the points are directly challenged. I am not going to bother showing the research ahead of time for anyone not bothering to do the research. That said, I can back up the following points and will do as stated.
Kids
- Baby girls are called "maggots in the rice."
Up to a million orphans are abandoned each year in China.
95% of abandoned children in rural areas live outside of state-controlled orphanages.
Fewer than half of China’s orphans receive government subsidies.
Women
- China is the only country in the world where women commit suicide more than men.
The Beijing Suicide Research and Prevention Center reported in 2009 that the suicide rate for females was three times higher than for males.
Suicide is the #1 cause of death among Chinese rural women aged 15-34.
56% of the world’s female suicides occur in China, but only 20% of the world’s population lives in China.
China’s female life expectancy gives it a ranking of 150th in the world, behind Liberia and Gabon.
China’s female enrollment in school is ranked 107th in the world, behind Mauritania and Iran, and just ahead of Malawi.
Of all seats in parliament, 21% are held by women in China. 9% of ministerial positions are held by women in China.
China’s international ranking with regard to female political participation dropped from 12th place in 1994 to 52nd in 2009.
Women make up over 60% of the rural workforce, but only just over 10% of village committee members.
Less than 8 percent of the National Governing Committee (CCPC) is comprised of women; only one woman is a member of the CCPC’s Politburo, and no women sit on the Politburo Standing Committee.
Chinese law states that women should occupy at least 50% of government positions at the national, provincial and city level.
China’s gender imbalance is a powerful, driving force behind trafficking in women and sexual slavery, not only in China, but all over Asia.
According to a statement by the United States Department of State, “Women and children are trafficked into [China] from North Korea, Vietnam, Burma, Mongolia and Thailand.” These women are trafficked into China and forced into marriages, employment, and sexual exploitation.
The number of female sex workers in China is increasing at an alarming rate. It is estimated that there were 25,000 female sex workers in 1985, a number that has risen to about 6 million in 2000 by some accounts, and to 10 million in 2001 by others.
Women currently make up approximately 80% of an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 North Korean refugees in China, and of these women, an estimated 90% become victims of trafficking.
Nine out of ten Burmese women trafficked into China will end up in a forced marriage.
Families
- The problem of domestic violence remains widespread, affecting nearly one-third of China’s 270 million families, according to a November 2009 People’s Daily report.
Children may go without household registration (hukou) in China because they are born out of plan and their parents do not pay the necessary fines. Lack of a valid hukou raises barriers to access to social benefits typically linked to the hukou, including subsidized healthcare and public education.
There are 300,000 officials whose job is to enforce the One-Child Policy, and a total of 92 million members who help out with enforcement.
Officials are given a financial incentive structure to meet abortion and sterilization quotas, leading to extortion and coercion.
The vaginas of rural women are routinely checked to ensure that there was no recent birth.
Local governments offer monetary incentives to citizen informants who report violations of population planning regulations.
In 2007, Hubei expelled 500 cadres and dismissed 395 government officials, including 3 provincial lawmakers and 4 members of the local Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), for having ‘‘unauthorized’’children.
Men and women
- In 2005, there were 32 million more men than women under 20 in China.
In 2007, the national government estimated that China has 37 million more males than females. By 2020, the Chinese government estimates that there will be at least 30 million men of marriageable age that may be unable to find a spouse.
China alone stands to have as many unmarried young men—“bare branches”, as they are known—as the entire population of young men in America. At present, there are 40 million American men under 20. In 2020, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences estimates that there will be 40 million more Chinese men than women in that same age group.
Chinese men are already having trouble finding brides, with 88% of all single Chinese between 35 and 39 being male. In this same age group one finds that 99% of females are married.
Dudley Poston, a Professor of Sociology at Texas A&M University, estimates that if China’s sex ratio holds steady there will be a projected 55 million extra males by 2020. Unfortunately, even if it improved to almost natural levels by 2020 there will still be an excess of 51 million males.
It’s been projected that in 2013 one in ten Chinese men will not have a female counterpart, and by the late 2020s one in five Chinese men will be without a female counterpart.
The total U.S. population is just over 300 million. There are over 100 million “missing” girls in the world, of which about half would have been born in China.
In fact, some experts estimate that if the gender ratio in Asia had stayed at the natural level (105:100) for the past few decades the continent would have 163 million more women.
Sex selective abortion accounts for almost all the excess males.
An ultrasound, which can identify the gender of an unborn fetus, costs $12 in China.
Avraham Ebenstein, an economist, found that when making decisions about sex selection, Chinese families viewed a first-born son to have a worth of about 1.85 years of income, while the first-born girl held a value of only about 0.43 years of income.
