Tuesday, August 7, 2007

The Decrease of Chinese Population Growth

China has the largest population in the world, and this is a really famous fact. (China warns of population growth.2007). There are many opinions that concern the overpopulation problem, and of course this problem will happen in the near future. However, we also should think about the low population problem. Do you know that China is one of the countries that have the lowest fertility in developing countries, and that some decades from now, the population will drop? According to Matt Rosenberg, “By the late 2010s, China's population is expected to reach 1.4 billion. Around 2030, China's population is anticipated to peak and then slowly start dropping” (2007). Recently, some researchers have begun to have interests and concerns with this problem because of that risk. And the main 4 problems of Chinese population growth are the following; the Chinese population growth as “Negative growth”, low population problem, the world being influence by Chinese problem, and the influence in the future by the today’s over population problem.

This argument’s background is divided into three points, the change of Chinese population growth, the reason for the decrease of Chinese population growth, and who argues about that.

The first point is the population change, this can be divided in according to age; before the 1970s, 1970s-today, and the future. In People's Daily (para2, 2004) online, the writer says, "The birth rate and natural growth rate of China's population have been cut by half and by about two-thirds, respectively, since 1970, but the country is still under pressure from a large growing population,’ the periodical, formerly called Fortnightly Review, a leading bi-weekly periodical on current affairs, quoted Zhang Weiqing, head of the State Family Planning Commission, as saying.” (April 12, 2000). Against huge population, the government planned to reduce birth rate, and that was a success. The one-child policy, which is the plan that required the Chinese people to have just one or two children and charge a penalty to who have more than three children, also was born in this decade. Therefore, the fertility rate in China has decrease since 1970s, but, the huge population can’t be changed, even now the numbers are increasing each year. According to Columbia University, East Asian Curriculum Project, “ China's birth rate eventually declined to 1.03 percent in 1995, an extraordinarily low rate for a developing country. Still, because of the absolute size of the country's total population, there is a net increase of about one million each month, an annual gain of over 12,000,000 that equals the total population of New York City.” So China’s population will increase until the near future, however, as Matt Rosenberg said, after some decades, the decrease will start surely.

The second point is the reason for the decrease in Chinese population growth. Why Chinese population growth is decreasing now? Actually, there are three factors. One big reason is the famous policy, the one-child plan. Most families have less than two children, because of the penalty that requires paying money. And, women’s advances also influence the birth rate. According to People's Daily Online, “Low birth-giving rate of modern women is closely related to the modern life. In this rapidly developing era, women are more and more independent and bearing heavy pressures in the meanwhile. Therefore no responsible woman would give an easy answer to the serious matter of whether or not to have babies.” (para1,2004). Third reason is industrialization and urbanization of China. The last point of background is who argue about that. South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan, the countries that have rapid revolutions are likely to become lower in population. Now, China is developing quickly, and this is why they also will have low fertility.

And one who would argue about Chinese low population is Matt Rosenberg (2007), a professional geographer and the author. He explains that China’s population will decrease in his article.

Above this background, it is important to argue about low population growth in China. Besides, low population will be a problem in the future, so we can try to prevent and avoid those problems that will happen by thinking about them now. And then, there are four main factors that we should discuss.

First one is about the Chinese population growth as “Negative growth”. In 2050, the number of old people will more increase, and the number of young people will decrease more. (IIASA,1999). The population balance will collapse and this trend will have a bad influence on Chinese society. That is a really awful case.

Second one is about the low population problems. If the number of people who can work will decrease, Chinese economy will decline. Additionally, because old people are more than young people, they will have an extremely huge weight to take care of their parents’ generation. Besides, China has a lot of land, so the shortage of workers who manage it will happen.

Third one is about the influence of Chinese low population growth problem. Nowadays, China has large effects on other countries. The imports and exports are active, and then many foreign companies are built in China. If Chinese population growth drops and become unbalanced, other countries and companies should also suffer.

The final points are about the influence by the action to avoid overpopulation on the future’s low population. That is to say, today the government does some policy or action to reduce population, but this can make a low population problem in the future more serious. Of course, overpopulation will cause some problems like pollution and shortage of jobs. However, without thinking about what follows overpopulation, only being concerned about today’s problems, China can’t avoid additional problems.

In conclusion, Chinese government should think and plan about the problem in the future, and, there are four solutions to do now. The first one is improving relationships between China and other countries. By this action, emigration and immigration will be active, and then when the shortages of Chinese workers happen, they can ask for other countries’ help. Additionally, this good relationship can be useful to control today’s over population. The Chinese government should plan to have good relationships as soon as possible.

