Timothy Reynold’s Blog

In 1976, Mao Zedong died and China’s isolation ended.  Its next leader, Deng Xiaoping, opened China’s gates for foreign investments and businesses that made it an economic powerhouse.

Contrary to the communist ideals that Mao fiercely opposed in the course of his seat in control, Deng have turned China from a communist agrarian system of economy into capitalism. 

Leading in exports and manufacturing has given the nation a great economic advantage and in the world market.  Foreign businesses, particularly from the United States, outsource their work force in China purposely due to the low labour costs. 

Over the last ten years, China was able to transform itself into a very well developed country packed with new and modernized skyscrapers and an elaborate form of economy.  The forecasted China’s GDP for 2009 is assumed to be up 7%-9%.

Business competency is also common among the Chinese.  In countries that have a considerable population of Chinese, a lot of them make their living by entrepreneurship and most of their businesses are stories of success.

As China’s economy go on rising, a lot of finance experts still see plenty of barriers that could languish the country’s growth or even break it. 

One of these reasons is economic imbalance.  One of which is the issue of imbalance in terms of development in favor of urban areas over rural.  As the urban population in China experiences an improvement in their lives, a lot of people in the rural areas still experience hardships particularly the lack of good agricultural equipments and housing conveniences.

This situation might somewhat resemble Mao’s “Great Leap Forward” where the chairman converted farmers to become steel workers that resulted to widespread famine.  Today’s China, however, have learned from earlier mistakes and is somewhat sensible to its food production but more improvements are necessary before it can achieve perfect balance.

China also has its share of problems regarding politics and how it is being handled.  So far, every dissent in the country has been suppressed with no mercy in its mainland and other places they allege to be theirs such as Tibet. 

The way China is keeping Tibet under its rule is by building infrastructures, encouraging Chinese from the mainland to migrate, and crushing oppositions.

Other areas in China like the region of Xinjiang, home for sizeable number of Chinese Muslims known as Uighurs, is also experiencing both economic and political instability because of unrest. 

The last thing that is perhaps the most serious of all is climate change.  The pollution and carbon discharge China produces has risen just over the last 20 years and has now overtaken America.  The consequences brought about by this could not only upset China, but also its nearest countries and countries around the world.  The amount of carbon dioxide getting stuck on the planet will cause rising sea levels will definitely cause problems in China’s south, and could even melt glaciers from China’s western part and the Tibetan region which will ultimately be a cause of flooding and fresh water shortages.