China Overpopulation Essay

By introducing China’s One-Child Policy (Family Planning Policy) in 1979, China hopes to decrease its country’s annual population growth. China has implemented the policy by many different

China is the world's most populous nation and its population has, on average, increased by over 25 people every minute, every day for the past 40 years. (Richards 5) For a developing country such as China, with 22 percent of the world's population and only 7 percent of the world's arable land, rapid and persistent population growth can contribute significantly to the nation's poverty levels and restrain its potential for economic growth. (Gu 42) China's one-child family policy was first announced in 1979. In a 1979 speech, Deng Xiaoping drew the first outlines of a policy to limit population growth, "Use whatever means you must to control China's population. Just do it." (Mosher 50)

Since 1980, China has made its people the subject of an intrusive and unfair, One Child Policy. This policy was the result of Chinese officials becoming worried of the countries jump in population from 1960 to 1980 causing a widespread lack of resources, so they decided to induct a law that would make force Chinese citizens to be limited to one child. Because of this controversial policy the question has been raised, did the one child policy positively or negatively effect China? The one child policy did negatively effect China and its people, because it resulted in gender discrimination, unjust punishments and was unnecessary due to the already declining fertility rate.

With more than 1.3 billion people, China has to think about a solution and find ways to deal with its population explosion. In order to have control over population, in 1970, a policy named China’s One Child Policy was introduced. Mingliang argues that, “China, through the one-child policy, has instituted the most aggressive, comprehensive population policy in the world” (1). This policy limits all families in the Republic of China to have only one child, regardless of the sex: however, within this policy there are some exceptions. It is possible to have two children only if the first child is born with a disability, if parents work in a high risk job, if the couple lives in villages, or if the family is a non- Han, otherwise you are

There has been a long history of China’s one child policy, since it was first introduces in 1979 by a Chinese Leader Deng Xiaoping (Rosenberg n.p). The law was meant to be temporary and used to control the population; however it is still in use today (Rosenberg n.p). When the policy was first enforced, it only

The one-child policy was implemented in 1979 by the Chinese government (The Economist 3). Its original goal was to restrain the population growth from its expected goal of 1.4 billion to a maximum of 1.2 billion by the end of the century (Kane and Choi 992). The policy was created with little regard to the potential demographic or societal changes, but rather was a political and economic measure to control the abnormally high population growth (Feng et al. 84). China’s population was rapidly growing, but there was a severe shortage of natural

The one child policy only hurt China more due to its lowering fertility rate prior to the policy. “China had already achieved a remarkable fertility reduction, halving the number of children per women from 5.8 in 1970 to 2.7 in 1979.” (Document B) The facts shown here show that the policy was not necessary. In addition, since the population was already going

The One Child Policy was a population planning system put in place by The People’s Republic of China (mainland China) in 1979 in an effort to curb a population boom. The plan intended to restrain the suddenly- surging population and limit the rapid consumption of resources such as water. The core components of this policy to be discussed are: the history behind it, different theories related to it, how it worked and was enforced, the positives and negatives, the overpopulation that prompted it, and what people in China and outside thought of this plan.

The Chinese government’s long struggle to control the growth China’s large population began in the 1950s. The 1953 census showed that the population was growing extremely rapidly, and researchers estimated that the population would reach 1.4 billion by the year 2000 (Roberts, 1999). With food shortages already becoming a concern, the government was afraid that the cost of feeding, housing, and providing for such enormous population would harm the economy (Roberts, 1998). As a result, a propaganda campaign encouraging the use of birth control was introduced as an effort to slow growth (Roberts, 1999). However, in 1958 the Great Leap Forward, Mao

1a. China and Japan are both industrialized countries where population is decreasing; however, they are both decreasing due to different social, economic, or political factors. With 1.33 billion people, China has been one of the world’s most populous countries, however due to the overpopulation crisis; it caused implications and strain upon the country’s energy and resources. This called for the government attention to fix the issue of overpopulation by developing the “one-child policy” which limits couples to having only one child each. The overall outcome of the policy was to reduce population growth, increase economic growth, limit poverty, and to create better health for the citizens of China. Governments

In conclusion, the standard of living and the economy of China before the one-child policy was not better off after the policy was enforced and to some extent, it can be said that the policy helped steer the economy of China in the desired direction, considering how far she has come within the world today. The disadvantages of overpopulation are numerous and some of it’s compound problems immeasurable. China before the one-child policy had just cause to view overpopulation as a serious threat. The one-child policy provided China with a way to prevent the impending population explosion. At the time, it was the only solution that had concrete evidence it would actually work at controlling the rate of population growth based on the limitations

When the Communists came to power in 1949, the total population of China was less than one-half its current size. However, leaders did not realize the importance of controlling population size at that time, and they even encouraged families to have as many children as possible. They believed that population growth empowered the country and could build a stronger socialist state and fight against capitalism. “As a result, the population nearly doubled over the next 25 years” (Meisner).

In the article Overpopulation Is Still the Problem, Alon Tal (2013) claims that overpopulation remains the number one problem facing the world today and discusses various problems and possible solutions. Tal unveils the falsely assuring news stories refuting overpopulation as a problem. He particularly dissects Ellis Erle’s assertions, in the New York Times, concerning China’s seemingly magical works of technology. Erle comes to the conclusion that China’s amazing technology has and will always be able to keep them out of any problems regarding overpopulation. Of course Tal is able to rhythmically rebut Erle’s claims by explaining that, “Anyone with a teaspoon of historic sensibilities about the country 's environmental history might want to mention its long litany of famines which occurred precisely because carrying capacities were consistently outstripped by a growing population”. Tal then goes on to explain other problems linked directly to overpopulation in China like the food crisis from 1958-1961 which led to the starvation of over 20 million people. He also discusses the Chinese one-child policy describing it as “tough medicine” although the application of the policy was flawed he depicts how it has prevented the next round of famines. Tal ties the China population problems into the rest of the article which is mainly about how quickly the world is growing and what we need to do about it. He presents distressing facts like 1 in 8 people in the world suffer from

China’s One Child Policy has many flaws. I believe it was a bad idea and unfair to it’s people. It has caused population gender imbalance, hurt women's standing and has caused an obesity problem. If Mao Zedong hadn’t told everyone to have more kids, the population wouldn't have been a problem and kids and parents wouldn’t be in the problem they are today.

China’s population growth began to increase during the Ming Dynasty, and increased dramatically throughout Qing. The population grew around 65million in the late 14th century to more than 400 million in 1949 (Spengler 1962: 112). Since the People Republic of China was founded, Mao had seen the population growth as favorable to industrialization, and he believed that population growth empowered the country (Potts 2006). In the 1950s, the government began to realize that the food supply would soon become insufficient for the rapidly growing population, and stopped encouraging people to have more children through propaganda posters. In the beginning of the 1970s, the government launched the “Later, Longer, Fewer” campaign.