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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 urges 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. China's Communist Party describes the economy as a "socialist market economy." Some Marxists describe it as a planned economy because of the state's command over banks, finances and investment in addition to some free enterprise. It the state wants to banks to lend, they lend. If it wants to invest in infrastructure, it invests. Anti-communists in the U.S. describe China's system as capitalist to explain its success.
2009: $6,600
2008: $6,100
2007: $5,600
2009: 8.7% (Bloomberg.com)
2008: 9.8%
2007: 13%
2006: 11.6%
Bloomberg.com, February 2010: Economic growth rate fell to 6.1 percent in the first quarter of 2009, its lowest lever in a decade. It rebounded to 8.7 for the year following government investment in infrstructure.
2009: 18% of GDP
September 2009: 4.3%
2008: 39.5%
February 2006: Sixty percent of China’s exports are from manufacturing companies that are foreign owned.
2006: 4.3%
The top 10 percent in household income in 2009 did 15 percent of the spending. For the lowest 10 percent of households this was 3.5%. This is for urban households only and a 2005 estimate. A 2007 estimate for the U.S. is 30% percent for the top 10 percent in wealth and 2% for the bottom 10 percent.
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."
Living in an urban area: 43%, 128th out of 228 countries (2008).
July 2009: 1.338 billon. Growth rate: 0.655 percent (ranks 153rd)
July 2008: 1.330 billion
July 2005: 1.306 billion
July 1985: 1.042 billion
Fertility rate: 1.79 children born/woman, compared to 2.05 for the U.S. (2009 est.)
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).
2010: More leaving than arriving. A net loss of 0.34 persons per 1,000 population
2008:
More leaving than arriving. A net loss of 0.39 persons
per 1,000 population.
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.)
Han Chinese 91.5%, Zhuang, Manchu, Hui, Miao, Uyghur, Tujia, Yi, Mongol, Tibetan, Buyi, Dong, Yao, Korean, and other nationalities 8.5% (2000 census)
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 © 2010 by Frank E. Smitha. All rights reserved.