The second idea is preparing for encouragement of marrying and producing babies. Actually, this is difficult to act because now, they have too many babies. But surely, in the future, there will be a time that they need to have more babies like now some developed countries, so they should think about that from now.

The third idea is planning how take care of old people. Because the number of old people and young people will be imbalanced, the weight to take care of them and pay money for them will become heavier than now. This problem makes young people busy and poor, and then it will be hard for them to have babies. This is not too much to say, because in Japan, already such a thing has happened.

And final idea is studying other countries’ cases. Today, many developed countries have difficulties of the shortage of young population. This is the result of industrialization and most all countries that become rich will experience this. Therefore, there can be different idea to avoid and solve low population problem in the world or the bad experience, and China can use those things for their own actions.

China’s real problem to solve now is not only overpopulation but also a low population problem.

References
Matt, Rosenberg. ( 2007 January 20). The Population Growth of the World's Largest Country.
The New York Times Company. Retrieved 2007 from
http://geography.about.com/od/populationgeography/a/chinapopulation.htm

China Striving to Keep Birth Rate Low. ( 2000 April). People's Daily Online. Retrieved April 12, 2000, http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/english/200004/12/eng20000412_38730.html

China's Population by Age & Sex, 1950 – 2050. (1999). IIASA. Retrieved 1999, http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Research/LUC/ChinaFood/data/anim/pop_ani.htm

China warns of population growth (2007 May). BBC NEWS. Retrieved May, 7, 2007, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6631471.stm

Why birth rate in China keeps dropping. (2004 March 31). People's Daily Online. 2004,
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200403/31/eng20040331_139051.shtml

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

The Future of Chinese Population

Today, the pollution problem has become a big concern, and people have interest in the largest country, China’s population.

According to “China's Population: Readings and Maps”, Chinese population has continued to rise until 20th century and today, they have about 1.3 billion people. And this writer argues about the following three points; the size of Chinese population, the change of this, and the population problem today.

First point is about how large Chinese population is. The writer shows the fact that the Chinese have the 1/5 population in the world. Still, China has huge land, this number is too big. The number of people gained each year is declining today, but 12 million people, as much as the population of NY, increases surely.

Second point is about the change of this population by Chinese policies. During the 20th century, the Chinese government thinks this huge population is a serious problem, and acts to reduce the number of people. For example, the one-child policy is famous. This law requires people to have fewer children, 1 is best, 2 are better, and 3 are bad. However, from the view of human rights, there are some opinions against those policies. Besides, those policies succeeded and population started to decrease, but in a huge population, the result can’t be so remarkable. Then, the change of population is not only the number, but also the form. Today, more Chinese are likely to live in an urban area and the number of old people is increasing because of long life expectancy.

Third point is about the population problem of China. Now, the material to use as energy is decreasing in China, although it has huge land. Needless to say, the population by those large population makes us worry.

By those points, which problems we can guess and try to prevent in China’s future? I think there will be these three things; the shortage of jobs, the high-pressure on children, and the dependence on resource of other countries.
The first problem is the shortage of jobs. The huge population will lead to this problem. This article explains, now the number of Chinese who are under 14 is 319,244,000, and that of U.S is 58,196,000. Besides, many people live in the country are still poor and there are few good jobs.

The second problem is the high pressure on Chinese children. For the policy to reduce population, most Chinese families have 1 or 2 children. Until today, the care for the old family is shared with a large number of brothers, however, now, they should have the weight with less number of brother. Besides, the small the number of children is, the more the amount of hope by their families is.

The third problem is the dependence on the resource of other countries. The shortage of domestic material encourages the import from foreign countries. Because of this problem, China can be poor and not free from relationships with other countries.

In conclusion, the Chinese government should not only solve the overpopulation problem, but also think about problems that can happen in the future. And there are some countries that have already those problems, like Japan. China can use those countries’ experiences for themselves.

Reference
China's Population: Readings and Maps (n.d.). Columbia University, East Asian Curriculum Project Retrieved (n.d) from
http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/china/geog/population.htm

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Chinese population

In the world, it is the common opinion that China has the largest population. And, nowadays, it is also said that this is a serious problem from the world pollution and the shortage of material in the earth because of the huge number of people. What can we do for solving those things? That is the thinking about the largest country’s population. If we know about that, we can get the idea for those problems.

This article, China,,(2007).In Encyclopedia Britannica, shows the change of the Chinese population. And there are three things that the writer wants to discuss; China until now, the government plans, and the future of China. China has continued the growth of its population. In BC 800, still this number is not accurate; the population is just 59.6 million. However, the low death rate because of the better health and medicine has increased the population, then that had surpassed 1.3 billion in the 21th century. This is an awful number. On the other hand, the writer said, “Since 1970, however, when the third family-planning program was launched, state efforts have been much more effective. China's population growth rate is now among the lowest for a developing country,”. That is to say,some of the Chinese force of the growth of population can be weaked by success of the some government’s plans. But, the writer continues his words, “Although, because its population is so huge, annual net population growth is still considerable”. We can think the population rate will rise for now.

