Week 14 (China's dilemma)

Reflect on China's dilemma between pursuing higher economic growth and escalating pollution due to industrialization.

^ our task (:

To pursue higher economic growth, China requires money to start, land to build the factories and factories to be able to manufacture products for imports and exports in the country. For more factories to be built, it requires more land and to get land, China needs to cut down a large number of trees in the forests in order to make space for the building of the factories. More factories would mean higher emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and an enchaned greenhouse effect which leads to global warming. China's dilemma: China wants to improve their economy, yet they do not hope to affect the environment by polluting it indirectly. 

I feel that China should not build that many factories. I understand that economic growth is important to the country. However, damage done to the environment is irreversible. It is hard to find a balance between emissions and the country's economy. Given that China is at its peak now, having 2nd placing in the world for GDP, China should take this chance to invest in green technology, reducing the carbon dioxide emissions of the country. Maybe this is just a child's view towards this matter. After all, China's problems that are within the country are not known to most of us. In all respect, regardless of how reasonable the reasons behind industrialization are, shouldn't the environment always come first? People will be able to breathe better air, if air pollution wasn't so severe. They would have better health and less would see the doctor. The government should be for the citizens, communist or democratic. Health and the welfare of the people should be placed above the economy of the country. It's hard to find a balance, I'm pretty sure everyone understands why, but I really hope that people always come first, money second. Never the other way round. Money is for the people and not people for the money. 

China is a developing country. It is understandable for developing countries to go through rapid industrialization to increase the country's economic growth. However, rapid industrialization causes an increase in pollution and an enhanced the rate of global warming. The effects of global warming has shown over the years and it may get worse in the near future. These effects are life threatening and it could change the Earth into an unrecognizable state where humans are fighting for one another for resources.

I believe that prevention is always better than cure. We may not be able to go back to the past to undo all the damage we have done to Earth, but we can always try to reduce the rate of Global Warming. Therefore, despite the fact that China wants to increase the country's economic growth, China should consider investing in green technology to save the Earth.

Despite wanting to be a fully developed country, China still considers the impact on the environment. This is what caused China's dilemma. Since China is a developing country, it is not wrong for China to industrialize. I feel that China had already went through much consideration before its decision to build more factories instead of acting bullheadedly and selfishly to achieve its goal. 

To gain something, you have to lose something, but you have to decide which is more worth it; to gain than to lose. In this case, China is facing pollution due to industralization while pursuing higher economic growth. 

For everything, there should be a win-win situation. Since it is equally important for China to have higher economic growth (to become a fully developed country) and to have a healthy and safe environment for everyone on earth to live in, China should continue with their industralization but they should always be harmful as to the harmful effects industralizing can cause to the environment and work on that area to improve the living conditions of the people and other living things in the world. 

Week 13 (One Child Policy)

Definition of 'One-Child Policy' : A policy implemented by the Chinese government as a method controlling the population. The one-child policy was introduced in 1979 in response to an explosive population growth and mandated that couples from China's Han majority could only have one child. This was intended to alleviate the social, economic and environmental problems associated with the country's rapidly growing population. Most of the people in China grew up in large families, where they have many siblings as parents in the past  liked to have many children, especially sons. As they grew up in this sort of environment, they would naturally want to have more than one child and this would give their children more company for a more enjoyable childhood.  In China, males are favoured more than females since they can do more manual labour in order to provide for the family (seen as more beneficial compared to females who stay home as housewives) and that the males are responsible for carrying on the family bloodline. With this policy, the abortion rate in China would be higher due to the son preference in China, leading to the increase in the male to female ratio from 108:100 to 111:100. At this rate, the worst case scenario is that females will go extinct (highly unlikely) and the males will have no one to marry resulting in no more births. Some parents who prefers females to males would abort the males too. An abortion= One life killed. This method is cruel and unfair to the babies who are killed before they even had the chance to see the world. Even an unborn baby has his/her own life and should not be killed due to his/her gender since it can't choose his/her gender either. I feel that every child is a parent's blood and marrow and should not be aborted so cruelly just because of their gender and this law implemented to control the population in the country.  People who have high positions in their companies--politicians or anything of that sort are looked up to and would not want to break the law (One Child Policy). Some of which whom are more well-to-do would consider having a second child since they can afford to support the child and pay for the fines. However, they would not want to disappoint the people who look up to them by breaking the law and thus sacrifice their job just to have a second child. In this case, there would be less people would want to take up these jobs of there is an upsurge in the number of parents who wants to have a second child. Another scenario is that many people would want to keep their job and not have a second child or even no children at all. China's population will drastically decrease, big time. But obviously, this will not happen at this point of time.  China's one child policy has estimated to prevent 400 million births and resulted in many singletons in each family since its launch in 1979. If you are a single child, you would know how it feels to have no siblings. There are pros and cons of being a singleton. However, I feel that the disadvantages outnumbers the advantages of being a single child in your family. Firstly, you would have no one to play with during your childhood, therefore, you would live a boring childhood. Secondly, you would have no one to talk to when you are feeling down and no one to accompany you at home when your parents go to work. This indirectly causes more children to become notorious as those who prefer company would find ways to mingle with people outside from home and pick up bad habits. Thirdly, it might be rather stressful to be the only child as your parents would place all the hopes on you. For example, parents would have high expectations for their child, urging them to get good grades as this would concern their future. Therefore, I feel that China should not have this 'One-Child Policy' and should chnage it to maybe a 'Two-Child Policy' even if they wanted to control the population in the country as this might minimize the number of abortions and children would have more company with siblings around xD

Isn't this baby just too cute hehe

Week 9 CID (China-Great Wall of China)

It is kind of impossible to pick only one event it represents because so many things occurred. The good, the bad and the ugly. When I look at the picture, it reminds me of the building of it as well as the battles that were won and lost. I'm sure you've heard of the stories about people dying while building the Great Wall of China because of overworking, starvation and so on. This is probably why many look at the Great Wall of China like it is evil or cruel. People dying while building the Great Wall is definitely a sad and important thing to remember. But in my opinion, they died serving the country (whether they are forced to take part in the building or not). To China, this probably is the thing that they are most proud of. After all, it did become one of the 7 wonders of the world. I'm assuming that China has many battles last time and thus built this majestic wall for defense. But then again, they did lose the Defense of the Great Wall. They did hold back the Japanese for an impressive three days given how under armed they were compared to their enemies. It's an honour to serve your country, do the best you can for her. 

One Party Rule

Since 1949, the Communist of China has been in power. However, we do not feel that the One Party Rule system should be used to rule China 

First of all, the people in the country would not have much say in their decisions as the party who rules China would decide for them most of the time. This might also lead to unpopular decisions made in the country as they do not have people's consent before carrying out an action. 

Secondly, there would be no variety of opinions as it takes a long time for messages to be delivered throughout the country. Thus, opinions from the people themselves are often not seeded before coming to a decision to carry out a certain action. 

As they only have One Party to rule the country, there is a high possibility that they would overlook things very easily as they would have to maintain the needs of so many people in the country. 

As such, they are declining the amount welfare given to the people in the County as they would not be receiving the best from gthis system.

 Although having this system may avoid conflicts between the party and people when making certain decisions to the country and also save time and financial resources on much needed campaigns, this system would not be favorable to most of the people in China due to the overwhelming number of cons of this system.