China's Rising Global Profile - Assignment Example

Introduction to China’s Profile China’s population amounts to approximately 356,354,061 making it the mostpopulous nation on the planet. Generally, this kind of population is problematic as the country faces difficulties when distributing essential resources such as land and water. According to experts, the Chinese population should not exceed the 1.6 billion mark and if it does, China will stand at a risk of losing track of its population. This could be a traumatizing experience for the country, as the increased population will seek to compete for the same available resources, which are not in adequate even at the current position (Pant 33). Due to cultural beliefs and traditional attributes, Chinese prefer to have large families. Married women go ahead to have more than five children. This paper will seek to provide China’s profile by discussing its political system, income distribution, and demographic features such as age, education, and gender. In China, the belief that children bring joy into a home is a major contributor towards the reason as to why Chinese have such large numbers of children within a single family. For a long time, China stayed unstable due to chaos mostly generated by wars in which it engaged in but after it stabilized, the country’s population grew with such a rapid speed that it moved from 250 million to 500 million within a short time (48). Surprisingly, due to seeable developments in healthcare and food availability, China’s population growth is astonishing. As of today, this country’s population is experiencing a boom burst, as it will rise from 1.3 billion to 1.6 billion in just 50 years (see Fig. 1). This indicates that years between 1700 and 2070 will be very substantial for government if it finds controlling the country’s population crucial. Fig.1. Population growth in China Unfortunately, the existing finite resources do not seem to be in a position support this alarming growth in the country’s population. As Figure 2 and 3 shows, China has a larger population than that of the United States on one end. Whereas on the other end China’s per capita arable land is only an eighth that of the US. This means that China has a very small part of land, which is suitable for farming. This implies that the country is unable to provide adequate land for farming for its population. Such, is an indication that if China continues to expect such population growth rate, the country will face an enormous calamity of hunger (57). Based on this aspect, the past two decades and half have seen China hold very strict family planning programs aimed at controlling population growth in this country. Fig.2. Ratio of China's land and population in the world Fig.3. Arable land and per capita cultivated land in China With reference to the current population control program, the policy consists of two specific guidelines. In the first one, the government sought to control the rapid population growth by reducing Children’s birth defects. In the second, the government sought to make people understand the vitality of marrying late and having children later. Additionally, in the rural areas, people should resolve to give birth to another child only when the first one is beyond four years. After the government enacted such policy late last year, research findings indicate that it has worked for the best as of now, the country’s population growth is somehow declining (63). Nevertheless, due to this policy, observations show that China has the largest gender gap with regard to many other Asian countries. Astonishingly, most Chinese parents prefer to have a male child instead of a girl. Under this spectrum, it is agreeable that in China boys are of more importance when compared to girls. According to a study carried out in year 2000, the ration of baby boys to that of baby girls was 120:100. Moreover, in some of the poorer regions in the country, the number of boys is twice that of girls. A critical analysis into this situation proves that China has a problem of male-female imbalance. Apart from this, China is at the verge of facing another problem related to gender in the near future (69). Following the current lowered mortality rate, in addition to, the country’s one child policy, China is facing another obstacle based on the overall aging of the country’s population. A report released by the New England Journal of Medicine points out that the brisk decrease of this country’s birth rate, coupled with the stabilizing or rather improving life expectancy, China has an increasing ratio of elderly people as well as an increasing proportion between adult children and elderly parents. This aspect will result to challenges based on the ratio of elderly people in need of abrupt medical care and sequential social services (75). Furthermore, the following graph (Fig. 4) shows China’s population in the year 2020 just as demonstrated by the United Nations Population Division. The figure shows that 25 percent of China’s population will exceed the 65-age mark hence this will be a huge problem for the country’s social and medical insurance system. Fig. 4 China’s geographical location China sits in the Southeast part of Asia along the Pacific coastline. It takes third position in the world’s largest countries after Russia and Canada. Its area coverage amounts to 9.6 million square kilometers and has a coastline of 18,000 kilometers. In terms of shape, China assumes the looks of a rooster. Mohe, which is in the Heilongjiang Province marks China’s northern end while James Shoal otherwise known as Zengmu Ansha marks the country’s southern end (88). Pamirs marks China’s end in the western part where it extends eastwards until it borders Heilongjiang in the conjunction of the Amur River and the Ussuri or Wusuli River, which spans almost 62 degrees longitude and 50 degrees latitude. Education China’s education has three divisions namely basic, higher, and adult education categories. The country has a Compulsory Education Law, which stipulates that each child be entitled to nine years of formal education. In China’s basic education, a child undergoes pre-school education at first, then proceeds to primary education and thereafter joins regular secondary education. In pre-school otherwise known as kindergarten, it takes up to three years where children can begin this level even at the age of three. A China’s academic year has two semesters (94). China divides its secondary education into categories. The first one involves academic secondary education while the other involves technical, vocational, or specialized secondary education. The delivery of academic secondary education takes place in both academic lower and upper middle schools. For those lower middle school graduates who wish to continue with their education, they take a locally administered entrance exam. Under this base, such graduates have an option of either proceeding in academic upper middle school or enter a vocational secondary school. In vocational secondary schools, students choose to undertake programs that range from two to four years where they train for medium level skills such as farming, technical skills, and managerial techniques. On the other hand, technical schools offer four-year typical programs where they train intermediate technical personnel (101). Chinese higher education has three-year and four-year programs in which they offer graduate programs that lead to Ph.D. degree or masters. In adult education, learners overlap all the other typical programs and go straight to specialized trainings, which include Peasants’ Primary Schools, Workers’ Primary Schools, and literacy classes. Political system The People's Republic of China or simply China is a socialist nation led by China’s Communist Party. China’s Constitutions states that this country has only four sections, which describe China’s state institutions. 1. National People’s Congress; this is China’s supreme power organ in the entire state. It holds regular annual plenary sessions where it accords a five-year term through elections with delegates being elective with accordance to their current administrative regions via the universal suffrage. 2. President of the People's Republic of China; Xi Jinping is the current president of China with Wen Jiabao being the vice. 3. Central people's Government or State Council; this is the executive organ of the state’s supreme power body. It is also the country’s supreme administrative organ. 4. The Central Military Commission of China; it is China’s supreme military organ and leads as well as commands the nation’s armed forces. 5. The Supreme People's Court; this is the country’s highest judicial body where the National People's Congress elects its president. Income distribution and conclusion China has an aggravated division between the rich and the poor, in addition to, a ceaseless wide gap in terms of income distribution. This effect manifests itself among people in several ways. The Gini Index puts the country’s general population and income distribution at a difference of 1.62 times in a period of 10 years. In terms of location, the difference between the rural and urban residents stands at a ration of 1:2.2 (113). Region wise, research shows that in year 2000, China’s average income in the east population recorded 2.26 times higher than that of the west. Finally, China is experiencing an aggravation in income distribution between and among numerous trades with year 2000 recording a 2.63:1. Indeed, China’s profile is a collection of amazing particularly surprising things. Works Cited Pant, Harsh. China's Rising Global Profile: The Great Power Tradition. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2012. Print. Read More