China - A Titanic heading towards its Iceberg?

[SUBMAN1]

Heard on the radio this morning some eye opening things about this country. China seems to be in deep trouble in the coming decade due to multiple issues. One of those biggest issues has to do with their 1 child policy. This is causing problems on multiple fronts, not least being that there are no longer enough women in the country. Parents will kill of girl born in favor of trying again for a boy, and they even bribe their doctors (against the law) to tell them the sex prior to birth so that they may opt for an abortion if need be. I've heard this before, but I didn't hear of the consequences of such actions - in the next 10 years, there will be over 30 million men (To put this into perspective - Canada's entire population) and growing expenentially without the ability to marry - there will be no wifes for them! On top of this, the 1 child policy has created the majority population problem that will be over the age of 65 by this time, withless than half the entire population of the country under the age of 65 - and Chinas leaders have no idea how to combat this major issue. Most western countries have age population problems from the baby boomers, but Chinas problem is insane, and makes the Western world's problem minor in comparrison.

The results of the above 2 have caused a couple more issues even - One being that companies are wary of investing in China now, when a decade ago, you couldn't get them to stop investing in this country. This is beginning to create work shortages to those wishing to enter the cities work forces, with no jobs available to them. The second is that it has caused a brain drain. The brain drain is so bad, that over 2/3'rds of the students who go overseas to study, never return!

Things have got so bad, that China's leadership is up in arms about what to do about it. Go figure.

I haven't even begun to touch on the environmental problems they are also facing.

This is strange to hear when all I ever hear about this country is how big an economic powerhouse they have begun - that seems it will be a fleeting moment in time after listening to this.

-S

[geetrue]

Sounds like a cold country to come back to, especially if you are a student and watch the news
and find out that your country has been lying to you for x amount of years.

Then it gets real cold to go back to. People love freedom once they taste it.

As for China's needs whatever they need now they are going to need more later.

It's almost like they need a war or a famine to sweep the country ...

Looking at history in hindsight that is.

[samniTe]

maybe their best bet is expansion ;o

their army is the size of our population D;

[Heibges]

Originally Posted by SUBMAN1

Heard on the radio this morning some eye opening things about this country. China seems to be in deep trouble in the coming decade due to multiple issues. One of those biggest issues has to do with their 1 child policy. This is causing problems on multiple fronts, not least being that there are no longer enough women in the country. Parents will kill of girl born in favor of trying again for a boy, and they even bribe their doctors (against the law) to tell them the sex prior to birth so that they may opt for an abortion if need be. I've heard this before, but I didn't hear of the consequences of such actions - in the next 10 years, there will be over 30 million men (To put this into perspective - Canada's entire population) and growing expenentially without the ability to marry - there will be no wifes for them! On top of this, the 1 child policy has created the majority population problem that will be over the age of 65 by this time, withless than half the entire population of the country under the age of 65 - and Chinas leaders have no idea how to combat this major issue. Most western countries have age population problems from the baby boomers, but Chinas problem is insane, and makes the Western world's problem minor in comparrison.

The results of the above 2 have caused a couple more issues even - One being that companies are wary of investing in China now, when a decade ago, you couldn't get them to stop investing in this country. This is beginning to create work shortages to those wishing to enter the cities work forces, with no jobs available to them. The second is that it has caused a brain drain. The brain drain is so bad, that over 2/3'rds of the students who go overseas to study, never return!

Things have got so bad, that China's leadership is up in arms about what to do about it. Go figure.

I haven't even begun to touch on the environmental problems they are also facing.

This is strange to hear when all I ever hear about this country is how big an economic powerhouse they have begun - that seems it will be a fleeting moment in time after listening to this.

-S

Yep. You can't have a "modern" country, without a modern form of government to go with it. It's like building a statue with feet of clay.

[elite_hunter_sh3]

let them wither with age... who needs a giant country stealing millions of jobs that are suposed to go to hard working europeans and North Americans....

[tycho102]

Originally Posted by SUBMAN1

China seems to be in deep trouble in the coming decade due to multiple issues.

China is in the equivalent of America's 1890's. They've got a massive "Louisana Purchase" of untamed rural area to cope, exploding population, stock market speculation ("robber barons"), industralization. Plus they have to deal with all the modern era issues with electrical production and transmission, international commerce, the intratubes, satellite surveillance, corporate espionage, copyright laws.


Their male-dominated population is rapidly becoming a significant issue. I'm not entirely sure what the actual solution is but I have a few ideas of my own. One way or another, it's a cultural issue that they will have to directly* address before they can indirectly address.





* the use of physical force

[P_Funk]

Originally Posted by geetrue

Sounds like a cold country to come back to, especially if you are a student and watch the news
and find out that your country has been lying to you for x amount of years.

Then it gets real cold to go back to. People love freedom once they taste it.

