China

The world’s most populous country and
the world’s fastest growing economy

For centuries China stood as a leading civi lization, outpacing the rest of the world in the arts and sciences, but in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the country was beset by civil unrest, major famines, military defeats, and foreign occupation. After World War II, the Communists under Mao Zedong established an autocratic socialist system that, while ensuring China’s sovereignty, imposed strict controls over everyday life and cost the lives of tens of millions of people. After 1978, his successor Deng Xiaoping and other leaders focused on market-oriented economic development and by 2000 output had quadrupled. For much of the population, living standards have improved dramatically and the room for personal choice has expanded, yet political controls remain tight.

History
China, with a recorded history of 5,000 years, was one of the world’s earliest civilizations. China was one of the countries where economic activity first developed. As early as 5,000 to 6,000 years ago, people in the Yellow River valley had already started farming and raising livestock.

In the 21st century B.C., China established a slave society with the founding of the Xia Dynasty, thereby writing a finale to long years of primitive society. In 221 B.C., Qin Shihuang established China’s first centralized autocracy, the Qin Dynasty, thereby ushering Chinese history into feudalism, which endured in a succession of dynasties until the Opium War of 1840.

The Bourgeois Democratic Revolution of 1911 led by Sun Yat-sen toppled the rule of the Qing Dynasty, putting an end to more than 2,000 years of feudal monarchical system.

The People’s Republic of China was founded on October 1, 1949. Today, China is implementing reform and open polices, and has established a socialist market economy.

Geography
Usually described as part of East Asia, China is south of Mongolia and the Siberian land mass, west of the Korean Peninsula and insular Japan, north of Southeast Asia, and east of Central and South Asia. China has a total area of nearly 9,596,960 square kilometers including 270,550 square kilometers of inland lakes and rivers.

Mountains cover 33 percent of China’s landmass, plateaus 26 percent, basins 19 percent, plains 12 percent, and hills 10 percent. China has five main mountain ranges, and seven of its mountain peaks are higher than 8,000 meters above sea level. In the Himalaya Mountains, the world’s highest is Mount Everest shared with Nepal and Pakistan. The lowest inland point in China—the second lowest place in the world after the Dead Sea—is at Turpan Pendi and also one the hottest places in China.

China has 50,000 rivers and most flow from west to east and empty into the Pacific Ocean. The major rivers are the Yangzi (Changjiang or Yangzte River), which rises in Tibet, flows through Central China and enters the Yellow Sea near Shanghai. The Yangzi is the third longest river in the world after the Amazon and the Nile.

Beijing, a city in northern China, is the capital of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). It was formerly known in English as Peking. It is China’s second largest city in terms of population, after Shanghai. It is a major transportation hub, with dozens of railways, roads and expressways entering and leaving it in all directions. It is also the focal point of many international flights to China. Beijing is recognized as the political, educational, and cultural center of the People’s Republic of China, while Shanghai and Hong Kong predominate in economic fields. Beijing is one of the Four Great Ancient Capitals of China. It will also host the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Natural Resources
China has substantial mineral reserves and is the world’s largest producer of antimony, natural graphite, tungsten, and zinc. Other major minerals are bauxite, coal, crude petroleum, diamonds, gold, iron ore, lead, magnetite, manganese, mercury, molybdenum, natural gas, phosphate rock, tin, uranium, and vanadium. With its vast mountain ranges, China’s hydropower potential is the largest in the world.

Population
China’s population reached 1.3 billion on January 5, 2005. The most densely populated provinces are in the east and the least densely populated areas are in the west. Sixty-two percent of the population lived in rural areas in 2004, while 38 percent lived in urban settings. In the long term, China faces increasing urbanization, with nearly 70 percent living in urban areas by 2035.

China has been the world’s most populous nation for many centuries. When China took its first post- 1949 census in 1953, the population stood at 582 million; by the fifth census in 2000, the population had almost doubled, reaching 1.2 billion. China’s fastgrowing
population was a major policy matter for its leaders in the mid-twentieth century, and, in the early 1970s they implemented a stringent one-child birthcontrol policy. As a result of that policy, China successfully achieved its goal of a more stable and muchreduced fertility rate; in 1971 women had an average of 5.4 children versus an estimated 1.7 children in 2004. Nevertheless, the population continues to grow, and people want more children.

Ethnic Groups
China is a multi-racial country with 56 ethnic groups. In the long course of its development, all the nationalities have joined in the effort to create the great culture that China represents.