In 2006, the National People’s Congress Standing Committee considered, but did not pass, a proposed amendment that would have criminalized sex-selective abortion by banning the use of ultrasound for gender identification. Only five provinces have passed similar measures, and the government has yet to take any action at the national level.
Sex Ratios at birth over time in China:
106:100 in 1979 (106 boys for every 100 girls)
111:100 in 1988
117:100 in 2001
120:100 in 2005
According to the US Congressional-Executive Commission on China, as of January, 2010, the average male-to-female sex ratio for the infant-to-four-year-old age group in China is 123.26 males for every 100 females (123.26:100).
Six provinces have sex ratios of over 130:100 in the 1-4 age group.
Two provinces, Jiangxi and Henan, have ratios of over 140:100 in the 1-4 age group.
Four provinces—Anhui, Guangdong, Hunan, and Hainan—have ratios of over 130:100 in the 1-4 age group.
Seven provinces have ratios between 120:100 and 129:100 in the 1-4 age group.
Sex ratios are highest in the age group of 1-4 years and in rural areas, which will likely increase social tensions as millions of men are unable to find brides.
The total sex ratio at birth is over 130:100 in three provinces (Shaanxi, Anhui, and Jiangxi) and over 120:100 in 14 provinces.
As an example, in 2007, Lianyungang city had a gender ratio of 163:100 for children under 5.
Another city, Suining city, had a birth ratio of 152:100 in 2007.
Sex Ratios for 2nd and 3rd Children in China:
The sex ratio at birth for first children is slightly high in cities and towns but was within normal limits in rural areas; however, the ratio rose very steeply for second or more children in cities (138:100), towns (137:100), and rural areas (146:100).
There were very high sex ratios for second children in Anhui (190:100) and Jiangsu (192:100).
For third births, the sex ratio rose to over 200:100 in four provinces.
In Beijing, among third children, almost three baby boys are born for every baby girl (almost 300:100).
Male Crime Statistics
- China’s crime rate has nearly doubled in the last 20 years.
It was found that sex ratios and crime rate were connected, with just a one percent increase in sex ratio leading to a five percent increase in crime rate.
Unmarried men between the ages of 24 and 35 are also found to be three times more likely to murder than their married counterparts.
High male sex ratios can lead to more authoritarian forms of government in an effort to crack down on crime.
High male sex ratios also lead to a lower rate of female literacy and workforce participation.
Unmarried men in China are almost always poor and uneducated, 74% don’t have a high school diploma. This number increases in the rural areas of China to 97%, with 40% or rural bachelors also being illiterate.
The tensions associated with so many bachelors in China's big cities might tempt its future leaders to mobilize this excess manpower and go pick a fight, or invade another country. China is already co-opting poor unmarried young men into the People's Liberation Army and the paramilitary People's Armed Police.
According to German scholar Gunnar Heinsohn, European imperial expansion after 1500 was the result of a male “youth bulge.” Japan’s imperial expansion after 1914 was the result of a similar male youth bulge. During the Cold War, it was male youth-bulge countries—Algeria, El Salvador, and Lebanon—that saw the worst civil wars and revolutions. Heinsohn has also linked the recent rise of Islamist extremism in countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan to an Islamic male youth bulge.
Child Trafficking Statistics
- The One-Child Policy has led to a burgeoning black market in stolen children, at least 70,000 a year.
New evidence has arisen that Chinese officials have begun stealing babies and children to sell for foreign adoption.
Kidnapping and buying and selling children for adoption increased over the past several years, particularly in poor rural areas. There are no reliable estimates of the number of children kidnapped; however, according to media reports, as many as 20,000 children are kidnapped every year for illegal foreign adoption.
In order to assure their sons will find wives, some families are buying trafficked girls and raising them as “foster daughter-in-laws”.
Parents who cannot keep their ‘‘out-of-plan’’ children—those children born in violation of the One-Child Policy—are vulnerable to persuasion or coercion to relinquish or sell them.
Poverty
- 200 million people in China live below the international poverty line of $1.25/day.
468 million people in China live with under $2/day.
55% of China’s population lives in the countryside.
China is ranked #99 in the world for GDP per capita, which is behind El Salvador (#92), Albania (#94) and Namibia (#98).
China ranks #103 among countries for infant mortality, behind Albania (#91), Nicaragua (#98) and Samoa (#102).
The poorest 40% of people in China earn 16% of China’s income, while the richest 20% of people in China earn 48% of the national income.
There are 63 NGO’s operating in China. By comparison, there are 3284 in Africa, 3605 in South & Southeast Asia, 882 in Latin America and 652 in the Middle East.
