How China Became An Economic Power

Ever since the death of Mao Zedong, founder of China’s communist party, his successor, Deng Xiaoping, opened China’s gates for overseas investments and businesses that made China an economic superpower.

Contrary to the communist ideals that Mao solidly opposed during his seat in power, Deng have turned China from a backward agrarian economy into capitalism.

Nowadays, China is the leading exporter of manufactured goods in the world. A lot of western businesses outsource their labour force in China purposely for cheap labour.

In just a decade, China was able to transform itself into a highly developed country filled with new and modernized skyscrapers and an elaborate form of economy. This year’s forecast in China’s economy look ahead to a 7-9 percent growth in GDP.

The Chinese are also renowned for their business competence. In countries that have a large population of Chinese, a lot of them make their living by means of selling all kinds of consumer goods and most of their businesses are stories of triumph.

As China’s economy continue rising, a lot of finance experts still see loads of hurdles that could halt its advancement or even cause its economic demise.

Economic imbalance is one of these causes. One of which is the issue of imbalance in terms of development in favor of urban areas over rural. Even though the quality of life for people living in urban areas have somewhat improved, a lot of China’s rural population still experience hardships particularly in the farming and housing communities.

This is to some extent reminiscent to “The Great Leap Forward” where the chairman ordered farmers into industrial workers resulting to widespread famine. Today’s China, however, have learned from previous errors and is somewhat sensible to its food production but more improvements are needed before it can attain perfect balance.

Another deterrent is China’s tense political and societal atmosphere. So far, every dissent in the country has been suppressed with no mercy within its mainland and other places they claim to be theirs such as Tibet.

In order for China to hold its rule over the Tibetans is by migration of the Chinese population to Tibet, constructions, and banning freedom of expression.

In Xinjiang, another region in China, where there is a large population of Muslim Uighurs, is also experiencing both economic and political volatility because of unrest.

Climate change is an critical factor that poses the most serious peril not just to China but the whole world. The pollution and carbon emission China yields has risen just over the last 20 years and has now overtaken America. The costs could not just upset China, but also to countries near or far. Climate change is possibly irreversible and rising sea levels will certainly cause problems in China’s south, and could even melt glaciers from China’s western part and the Tibetan region which will flood populated areas and cause a scarcity in China’s fresh water supply.