Since the very inception of China’s history, economic progress has been the nation’s top priority. The Chinese government has always stressed to its citizens that they will be rewarded with perpetual economic growth insofar as social stability and respect for the party-state are maintained. While this system has enabled China to develop further, bringing about many shared benefits, it has also proven to have detrimental impacts on the environment. For some time, the issue of environmental degradation was of no concern because the nation was experiencing such tremendous growth and as a result, a higher standard of living. However, China is currently embracing a paradigm shift in its priorities, as citizens have pressured the central government to take more affirmative actions in protecting the environment, even if it hinders economic gain. There is now hope that the nation will balance the economy with environmental preservation, which may ultimately lead to increased development through sustainable policy.
When Mao Zedong first rose to power, the notion of economic growth over environmental protection was instilled in the nation. Moreover, nature was perceived as “an enemy to be vanquished, not an ally to be cultivated”, and this philosophy was later espoused by Deng Xiaoping (11). In his work, What Does China Think, Mark Leonard asserts that Deng encapsulated the ideology of “economic growth-at-all-costs” in his famous expression: “It doesn’t matter if the cat is black or white. All that matters is that it catches mice” (6). Over the past twenty years, China has developed economically as a result of “Black Cat GDP growth”, but Leonard points to a new indicator of economic growth, “the Green Cat”, which is propounded by Hu Angan...
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Reuters. Thomson Reuters, 12 Sept. 2013. Web. .
11. Starr, John Bryan. Understanding China. 3rd ed. London: Profile, 2001. Print.
12. Wang, Alex. "The Search for Sustainable Legitimacy: Environmental Law and
Bureaucracy in China." Social Science Research Network. N.p., 12 Aug. 2012. Web. .
13. Wong, Edward. "An 8-Year-Old Girl’s Lung Cancer Is Blamed on Air Pollution."
Sinosphere: Dispatches From China. The New York Times, 5 Nov. 2013. Web. .
14. Wu, Kang. Energy Economy in China: Policy Imperatives, Market Dynamics, and
Regional Developments. Singapore: World Scientific Co Pte, 2013. Print.
One of China’s best successes has in turn been one of its biggest downfalls. One of the main problems is China’s greatest success which has been its phenomenal economic growth. This is one of the main drivers of the current environmental problems that the country faces. Factories dump pollutants into the air and water. It is difficult to see the Chinese government making the significant sacrifices required to improve their environment if it means slowing down their economic growth.
An efficient life is one of the issues that prevents the government in the world to put full effort into protecting the environment. There is a trade off between a country’s development and environmental policy. For example, China has achieved rapid economic growth through industrialization in past few decades and become one of the largest economic power countries in the world. As a developing country, China wishes to use all the resources in the nature to boost their economic. The government wants to earn more money to improve rural areas in China and to reduce the poverty rate in the country. In order to reach those goals, mirac...
Hildebrant, Timothy . "Environmentalists cry 'fore!' in China." csmonitor.com. 16 Jul 2003. the Christian Science Monitor. 12 Apr. 2005 .
The rapid integration of the world’s economic systems through the breaking down of barriers to trade, finance, investment, technology and labour around the world has had profound effects on the Chinese economy. The world ’s largest economy has embraced the process of globalisation through trade liberalisation, financial market reform and the ‘open door policy’ therefore enabling China to receive the benefits of globalisation. This process has stimulated economic growth leading to sustained increases in per capita incomes, improvements in quality of life and significant reductions in poverty and unemployment. However, the effects of globalisation and rapid economic growth have come at a cost, resulting in significant environmental degradation
The Three Gorges Hydroelectric Dam was envisioned as China’s new symbol of power in a world that is driven by the latest innovations. However, today it is viewed around the world as a catastrophic environmental disaster that became a reality through corruption, improper planning, and complete disregard to pleas of warning. The dam was China’s answer to control annual flooding, a problem that in 1998 displaced 300 million Chinese who lived on the banks of the Yangtze River. It was also China’s tactic to increase international trade by deepening the Yangtze River to accommodate large cargo ships farther into Mainland China. Most importantly, it was China’s 24 billion dollar investment to decrease the annual burning of 50 million tons of coal with the goal of producing 10 percent of China’s total electricity needs by 2012 in response to the needs of its growing population. Despite these goals of economic growth and clean energy production, government officials ‘cut-corners’ during inspection to save money and refused to listen to warnings from engineers and environmentalists regarding the potential environmental devastation. “China decided to launch the project – then solve the problems along the way.” (John Byrne, the director of the University of Delaware’s Center for Energy and Environmental Policy)
China has approximately 20% of the world’s population, which is around 1.3 billion people (Morris, 2009, p. 111). Also, China has become one of the worlds biggest manufacturing countries within 30 years (Fawssett, 2009, p. 27). However, such rapid development has come at a cost, which has created various environmental problems. Coincidentally, China has 16 cities on a list of the 20 worst polluted cities in the world (Fawssett, 2009, p. 15). Therefore, this essay will explain the reasons for China’s environmental problems, then evaluate the claim that the Chinese government and people, are tackling these environmental problems. First, crop farming techniques over the last hundred years, and their consequences will be explained. Followed by, how peoples choice in food has changed over the last hundred years, and how this indirectly affects the environment. Then, how a capitalist economy is linked to agriculture, and finally what the Chinese government and people are doing to tackle these problems.