Apart from the Han nationality, the other 55 ethnic groups, with a total of more than 96.5 million people, constitute roughly 8.04% of the total population. Those with more than one million people are: Zhuang, Hui, Uyghur, Yi, Miao, Manchu, Tibetan, Mongolian, Tujia, Bouyei, Korean, Dong, Yao, Bai and Hani.

The constitution guarantees all non-Han groups certain national rights and privileges, such as the exemption from the one-child-policy, lower academic requirements for entering colleges and universities, tax breaks and government subsidies.

Languages
The official language of China is standard Chinese or Mandarin. Other major dialects are Cantonese, Shanghaiese, Fuzhou, Hokkien-Taiwanese, and Kejia. Because of the many ethnic groups in China, numerous minority languages also are spoken. All of the Chinese dialects share a common written form that has evolved and been standardized during two millennia as a unifying bond.

Religion
The traditional religions of China are Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism. Confucianism
is not a religion, although some have tried to imbue it with rituals and religious qualities.

Christianity and Islam represent only about 4 percent and 2 percent of the population, respectively. In the late 1990s, there were some 100 million various sects of Buddhism and some 9,500 temples, many of which are maintained as cultural landmarks and tourist attractions. The Buddhist Association of China was established in 1953 to oversee officially sanctioned Buddhist activities. Officially, the state cknowledges that there were some 10 million Protestants and about 4 million Catholics in 2000. However, both Protestants and Catholics also have large “underground” communities, possibly numbering as many as 90 million.

Economy
After nearly a quarter century of reform and opening to the outside world, China’s economic system is the third largest in the world. In 2004 China had the world’s seventh largest gross domestic product (GDP) at US$1.4 trillion, resulting in a per capita GDP of US$1,000. The government has a goal of quadrupling the GDP by 2020 and increasing per capita GDP two-and-a-half times. China’s Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) was estimated for 2003 at nearly US$6.5 trillion. Based on official Chinese data, the GDP growth rate for 2003 was 9.1 percent. PPP per capita in 2003 was estimated at US$5,000.

China now has one of the 10 largest economies and is an important engine for economic growth across the globe. China consumes more steel, coal, meat and grain than any other nation. It is also the world’s fifth largest exporter, trading extensively with the EU, Japan and the US. The rapid economic progress has transformed cities and coastal areas.

But for those in China’s underdeveloped rural interior life remains difficult.

Government and Politics
China’s political system is led by the 66.4-million- member the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Political processes are guided by the CCP constitution and, increasingly, by the state constitution, both promulgated in 1982.

The head of state of China is the president. Hu Jintao is currently China’s President. He was elected in March 2003 succeeded Jiang Zemin. The constitution provide for a president and vice president of the People’s Republic of China elected by the National Country Focus People’s Congress (NPC) for five-year terms and no more than two consecutive terms.

There are 22 provinces, four municipalities directly under central government control and five autonomous regions. These elect local people’s congresses, and are administered by people’s governments. The politburo (political bureau) of the CCP sets policy and controls all administrative, legal, and executive appointments.

China today and tomorrow
China now has the world’s fastest-growing economy and is undergoing what has been described as a second industrial revolution.

According to The Economist, China’s economic activity is showing no signs of slowing, with the money supply growing by 19% year on year in May, fixed investment expanding by 30% and renminbi lending up by 16%. As a result, they have revised up our GDP growth forecast for 2006 from 9.5% to 9.6%.

The Economist also forecasted that the influence of China’s president, Hu Jintao, will continue to grow as he looks to appoint a number of allies to key government and party positions. No significant progress will be made on political reform. Instead, tolerance of dissent is likely to decrease in 2007, ahead of the 17th congress of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in that year and the Olympic Games in the capital, Beijing, in 2008. The government’s main priority will be to achieve a more balanced pattern of economic
growth, by orienting policy measures towards the poorer western and central provinces and the less well-off sections of the population. The government will also try to make the economy less dependent on exports and investment, while introducing measures to boost consumption. GDP growth will slow to 8.3% in 2007, from 9.6% in 2006, as investment growth eases in response to the economy’s problems with oversupply and tighter monetary policy. The currentaccount surplus will narrow to 5.6% of GDP in 2007, from 7.2% in 2005, as China improves foreign access to its services sector.

Sources: Library of Congress –Federal Research Division, The World Factbook, BBC, The Economist, China National Tourist Office

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