Each NGO in Africa serves about 300,000 people, while each NGO in China serves about 30 million people.
A surplus of men leads to higher savings rates as well as an increased labor supply, which in turn causes the exchange rate of the Chinese yuan to be much lower than in economies with balanced gender ratios. Empirically, those economies with a high sex ratio tend to have a low real exchange rate, beyond what can be explained by the Balassa-Samuelson effect, financial underdevelopment, dependence ratio, and exchange rate regime classifications. As a result, the Chinese yuan is only undervalued by 2% to 8%, since the surplus of men is driving the undervaluing most heavily.
This saving of money also leads to an increase in demand for US Government Bonds in China.
The uneven sex ratio in China can explain half of the increase in private saving between 1990 and 2005.
Shang-Jin Wei, Professor of Economics at Columbia University, argues that the high gender imbalance in China is leading to the trade imbalance between China and other countries such as the U.S.
Labor
- China’s labor pool is on the decline due to dwindling human resources.
The support ratio in China (ratio of effective # of producers to effective # of consumers) is going to peak in 2013 and afterwards will decline because of the lack of younger workers.
The only part of the working age population that will increase in size between now and 2030 is the group aged 50 and over.
The number of young laborers aged 20 to 29 has already come down by 14% in the last 10 years, and is projected to shrink further, by an additional 17%, in the next two decades.
Due to low fertility in the 1990’s, China’s labor supply will begin to sharply decline in 2015.
Cai Fang, the Director of the Institute of Population and Labor Economics at the Chinese Academy f Social Sciences (CASS), characterizes the decline in the working-age population as the “greatest threat to China’s economic prosperity."
Once the labor shortage becomes a serious concern, as it may well be in 10 years, it will be at least 10 years too late to do anything.
Combine the above, throw in education and the elderly
- Before the One-Child Policy, fertility levels dropped by more than 50% from 5.8 children per woman in 1970 to 2.7 in 1979. On the other hand, during the 1980s, when the One-Child Policy was then recently implemented, fertility levels hardly changed.
Even after adjusting for possible underreporting, China's current fertility level is likely around 1.5 to 1.6 children per couple, over 20% below the necessary replacement level.
Energy consumption and population growth are not related very closely. From 2000 to 2008, China’s total energy consumption doubled, despite the population only expanding by 5%.
Affluence, not population, drives growth in consumption and energy usage. Between 1990 and 2007, petroleum consumption in China increased by 189 percent, natural gas by 375 percent, and electricity by 424 percent. During the same period, population size grew by only 16 percent. CO2 emission since the mid 1990s increased by over 50 percent in one decade, while population growth during the same time period was only 8.5 percent.
The number of new students in Chinese elementary schools dropped from 25.3 million in 1995 to 16.7 million in 2008.
Between 1990 and 2008, 60% of Chinese elementary schools were closed down.
China’s elderly population is 11% of the population. By 2050, it will be 31% of the population.
This means that by 2050 China will have only 2.2 people of working age for every one person over 65. In comparison, Japan, the oldest country in the world now, has 2.6 people.
Between 2005 and 2030, the number of people aged 65 and above will likely more than double in size, from about 100 million to 235 million or more.
Chinese elderly aged 60 and older, will increase from 165 million now to 240 million in 2020, and over 340 million by 2030, accounting for 25% of the total population.
After 2025, the population will start to shrink.
China’s Demographic Profile by Age and Gender in 2000 and 2030
Do the math. Consider the above doesn't even touch the matter of pollution, arable land, and infrastructure.
Now, consider what else should be considered.
I am not the author of any of the above. Those are just the chunks I chose to throw up for perusal.
China has all of those problems and people continue to call it a power, a threat, a force to be reckoned with
and then worry or cheer about expansion.
Gosh, ain't that sump'n?
wiki redux:
Reporters have noted that, "Mr Xi had seen the American dream up close, having spent a couple of weeks in 1985 with a rural family in Iowa. (He revisited them during a trip to America last year as leader-in-waiting.)"
I do not think Xi is going to be attacking anyone. I think the cadres in China are afraid of the Chinese more than any other nation. I think those cadres are more aware of their own historical troubles more than any other troubles involving another nation. I guess it makes sense to keep the citizens pre-occupied with international matters than domestic matters because international matters can never be beyond hope. Nor can international matters escalate as quickly towards war as domestic matters can once the same amount of information is provided.
Perhaps the issuing of student visas will provide leaders who can soften the anger China fears.
But, boy, ain't it sump'n?
"Butter is fresh. Margarine is indestructible."