Having been environment caring since a young age, I have always had a large appreciation for the world resources that are essential for living. I always follow my dad and uncle conducting research about the environment since they are both faculties in the field of environment science, read articles about controversies and I am fascinated with the problem that affects everyone in the world. I have always considered it the far and wide most important resource in the world, and I feel as though China has a pretty lacking appreciation for it, whereas many other countries, as a whole, are constantly trying to come up with new solutions to solve the problem.
China’s economy is one very large indicator of its role in globalization. “In 2010 China became the world’s largest exporter” (CIA World Factbook). Without China many places such as the United States of America would be without billions of goods imported from China annually. An influx of companies moving their manufacturing to China has allowed people to flock to cities and find jobs. China’s economy has grown exponentially over the last few decades. In the last three years China’s economy has grown by nearly ten percent every year. Despite this influx of money to China it has also resulted in many drawbacks. For example, China’s environment has been obliterated. China burns more coal than every country in the world combined. Beijing has been so badly polluted that there are actually companies that sell cans of fresh air to people, and gas masks are a common sight. On January 12th 2013 Beijing’s air pollution reached a record setting 775 PPM. To put that into perspective, the scale for measuring pollution is 0-500 PPM. This set an all-time recorded high. In Los Angeles a high ...
China has recently fallen into an economic slump. Because it is so involved with other countries around the world, this economic slump that China is going through is also affecting the other countries as well. The environment has also been affected negatively by globalization. There are many polluting industries, wastes, ecologically destructive practices, and air and water pollution. The reason this is happening is because people see China as a vastly growing country, corporations and companies want to move there because of the great opportunities they see to grow. Globalization has also impacted Chinese culture in a negative way. Because it is so powerful, the country has a sense of cultural superiority that was once not there. The cultural change started in the 1980’s when a series of reforms was launched. After these reforms were launched tensions emerged in the Chinese culture. China was trying to merge the traditional Chinese culture with the modernized version of Chinese culture. The modernization of Chinese culture has two components, revamping traditional culture and absorbing other civilizations modernization and incorporating them into a new culture. It is very difficult for the Chinese culture to do this because of the massive number of older people that make up the population. Another negative impact of globalization in China deals with the
China has made some improvements in environmental protection during recent years. According to the World Bank, China is one of a few countries in the world that have been rapidly increasing their forest cover. It is managing to reduce air and water
It’s become a common sight to behold. In other cities, popular must have fashion items include scarves, sunglasses and perhaps a striking pair of shoes. In Beijing however, surgeon masks have been “in style” for years and more recently more people have been sporting a can of fresh air; from Canada. The pollution has gotten so bad that people are willing to pay as much as 22.95 U.S dollars for a 10-liter bottle of “Pure Premium Oxygen’. “[The] first shipment of 500 bottles of fresh air were sold in four days,” said co-founder Moses Lam to the Telegraph. The government has faced increased domestic and international pressure to address the situation. Throughout the years, China’s industrialization and economic boom has brought millions of people out of poverty and skyrocketed their economy to first place, but in doing so, their environment has been seriously damaged. A new poll done by Gallup shows that 57% of Chinese adults believed that protection of the environment should be given top priority even at risk of slowing economic growth.
The Challenge of China Contribution to a Transcultural Political Economy ofCommunication for the Twenty-First Century
When the new Chinese Government was set up in 1949, the new government faced a lot of problems. First on their agenda was how to re-build the country. As Communist Party of China (CPC) is a socialist party, their policies at the time were similar to that of the Soviet Union’s. Consequently, the CPC used a centrally planned strategy as its economic strategy when it first began. For a long time, the Chinese economy was a centrally planned economy in which none other than the state owned all companies. In fact, there were absolutely no entrepreneurs. As time went on, the problems of a centrally planned economy started to appear, such as low productivity, which was the key reason for restricting the development of China. With the population growing, the limitations of the centrally planned economy were clear. In 1978 China started its economic reform whose goal was to generate sufficient surplus value to finance the modernization of the Chinese economy. In the beginning, in the late 1970s and early 19...
Countries such as China and Japan need to enforce more powerful regulations on the amount of carbon emissions that they produce. China put in regulations just this last year and Japan postponed plans for a national regulations on carbon emissions, bowing to powerful business groups that warned of job losses as they compete against overseas rivals facing fewer emissions regulations. It’s not a good sign that large corporations can control how a nation regulates its environmental safety laws. China is finally planning to regulate their carbon emissions. This is long over due concerting that China ranks as the world’s number one carbon dioxide emitter, thanks in part to the massive amounts of coal the country burns. China currently builds a new coal-fired power plant at a rate of about one every week to ten days. The country’s coal burning levels are nearly on par with the rest of the world combined.
China is a large developing country with rich human resources and natural resources. With the implementation of the open policy and economic reform since 1980s, China has gone through a rapid growth. In addition, Chinese government has actively perfected the domestic legal and economic environment to attract more foreign investment. Being a neighbor country with China and the similar cultural connections, Singapore has made a close and sound economic cooperation with China in accordance with Lee Lai To (2011). The economic environment in China has played a crucial role in the economic relationship between China and Singapore.