The Chinese population will rise more. Therefore we should do something to solve those problems due to over population. And these are the following three actions; supplying education, pushing emigration from China, and inventing something against pollutions.

The first point is to give more knowledge about contraception for Chinese people. because many people in developing countries don’t have opportunities to get enough education and they don’t know how to avoid the pregnancy. If they can make their good family-plan, they will have better lives and the pollution will stop increasing.

The second point is to encourage their emigration for foreign countries, because of Chinese gathering in one place, the sources of the land decreasing rapidly and much pollution appeariy. So, if people go out from China, those problems will be lighter. Like Japan and Italy, some countries do not have enough people to work. As long as the immigration has no confusion, people of the countries say welcome. And for this success, both governments, China and other countries should have a good relationship and plan to how to make the emigration successful.

The third point is to study for the invention that reduces over-population problems. If they have high quality skills for solving those problems, over population is not so bad. In the developed country, some inventions are studied like the alternative energy, and good handling of trash and those trends should be adopted in China.

Still, some people say that the earth can suppot a greater number of people and over population is not true. However, this opinion is wrong, actuary, the shortage of oil and wood, the dissolution of the ice in the North Pole, and the collapse of the ozone hole is starting. Our earth has a limit of the population.

In conclusion, for solving over population problems, we should be careful about China. However, unfortunately, some developed countries have bad relationships with China. And we should start to grow up good connections to deal with the huge population that will not stop for the time being.




Reference,

“China” (2007). In Encyclopedia Britannica.
Retrieved July 16, 2007, from Encyclopedia Britannica Online: http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-70958

Monday, July 16, 2007

Growth in the city

Today, many people say parents should raise their kids in a country. But this advice is really good? No. Children should be brought up in a city, because of these three points; the wealth of friendships, the knowledge of the risks in a city, and the good opportunity.

The first point is the wealth of friendships. Children can have more good friendships in a city then in a country. There are many problem in countries whose populations are decreasing, and one of them is the depopulation in countryside. Usually few young people live there, and there is a really small school or no school. If the family lives in a little village, it is hard for children to go to school, make friends, and play with them. On the other hand, the children who live in a city are likely to have many opportunities to make good friendships and experiences with friends. Then, in a city, there are a lot of spaces to play, for example, the shops which sell fashionable things for reasonable prises, many kind of amusement parks, and good cafes. And those places are very important for teenagers' playing. They make friendships there. However, in a country, they have no or few places to have fun for teenagers. This is why many young people who live in the country want to go out of it. For keeping your children from stress and dullness, parents should grow up them in a city.

The second point is the knowledge of the risk in the city. The risk to be suffered from bad things in a city is higher in a country's children than in a city's. Today, many young people come to a city in order to get more educations or good jobs. However, unfortunately, some of them get
involved with crime, because of their shortage of knowledge about cities. Sometimes They don't know that they must not listen to someone who speaks them in the street. However, children who live in a city have a lot of experiences to avoid the danger, because they have grown up there. Besides, newcomers from the country can be tired and anxious too much, because of being in an alien place. Then there are rooms to come into by who want to cheat them. If children will go to a city in the future, they should be raised in a city now.

The third point is the great opportunities they can get in a city. The more opportunities children have, the better for their growth. And, citis have many places to study, work and satisfy thier interests. There are famous universities, good companies, and many places to develop themselves.Of course they can suffer from the limit of money or no understanding by their families; still thay have another way. If you live in a city, you can choose what you want. Then, in cities,there is a variety of people. There is a large thinking, experience, knowledge,sense of values. The meeting with people who are not like one is a really good thing for children.

There are some opinions that say to raise children in the country for the reason still. They claim that is the good relationship. According to their opinions, people in the country are more friendly and kind than people in the city and they can have better effects of children’s growth at the society communication ability. However, this opinion is not true, because children need not only the opportunity to toke with the older people but also that to meet other children who are similar age. And in the country, they have less such opportunities than in the big cities. That is to say, it is better that raise their children in the city.

In conclusion, parents had better make decision to raise their children in the city. For their good future, less stressful and safety lives, city life is necessary. The country is just for vacation or living by older people. However, it is true that the fee for renting or buying the house in the city is really heavy for the young family, and they should start to save money for that purpose.

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Test

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My name is Ayuko.
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