The Relationship Between China 's Economic Prosperity And Its Quality Of Life

As the modern day economy continues to grow, more and more discussion are emerging revolving around what are the factors that led to the successful economic growth in some countries and one country that has been gaining researcher’s interest is China and the development of Beijing from a third world country in the to a developed and Newly industrialized country today.

The purpose of this research report is to provide an overview of China’s economic growth in relation to the long term economic growth drivers. Critical assessment will be made on the growth drivers to determine whether they lead to long term economic growth.

Despite extensive criticism, proponents of the measure feel that it has improved life in China. The policy, implemented in 1979, “was created by the Chinese government to alleviate social, economic and environmental problems in China” (Cabrera). Supporters of the policy claim that is has been successful. One measurement of a country’s success is its financial growth and China has seen an improvement in that respect. “With that rapid GDP growth, has come better nutrition, rising levels of education, longer life expectancies, and higher living standards for the vast majority of Chinese people.” (Azubel 2). Unfortunately, that financial growth has had little impact on the isolated farms and villages.

China has reached a milestone in terms of achieving its centenarian goal of making China a prosperous nation once again. One of the ways that it has done this is by having steady economic growth even in the midst of an economic crisis. Not only has China’s economy grown, but its standard of living has also improved, it has achieved this by spending 70 percent of its fiscal revenue towards improving people’s standard of living. China has also pushed more anti-corruption reforms and has made efforts towards widening its economy by setting up freer trade.

Dr. Hao Jingfang works for the China Development Research Foundation which helps advance and promote economic development and social progress. She conducts research with an emphasis on rural poverty and presents recommendations to the government. Dr. Hao has witnessed and learned about China’s development over the last century, such as the Cultural Revolution-the birth of communist ideals- and capitalism. China transformed their system and has been ascending economically for the last several decades. Dr. Hao Jingfang had also witnessed its side effects: the excellent ever increasing gross domestic product(GDP) and the not so good effects of increased poverty. Another one of the of the not so spectacular side effects are how the wealth,

Charles Darwin in his theory of natural selection said “ the fittest of the fittest will survive,” and year after year China has proven they are the fittest by climbing the economic ladder, as Mark Schwartz Vice Chairman of Goldman Sachs and Chairman of Golden Sachs Asia Pacific, claims in his speech “China’s Economic Success and Opportunities,” “China is coming out of a period of rapid growth almost ten percent over the last thirty (30) years. In 2013 China’s gross domestic product (GDP) was 9.3 trillion dollars in size the second largest economy on the world and in 2013 China contributed 28% GDP to the world growth globally” (Schwartz). Was this growth due to rapid industrialization or the implementation of polices using Marxist and Keynesian perspectives or was it the authoritarian regime? However, it is China’s collectivist approach towards socialism that is responsible for their recent success.

The growth of an economy is thought of not only as an increase in productive capacity but also as an improvement in the quality of life to the people of that economy.

Over the last few decades while China’s population growth rate has decreased, its GDP has increased. “China’s GDP per capita for the period 1952 to 2008 grew at an average annual rate of 5.58%.” (Yao) Furthermore, during the same time

As one of the largest and most populated countries in the world with 20% of the world’s population at 1,364,270,000 (2014) and a civilisation dating back to more than 3,500 years; China had one of the most stable and rapid economic growth rates of the past 30 years.

Yet several specters haunt China. To continue economic growth, China’s economy will have to fundamentally shift away from its current orientation toward exports and grow based on its own consumption. Other structural challenges, from taxes and regulation to intellectual property and the rule of law, all must be reformed if China’s economic growth is to continue. China’s leaders will also have to manage an unprecedented level of urbanization, with an expected 400 million new urban residents by 2050. Just as daunting, China’s population is rapidly ageing, which will become a tremendous economic challenge given the effects of China’s One Child Policy and its Bachmann-beloved lack of a Social Security program. Beyond economic and demographic challenges,

More global organizations have taken advantage of globalization and free trade to sell their products in the Chinese market. This leads to greater affluence and improved living standards for the Chinese people. Citizens are now able to access a wide range of life-improving commodities such as medicine and other consumer products. The sheer size of the Chinese population, at 1.3 billion, magnifies the advantages of state-controlled advanced manufacturing. This enables the country to enjoy the benefits of economies of scale in which more output is produced at minimal cost. These are benefits that were not there during the agrarian period of production which were characterized by low output and inefficiencies.

The sudden thrust into communism for the people China lead to many issues. One of which was noticed right away. One of the largest problems of communism is the idea that all people make the same amount of money despite their profession. This lead to unrest of the citizens; riots started to occur, and the demand for change was high. Along with the communistic ideas, China became cut off from the rest of the world. Trade was minimal and their economy was closed to the rest of the world. This in itself lead to tremendous amounts of problems as the population of China kept growing. There was little food to feed the massive population, or enough goods and supplies. As the 1980’s approached, and the death of Zedong in 1976, change was needed. In 1986 ‘New China’ emerged, the closed market economy opened back up to the world, and China was a time capsule closed since the 50’s

China is one of the most talked about countries in the world today. There are many reasons for this, but first one of the most obvious would be the recent incline in economic development. Since the early 1900’s China has expanded its economy to record highs. This economic boom is driven off of the countries build up of product driven economics. Many of the products are wide ranging, but of the jobs and exports have been created from the recent technology boom. The economy in China is also driven off of the rise in the population. China, is one of the most populated countries on the globe. As of today China’s population has reached 1.3 billion. This is a high and many researchers don’t see it slowing down anytime soon. While this Asian country may be highly populated research has been shown that the population is not equally distributed. The population is divided up between north and south, and east and west. The eastern portion is more agriculture based so the population is lower in this area. On the other hand the population on the western side is more populated due to the industrialized cities that inhabit factories and more multibillion dollar corporations. Not to mention that the Chinese capital is Beijing and has one of the most populated and industrial environments in all of Asia. In recent years China has opened the doors to western culture, and this opening has paid off handsomely. The curiosity and adaptation to the new culture has flourished the economy in China

China was the most civilized country having outpaced other world regions for several centuries. The country faced a major backlash in the nineteenth and twentieth countries whereby it experienced civil wars, foreign occupations, dreaded famines, and military attacks that left the security of the country prone to attacks. Chinese government supported communism after World War II consequently adopting an autocratic leadership style to cater for the welfare of Chinese citizens. However, the successors of Mao Zedong adopted a market-oriented economic system which sky-rocketed the economic growth of China since 1978. Currently, China has the second largest economy after the USA and boasts of its fastest economic growth rate in the world. Eventually, the living standard of the large portion of the Chinese population has dramatically increased. Moreover, Chinese have been given the freedom to make personal decisions, but the political measures are still tight (The World Factbook, 2016). China has enhanced its international presence by ensuring that it participated in the international organizations and enhanced the global outreach.

A3. China’s exceptional growth rate has influenced a domestic concern for the Chinese causing inequality in the country. Many agriculture and factory workers have expressed concerned of the growing middle class sector leaving people in the primary and secondary sector dissatisfied. Even if there is a tremendous growth rate in the economy Chinas domestic problems are likely to cause China to hold its “great power status”. This has come about worse for the Chinese authorities as it slows the national growth of the company in the long term basis. Concentration of wealth in the hands of a few can result in the political strife. With the prevailing level of communism and liberal views within the China, such concentration power might result in further problems.