I think you underestimate the powers of indictrination. I've spoken with enough chinese immigrant children to my country to see that they have love for China rooted into their brains. One girl I knew in first year uni was entirely white washed, I mean not a trace of an accent and she was real pretty and wore very hip clothing etc... Well me and a freind were sitting there talking about stuff, I guess it was ideologies and dictators and we mentioned Mau and she got all defensive about him. She said he did alot of great things for China. So me and my freind in a style that begs for the camera call-and-answered back and forth things baout Mau that were bad and how it diminished his country. Well rather than come back with a scathing criticism of our ideas she just put her hands on her ears, spoke desperately "I can't stand this", and ran away. I mean RAN.

This girl is barely connected to her former homeland and she's still totally full of crap. And I've seen others like her too. The truth to many people from China is whatever they were taught before they could walk.

[geetrue]

Originally Posted by P Funk

So me and my freind in a style that begs for the camera call-and-answered back and forth things baout Mau that were bad and how it diminished his country. Well rather than come back with a scathing criticism of our ideas she just put her hands on her ears, spoke desperately "I can't stand this", and ran away. I mean RAN.

That's an interesting observation ... I think you can multiply this personality with tens of millions of other people that don't want to hear the truth.

They don't want to believe that what they believe is a lie.

Because of her naturalness we can see what a spirit of lie really looks like.

[Heibges]

Or maybe folks just want to feel "great".

You could say the same thing about Stalin in Russia. After 60 years of programmed "De-Stalinization", he is more popular than ever.

Fact of the matter is that Mao got Westerners out of China, and that goes a long way.

Look at India. They would much rather build weapons than feed their own people.

You could even say folks feel much the same about Reagan. He moved all our jobs overseas, and killed the family farm, but he made America feel "great".

You have to wonder what the Germans really feel about Hitler?

[P_Funk]

Originally Posted by Heibges

Or maybe folks just want to feel "great".

You could say the same thing about Stalin in Russia. After 60 years of programmed "De-Stalinization", he is more popular than ever.

Fact of the matter is that Mao got Westerners out of China, and that goes a long way.

Look at India. They would much rather build weapons than feed their own people.

You could even say folks feel much the same about Reagan. He moved all our jobs overseas, and killed the family farm, but he made America feel "great".

You have to wonder what the Germans really feel about Hitler?

I think that you make an error is considering Mao, Stalin, and Hitler all as equivalent. True they were all tyrants of the 20th Century but Hitler is not a national figure that is celebrated and sold in memorabilia and Stalin is regarded in a different way that Mao. China is the only nation of the three that still encorporates the cult of personality for Mao into its mandatory culture for all citizens. The practises of indoctrination are still present and he is regarded as a hero for the people. Now you can make whatever claims about the ruthless efficiency of Stalin but peope still recognize his true colours. The general feeling of Mao I get from delusional Chinese people is that he never did anything wrong. It was not that I denied he didn't do anything good that sent that girl running, it was the mountain of bad that I accused him of that she couldn't even contemplate. These three leaders were blurred together in our own propogandistic attempts to rally nationalism in our fights against them. But the reality is that they are all three distinct cultures and three distinct leaders that share only a timeframe with one another.

In the other thread about Hiroshima we talk about the good and evil of the decisions that the leaders made and how we understand the the difficulty of it. There is no grey in Mao's following. He is a clear cut demi-god figure and you don't question it. This isn't affection out of reason but a learned passion that isn't rational and is instinctually embedded in childhood far beyond recollection.

Thats my attempt at sounding like a Poli sci/sociology major.

[Heibges]

I agree about the cult of personality in China. Whether Mao happens to be in or out of favor, he is the founder of the PRC, so they have to build their legitimacy upon him. Much like Stalin first built the Cult of Lenin just so that he could later build the Cult of Stalin upon it. And then you have this wave revisitionist historians trying to say that Lenin was just a swell guy, especially compared to Stalin.

I'm not saying they are the equivalent, just that the types of endeavors they embarked upon made them very popular with their populations, despite other heinous acts they may have committed.

Those guys were popular for many of the same reason George Washington is popular in America.

I know a lot of Chinese folks here in San Francisco, and the scary things I hear from them is not so much that he didn't do anything wrong, but that they don't perceive what he did as wrong. But maybe that's the same thing?

But the idea that if 5 million folks had to die to free China from opium then so be it, is a fairly common opinion amongst Chinese immigrants that I know.

Mao accomplished what the Boxers had been unable to a hundred years before: getting the Westerners out.

This sort of makes him the George Washington of China.

[P_Funk]

Originally Posted by Heibges

This sort of makes him the George Washington of China.

Cept George washington then didn't walk up to Thomas Edison and shoot him in the head while sending the population of Harvard to work in the fields.

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by P_Funk

Cept George washington then didn't walk up to Thomas Edison and shoot him in the head while sending the population of Harvard to work in the fields.

Especially since Edison was not born until 1847.

[August]

Originally Posted by P_Funk

Cept George washington then didn't walk up to Thomas Edison and shoot him in the head while sending the population of Harvard to work in the fields.

And Mao didn't voluntarily hand over the reigns of power to an elected sucessor after 8 years like Washington did either.

[P_Funk]

Originally Posted by Takeda Shingen

Especially since Edison was not born until 1847.

It was the best I could think of. Give me a good 18th century american inventor then.:p