Some things about China

CHINA

Social Indicators
Poverty Line: Official- 680 yuan (US$85) per capita net income a year
International- 2920 yuan (US$365) per capita net income a year

Number of people below poverty line: Official- 23.65 million people (1.81%)
Estimated- 120-130 million people (9.2-9.9%)

Income Inequality: Gini Coefficient: 0.496 (On a scale of 0 to 1)

Infant Mortality Rate: 22.12 (est., per 1000 live births)

Nutrition Rate: 12% (about 156,444,120 people)

Literacy Rate: 90.9% of total population
95.1% of males
86.5% of females

Economic Indicators
Population Growth Rate: 0.606%

Dependency Ratio: 1:2.5, or 40% (2.5 people in the labour force supporting 1 not in the labour force)

Unemployment Rate: 4.2% in urban areas(Official figures)
Substantial rural unemployment and underemployment

Resources Endowment: coal, iron ore, petroleum, natural gas, mercury, tin, tungsten,
antimony, manganese, molybdenum, vanadium, magnetite, aluminum, lead, zinc, uranium, hydropower potential (world’s largest)

Colonial history: The Germans were the first to establish a sphere of influence in 1898 and militarily occupied China, resulting in foreign intervention in China’s policies. This later led to the Boxer Rebellion which was ultimately suppressed. Later, both Japan and the United Kingdom colonially ruled parts of China.

Growth Rates: China’s GDP averaged a 6.4% annual increase in the last ten years.

Per capita GDP: US$7,700 per capita

Population Size: 1,321,851,888 (2007 est.)

0-14 years: 20.4% (male 143,527,634/female 126,607,344)
15-64 years: 71.7% (male 487,079,770/female 460,596,384)
65 years and over: 7.9% (male 49,683,856/female 54,356,900)

Structure of industry:

Type of Industry %
Primary industry 12.5
Secondary industry 47.3
Tertiary industry 40.3



Obstacles to Growth

Provision of healthcare and education: The provision of healthcare in China is becoming more and more privatised today. As such, workers in the rural areas are less medically catered to, and because there is a high prevalence of infectious diseases in poor rural and urban areas in China, this creates an obstacle in the further expansion of large-scale capitalist development. As of now, the health status of this 15% of the total population is similar to that of the least developed nations.

Banking and Financial Services: Banking in China is currently inefficient and ill-equipped to handle the country's emerging complex market system, due to an insolvent banking system which has bad loans totalling 25 to 30% of the gross GDP; however, it is in the middle of a transition from Chinese to Western style banking, and banking reforms are currently being conducted by the People’s Bank of China to improve this situation. As China has had a historical reliance on banking rather than financial markets, the lack of a good banking structure significantly impedes growth.

Legal System: China’s legal system is currently subject to the China Communist’s Party’s (CCP) total control. This results in a lack of accountability which leads to many mistrials at the district level. As convictions are obtained in a large part on the basis of confessions, the use of torture on innocents in order to extract confessions is not uncommon. Ultimately, the lack of trust in the judicial system has caused many protests against the legal system, with many calling for legal reforms.

Political Stability: The CCP, as a political regime, faces weak political opposition domestically, and possesses relative elite cohesion as a political party (in contrast to previous power struggles at the top). This promotes it as a formidable force in power (the last political crisis faced was in 1989, when leaders promised but failed to deliver political reform). However, they are now facing a narrower base of support, an absence of effective institutions to resolve conflicts within the state (lack of federalism) and weak institutional channels of resolving state-society conflict, resulting in many more protests to express public grievances. It can be concluded that the CCP possess short term, but not long term political stability.

Corruption: Rising levels of corruption in the higher echelons of the CCP have created public distrust of the government in China. News about official actions can be classified a state secret. Local party officials have immense power they often abuse. Unless China adopts a political system with transparency and real checks and balances, maximum growth cannot truly have been achieved.


International Trade Barriers and Capital Flight: China is currently facing a large inflow of capital as opposed to human capital flight; this is brought on by worldwide recognition of its status as an emerging global superpower. However, an enormous amount of trade barriers in China prevent trade with the rest of the superpowers in the world, including the US and European Union. Effectively, this allows China to retain domestic monopolies over industries such as the aviation, steel, and telecommunications industry. This causes China to have a trade surplus, which has fueled complains that the yuan is intentionally being undervalued so as to provide exporters with an unfair price advantage. However, on the national level, industrialization has allowed China to manufacture many various goods at low prices, and this is essentially allowed it to overcome any possible disadvantages of not trading with others, as it can produce a large range of goods at extremely low prices.