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Oct 2009: Figures released this month indicate that China's share in world manufacturing increased from 2 percent in 1980 to 14 percent in 2008, still behind the U.S. at 22 percent -- according to a U.S. based Manufacturing Institute.
Nov 2008: China does not have the command economy of the old Soviet Union, and therefore it has an unemployment problem as business declines with reduced sales abroad. China's government resorts to merely urging businesses to do their best to keep unemployment down. China is gaining 8.4 million in population per year (0.629 percent) despite its one-child policy. To meet this growth China's economy must grow around 8 percent per year.
Apr 2008: According to Robert Barnet in Foreign Policy magazine, "... China has poured money into creating a middle class in Tibetan towns, though there hasn’t really been a dividend for the countryside and the underclass."
Name: People's Republic of China. The Chinese have many elections, with all politics including elections dominated by the Communist Party of China.
Figures unless otherwise stated are from the CIA Factbook.
Estimated per capita GDP:
2008 $6,000 (half that of Turkey and more than twice that of Pakistan)
2007 $5,500
2006 $4,900
GDP annual growth rate:
2008: 9.8%
2007: 13%
2006: 11.6%
February 2006: Sixty percent of China’s exports are from manufacturing companies that are foreign owned.
China's labor force is 49 percent in agriculture, compared to 5 percent in Japan.
According to the CIA Factbook "an official Chinese journal estimated overall unemployment (including rural areas) for 2003 at 20 percent.")
Percentage of GDP spent on military: 4.3 (2006).
October 2007: China is graduating people from universities at twice the rate of the United States. (It has more than 4.38 times the population of the U.S.)
For 2008, deaths 7.03; births 13.71, up from 13.14 in 2005.
Population estimated for July 2008: 1.330 billion, up from 1.306 billion in 2005 and 1.042 billion in 1985. Growth rate estimated for 2008: 0.629 percent per year.
Density per square kilometer of arable land : 909.5 persons (a 2005 estimate) compared to 31 persons for Kansas and 34 persons for Alabama, the latter a median state in the U.S. for population density (from the U.S. 2000 census).
More leaving than arriving, for a net loss of 0.39 persons per 1,000 population.
Infant mortality estimated for each 1,000 persons:
2008: 21.16
2007: 22.12
2005: 24.28
2004: 25.3
Average life expectancy at birth estimated for 2008: 73.18, up from 72.27 in 2005.
The top 10 percent in household income in 1998 did 30.4 percent of the spending for consumers goods. For the lowest 10 percent of households this was 2.4 These figures for the U.S. are 30.5 and 1.8.
Small farmers in China are complaining about high taxes. A piece on the BBC website on October 4, 2004 stated the opinion that "In effect, China's poorest citizens are subsidizing the modernization of its cities." An article by Tim Luard on the BBC website, on October 13, describes people with annual incomes of less that $77 as having risen to over 3 percent of the population. He describes an economic boom as having taken place in big cities but the countryside as having remained unchanged. Luard describes one women with electricity but without a refrigerator, television of telephone. "For a toilet," he writes," she goes outside with the chickens."
January, 2008: Murder, tax evasion, smuggling, and corruption. In July the former head of the Food and Drug Administration was put to death for taking bribes. In Guangdong Province, bag-snatching is listed as capital offense. China endeavors to rid itself of pests.
A little more than 4.5 percent of China's population use the internet, compared to 40 percent for Britain.
The government of China is more relaxed and less intrusive in people lives. Today the government (or China's Communist Party) allows people more freedom to choose. There is greater expression of emotion, including soap opera. During stricter times divorces were rare. In 2003 the rules for divorce changed. Now in China one can get a divorce in ten minutes for an equivalent of one dollar. About 70 percent of divorces are initiated by women. Many women are no longer economically dependent on their husbands. Many dislike their husband's bad habits.
China is one of three countries with a law against flag desecration.
A Brit who lives in Shanghai and visited Delhi, India, prefers Shanghai.
In Shanghai "the lights never go out." They did in his hotel in Delhi. In
Shanghai a high speed internet connection is standard in hotels. In Shanghai
there are not the many in rags sleeping on the streets at night that his saw
in Delhi.
SOURCES:
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/
Copyright © 2008 by Frank E. Smitha. All rights reserved.