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Mightypeon posted:Well, that China flashes its muscles now is hardly surprising given the situation in Ukraine. As exciting as it is to blame everything single event in the world on villainous western meddling in Russia's rightful sphere of influence, China has been taking an aggressive stance on this issue well before anything happened in Ukraine (the same even applies to closer relations with Russia: since Xi came to power relations with Russia have steadily improved, while relations with America have deteriorated).
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May 31, 2014 14:50
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Fojar38 posted:This is from a little while back but it should be kept in mind that the vast majority if not all of these incidents were initiated or provoked by Beijing, which makes me wonder if something domestic has them worried or if it's just Xi himself. It's common to talk about China has stepped up the nationalism out of fear of domestic unrest, but there's a big element of wishful thinking to that analysis. I think the biggest factor is nothing more than China's increasing power and influence, as its GDP is more than double what it was in 2006 and its military budget has increased by an even larger amount. Most rich countries, on the other hand, were hit by a huge recession and the recovery has been anemic in most places.* I suspect that whichever leader succeeded Hu would been similarly aggressive and nationalistic, because Chinese's position is objectively much stronger than it was in the past. If you want to take China's side, you could also argue that a) The Obama/Clinton "pivot to Asia" and b) Japanese nationalization of the Senkakus/Diaoyus, followed by the election of a genuine hardcore nationalist a few months later were aggressive moves that China had to respond to. Of course, China's typical tactic in foreign policy is to wait for some sort of wrong or slight by an adversary and then to respond completely out of proportion, while endlessly repeating that the other side started it. *I realize think China's "actual" growth isn't as impressive, because a lot of the growth has been fueled by a property bubble and wasteful spending on semi-useless infrastructure, but it's still a much, much richer country than it was just a decade ago.
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Jun 1, 2014 06:46
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TheBalor posted:Isn't it predicted that China's population is set to fall back below 1 billion in the next 50 years, anyway? Something like the current generation isn't having any kids, so once the first "one child" policy generation dies off, there won't be anyone to replace them. The government has been relaxing the one child policy to deal with this possibility and, on the uglier side, it's also been stigmatizing both women who remain unmarried and, to a lesser extent, couples that don't have any children through semi-official propaganda campaigns. Despite those factors, I think it's unlikely that the birth rate will rise too much, unless the government does something to reduce the cost of education*, which is what has caused the birth rate to plummet to insanely low levels in the most developed parts of the country, just as it has in Japan/Korea/Taiwan/Singapore. *Cost of education in the case means the amount of time and effort you have to put in to achieve academic success not the dollar cost.
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Jun 1, 2014 10:38
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dinoputz posted:I've always seen the one-child policy in China cited as something that, all issues of morality aside here, was needed in some form or another to control what was then a very poor country's exploding population. The discussion earlier produced a link with a graphic showing China's population more or less staying at current levels through 2050, and I understand the one-child policy is being relaxed in rural areas. What I've never seen mentioned, even earlier when the one-child policy and aging populations were being simultaneously discussed, were possible scenarios in which China's population does continue to hover around 1 billion, but with a much older median age. The Chinese government definitely wants to keep fertility levels from reaching exceptionally low levels- I mentioned a couple negative examples of that somewhat further back in the thread (using propaganda campaigns to convince people that unmarried women are worthless and terrible and also stigmatizing marriages that don't produce children). Also, more relaxed rules for families in rural areas have been around for the entirety of the policy. What is new is the policy that a couple anywhere in China can have two children if just one is an only child (as opposed to both).
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Jun 2, 2014 15:38
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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:Many Chinese families want a boy so badly that they're willing to break the law, which still mandates relatively heavy financial penalties and forced abortions if broken, in order to have one. I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that if all family planning laws in China were dropped or greatly reduced, China would boost their rates pretty quickly. This isn't necessarily true. As I said before, in societies where education is super important (i.e. East Asia) children are very "expensive," which leads to a dramatic decline in birth rates. Japan isn't a good comparison, as it isn't a son preference society, but Taiwan and South Korea both are and they experienced dramatic drops in fertility long ago. South Korea's fertility rate was already below well below replacement level by the mid-1980s and Taiwan was only a few years behind. I think it's very possible that China's birth won't get back over replacement level, even after further relaxations of the One Child Policy.
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Jun 5, 2014 16:43
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