Four Equals One China—Rural China (Part 4 of 7)

May 16, 2010

It is estimated that 57% (741 million) Chinese still live in rural areas made up primarily of primitive villages that have not changed much from the way things were during the first-half of the 20th century.

Rural village in China

Up until recently, rural China received the least support to modernize during China’s transition from its dark ages into the modern age.

In October 2009, China’s National People’s Congress, the Politburo Standing Committee and Hu Jintao, the president of China, approved the 11th, Five-Year Plan that focuses on bringing modern infrastructure to improve living conditions in rural China.

Historians and experts have written and said that what China has achieved since 1980 is a miracle that no other nation in history has managed to achieve. No nation has modernized as fast. It took more than a century for America to achieve what China has done in thirty years.

Go to Four Equals One China: Part 5 or discover China’s Stick People

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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Four Equals One China—Urban China (Part 3 of 7)

May 15, 2010

In 1949, when Mao came to power, 0.005 kilowatts of electricity were being generated in China.  Most of China did not have electricity or modern roads. In 1950, most of China was the same as it had been for centuries.

Soon after Mao’s death, China entered a transition that isn’t over. There was a period of planning and then the miraculous modernization of China that the world has seen since 1980 began.

China’s first 10, five-year plans focused on modernization and growth in urban areas. Urban China started with about 250 million people. As China became the world’s factory floor, the largest migration in human history took place and 300 hundred million rural Chinese moved to urban China to work in factories. Today, urban China has about 550 million people with more than a hundred cities with populations over a million. Trillions have been spent developing cities like Shanghai, Beijing and others.

To discover more about this modernization transition taking place in China, read Pop-Up Cities: China Builds a Bright Green Metropolis by Douglas McGray.  By 2020, China plans to build four hundred new, modern cities at a rate of 20 each year.

Go to Four Equals One China: Part 4 or Discover After Mao

_______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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Four Equals One China—Communist China Continued (Part 2 of 7)

May 15, 2010

The previous president selected the current president of China. After the selection, the candidate must be approved by the Politburo Standing Committee, which usually has between five and nine members, usually men. They are China’s top leadership. This is where major decisions are made and/or approved. They are the most powerful decision making body in China.

The Great Hall of the People in Beijing

China’s Constitution does not allow anyone to stay a member of the Standing Committee for longer than two, five-year terms and mandatory retirement is sixty-seven. In 2012, all current members will be replaced. Both the national media as well as political watchers abroad closely watch standing Committee members.

Once the candidate for president has been approved, the National People’s Congress votes on the nomination.  The National Congress of China has 2,987 members. Two thousand ninety-nine are members of the Communist party and eight-hundred and eighty-eight do not belong to the Communist Party. They meet in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

Go to Four Equals One China: Part 3

Why is China Studying Singapore?

_______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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Four Equals One China—Communist China (Part 1 of 7)

May 15, 2010

The four Chinas are Communist China, Urban China, Rural China and Minority China. The Communist Party has more than 70 million members. Then there are the members of the Communist Youth League (another 70+ million), whom are not members of the Communist Party.

The members of these two groups are the ruling class. They have the best health care and probably make up a sizable portion of China’s middle class, which has been estimated at 200 to 400 million people living primarily in urban areas.

President Hu Jintao

Hu Jintao, was elected president of the PRC on March 15, 2003. According to the Chinese Constitution, he may only serve two five-year terms and has to stand for reelection after the first term. There is an article of impeachment in the Chinese constitution that was added after Mao.

Go to Four Equals One China: Part 2

Many in the west consider the president of China a dictator. By definition, that is wrong. See Dictatorship Defined

_______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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Another Opinion about China’s Trade Surplus

May 14, 2010

China has an estimated 2.4 trillion in foreign reserves and recently, there have been accusations from American politicians and in the Western media, that China has been manipulating the exchange rate and costing Americans their jobs.

In a report on Vox (Research-based policy and commentary from leading economists), Zheng Song, Kjetil Storesletten and Fabrizio Zilibotti claim they can prove that China did not gain this huge trade surplus from manipulation of the exchange rate.

Chinese Currency

Instead, they will offer proof from similar economic growth in South Korea and Taiwan that both resulted in large surpluses from trade.

The three economists wrote that in the second half of the 1980s, South Korea saw booming growth and a series of large current account surpluses. In addition, Taiwan experienced large trade surpluses in the 1980s. Since both South Korea and Taiwan are smaller than China, their trade surpluses did not draw as much attention as China’s trade surplus has.

The authors of the study concluded that the call for trade sanctions against China might be unwarranted as well as dangerous.

Read more about America’s Assault on China’s Currency.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

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