SOCIAL CHANGES IN CHINA

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SOCIAL CHANGESIN CHINA
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Since the early 1990's, Shanghai and other cities
have been making up for lost time. In 2005,
building at a frenetic pace, the nation expected
to lay down the finishing blocks on 4.7 billion
square feet or more of construction, a record, up
from 2 billion in 1998.
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The building boom is a principal reason that
China is searching the world for energy and
natural resources it needs raw materials to
build new cities, and the energy to power them,
driving up world commodity prices and threatening
global environmental damage.
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China's heavy reliance on coal to power its
overcharged economy has already made it the
world's second-largest producer of greenhouse
gases, after the United States. And the World
Health Organization says China has 7 of the
world's 10 most-polluted cities.
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Tiny airborne particles have drifted just north
of San Francisco from coal-fired power plants,
smelters, dust storms and diesel trucks in China
and other Asian countries.
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Sugai was destroyed by a flood of sludge
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From the Wall Street Journal, 9/4/02
Economic problems are the biggest challenge.
From 1996 to 2000, state-sector restructuring led
to the lay-offs of 48 million people equal to
the population of Korea.
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China is home to an estimated 100,000,000
unemployed. To put that in perspective, the US
economy employs 115,000,000!
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Cities are trying to absorb rural laborers
leaving unprofitable farms a throng estimated
at 150 million. Reforms are good for some
people but not for us, says Ma Tao, who, with
his wife, was laid off from a state-owned
factory.
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The spread of social unrest is a serious threat
to the (communist) partys grip on power in the
future Disgruntled Chinese citizens, especially
the newly unemployed, join the Falun Gong (a
religious group, though persecuted, which has
advocated religious freedom throughout the 1990s)
as a symbol of protest. Author Gordon G.
Chang
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The government says it has thoroughly cleaned the
areas to be submerged. But environmentalists say
the residue of industrial sites and toilets will
further contaminate an already polluted waterway.
They have cleared the garbage mounds less than
five years old. Those older than 5 years old are
simply buried underneath.
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In Zhongbaodao, a village near Yichang in the
Yangtze River Valley, archaeologists have
revealed more than 200 ancient tombs filled with
pottery, porcelain, stoneware, and polished tools
dating back at least 7,000 years! They also
unearthed a 3,000-year-old kiln from the Shang
Dynasty. At countless other sites along the
river, scores of treasures have emerged.PBS.org
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• GROWING SOCIAL PROBLEMS

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The inhabited part of China is roughly half as
large as the inhabited part of the US, yet it
supports five times as many people. This is made
possible only by crowding some 2,000 human beings
onto each square mile of cultivated earth in the
valleys and floodplains.
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Ones picture of a big empty landscape is
mirrored statistically in the estimate that six
sevenths of the population must live on the one
third of the land that is cultivable.
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The US has some 570,000 square miles under
cultivation and could greatly increase this area
China has perhaps 450,000 square miles of
cultivated land (less than one half acre of
food-producing soil per person), with little
prospect of increasing this area by more than a
small fraction, even if it is used more
intensively.
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In short, China must feed about 23 of the
worlds population from about 7 of the worlds
arable land.China A New History
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Projected Demand for WaterEven as the Yellow
River, aquifers, and wells get drier, the need
for water continues to swell. Between now and
2030, UN demographers project that Chinas
population will increase from 1.2 billion to 1.5
billion, an increase that exceeds the entire
population of the US. Even if there were no
changes in water consumption per person, this
would boost the demand for water by one-fourth
above current levels.
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THE CHINESE HAVE TO REDUCE THEIR BIRTHRATE TO
AVOID DROWNING IN A POPULATION OF MORE THAN A
BILLION. FEMALE INFANTICIDE IS ONE WAY BIRTH
CONTROL AND ABORTION ARE OTHERS. MANY AMERICANS
MEANWHILE WANT TO SAVE EVERY FETUS AS A SACRED
HUMAN BEING, NEVER MIND ITS MOTHER OR ITS FUTURE.
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A study by Lester R. Brown depicted a critical
situation. Taking into account Chinas rapid
paving-over of cropland for new factories, roads,
and housing its diminishing returns on
applications of fertilizers and growing
shortages of irrigation water, Brown calculated
that China was headed toward a huge grain deficit
-- a situation that would severely jeopardize
world food security by driving grain prices to
levels the worlds poor could never afford.
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IN 2004, Chinas forays into the world market to
buy 8 million tons of wheat marked what could be
the beginning of the global shift from an era of
grain surpluses to one of grain scarcity.
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In Washington, the National Intelligence Council,
concerned about the potential effects of rising
grain prices on political stability, launched a
major investigation that closely corroborated
Browns findings.
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Conclusion Water and food shortages could pose
even greater threats to human security in the
next century than the ideological threats that
had preoccupied us during the Cold
War.Worldwatchjuly/aug 1998
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Bill Zierdt, former Economics Professor at Marian
College, says You just wait. After the
Olympics, the Chinese Govt will really crack
down on protestors. He claims officials dont
want to raise the ire of the international
community beforehand.