The People's Republic of China began under Mao Zedong as a communist state. Like the USSR, China followed a Marxist program of redistribution of wealth, until everyone was equally poor. Like the USSR, China took absolute control over both the political and economic systems of the country. Unlike the USSR, China finally realized that communism as an economic system was a complete failure. They still pretend they are a communist nation, but private enterprise is actually how they do business nowadays.
We are certainly not dealing with a Communist regime, either politically or economically, nor do Chinese leaders, even those who followed the radical reformer Deng Xiaoping, seem to be at all interested in treading the dangerous and uneven path from Stalinism to democracy. They know that Mikhail Gorbachev fell when he tried to control the economy while giving political freedom. They are attempting the opposite, keeping a firm grip on political power while permitting relatively free areas of economic enterprise. Their political methods are quite like those used by the European fascists 80 years ago.In August of 2011, I read a book by Mark Steyn, called After America: Get Ready for Armageddon. This book explained the unparalleled power that China holds over the United States economy. Because they hold over two-trillion dollars in Treasury Bonds, they can, if they so choose, dump them on the world market, causing our own economy to crash. No one expects that they would do this however, because it would damage their own economy nearly as badly as it would ours, since the USA is the recipient of one-fourth of China's exports.
Mark Steyn, in his book, also examined the terrible threat that China presents because of its practice of constant and unremitting cyber-warfare. Chinese hackers have penetrated and continue to penetrate virtually every government and corporate website of any national importance. Not just one sword of Damocles but two hang perilously over our heads. China can collapse our economy and infiltrate and perhaps even shutdown our nationwide computer network, to include banks, businesses, and government agencies.
In the book 1984, George Orwell described a fascist regime called Big Brother. That book perfectly describes the political culture of China. They have a government censorship agency which must employ many thousands of workers, because together, they are able to befuddle and maintain the sheeplike ignorance of more than a billion Chinese people.
If you try to search "Abing," "the Shawshank Redemption," "UA898" and "CNN" on Sina Weibo, China's equivalent of Twitter, you receive this terse message: "According to relevant laws and policies, results are not displayed."Finally, China has instituted a strict policy of one child per couple. This has resulted in a country with too many men, because Chinese families want a male heir to whom they can pass down the family's name and property. So if it's a girl they abort it, or they give it up for adoption, often right here in the United States.
These terms have joined a fast-growing list of keywords blocked by Chinese censors as they try to prevent the public from obtaining news on a prominent human rights activist who recently escaped his more than 18 months of house arrest in eastern China.
While Chen's plight and dramatic escape have made top headlines around the world; news outlets in China, all of which are state-controlled, have mostly ignored the story.
Outside a busy Beijing subway station Monday, CNN randomly asked more than three dozen people about Chen -- only two had heard of him and his escape. One of the two, a young man who declined to give his name, said: "It was all over Weibo for a while before the topic was censored."
Depending on where they live, couples can be fined thousands of dollars for having a supernumerary child without a permit, and reports of forced abortions or sterilization are common. Since 1979, the law has prevented some 250 million births.China's hard lesson in economics can teach us that communism doesn't work and capitalism does. The nations of the world can learn that borrowing money from another country allows that country to have incredible leverage over the debtor nation. China can teach us that the world-wide-web's open internet architecture is fundamentally flawed and unprotectable, and that our operating systems―all of them―are porous and undefendable, and that even simple things like elevators and utility turbines can be shutdown or sabotaged by skilled hackers. China can teach a master's level course on how to maintain absolute control over a population via the twin tools of censorship and propaganda. Finally, China can teach the world what happens when the state controls what happens in the bedroom. For half a billion horny bachelors and for the billion aged parents they support, This last lesson is going to be the hardest lesson of all.
But critics of the policy note its negative social consequences, particularly sex discrimination. With boys being viewed as culturally preferable, the practice of female infanticide — which had been common before 1949 but was largely eradicated by the 1950s — was resumed in some areas shortly after the one-child policy went into effect.
China's population aged 65 and over will rise from 8.9 percent of the total in 2010 to 9.5 percent in 2015, 16.5 percent in 2030, and 25.6 percent in 2050. The total number of elderly will increase to 332 million in 2050 from the current 110 million. On the other hand, the number of working-age Chinese will start to see negative growth after peaking in 2016, as predicted by the National Population and Family Planning Commission.
The falling number of young people suggests the Chinese population is graying at an alarming rate. Taken as a benchmark, Europe's pensionable population crossed the 10 percent line in 1970, and will reach 25 percent in 2040. The same will happen in China, only much faster - within the space of three decades. [QEU5HCM9RP4Q]