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- One-Child Policy Introduction
- Debate #1: Sustainability and Resource Availability
- Debate #2: Policy's Impact
- Looking Forward
Global Challenge #3 in the Millennium Project addresses the question of how population growth and resources can be brought into balance. Asia’s urban population is expected to grow to 3.1 billion people by 2050. China has to feed 22% of the world’s population with less than 7% of the world’s arable land (The Millennium Project, 2011). This seems completely understandable as to why this policy was initially enacted, as it was a means to human preservation throughout the country. This decision seemed necessary as it was clear that the growing population would not have a sufficient amount of resources which would clearly have significant consequences not only in China but all around the globe.
Economists view the one-child policy as a necessary regulation to control exponential population growth in China’s global environment faced with present and emerging challenges: resource scarcity, water supply, renewable energy sources, and environmental pollution to name a few. In his book, “Who Will Feed China”, Lester Brown discusses the need to take action to the implications of high population, decreasing cropland, and water scarcity in formulating a global development policy for the 21st century. As the Chinese account for 20 percent of the world's population, Brown discusses the implications on the entire world’s economy: "China's rising food prices will become the world's rising food prices. China's land scarcity will become everyone's land scarcity. And water scarcity in China will affect the entire world" (Brown, 1995).
The problem of shrinking resources is intensified by an increase in grain consumption throughout the country. This increase stems from people changing their traditional diets to those that are higher in the food chain which demand more grain for productions, such as meat, poultry, dairy, etc. This was extremely noticeable during my time in China and many individuals that we dined with discussed their change in eating habits in the recent years. During one of our dinners in Beijing, one woman stated that she chooses not to eat fish because “of the effect that over-fishing has on the future fishing yields.” Brown states that the current unsustainable practices associated with these changes in eating habits, along with a growing population, encapsulate to a wake-up call and he further tells “leaders everywhere that the world is on an economic and demographic path that is not environmentally sustainable" (Brown, 1995). China's vast population-- projected to be 1.5 billion by 2017, also causes complications and worries about keeping grain production in pace with population growth a daunting and improbable task. While China has been successful in slowing the population growth rate from 2.7 percent in 1970 to 1.1 percent in 1994, it is increasing by about 12 million people each year (Brown, 1995).
As a rapidly developing economy, and the country with the largest population in the world, China faces enormous pressure in regards to its resources and environment. The one-child policy was developed to stop the old paradigm of growth in the country, as previous practices proved inefficient. With a population of over 1.3 billion people located on a geographically smaller area than the United States, environmental sustainability should be of pronounced concern throughout the world.
As a rapidly developing economy, and the country with the largest population in the world, China faces enormous pressure in regards to its resources and environment. The one-child policy was developed to stop the old paradigm of growth in the country, as previous practices proved inefficient. With a population of over 1.3 billion people located on a geographically smaller area than the United States, environmental sustainability should be of pronounced concern throughout the world.
References
Brown, L. (1995). Who Will Feed China? Worldwatch Institute. New York, New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
The Millenium Project. (2011). The Millennium Project. Global Futures Studies & Research. Retrieved from http://www.millennium-project.org/
The Millenium Project. (2011). The Millennium Project. Global Futures Studies & Research. Retrieved from http://www.millennium-project.org/