China's one-child population policy can be seen as crucial simply because as Chinese demographic scholar, Tian Xueyuan states:

"With 21.4 percent of the world's population but only 7.1 percent of its arable land, China faces a critical choice- rigid control of its population or ushering in a doomed new century, (Xin, p.13)."

But population control may be crucial to China for reasons other than the lack of food production capabilities that Xueyuan fears. As the twenty-first century approaches, if modernization efforts continue in China then each Chinese citizen will be consuming more resources than in the past, placing a proportionately much more intense strain on the environment. As would appear obvious, " the average citizen of an industrialized country places a far heavier burden on the environment than one in a developing country, (Livernash, 26)."

FACTS AND FIGURES ABOUT CHINA'S ECONOMY

• For more than a decade, the economy, as measured by GDP (gross domestic product) has grown more than 9% each year.
• The economy is quickly moving towards private enterprise and a market economy from a centralized state.
• In mid-1994, the inflation rate was running near 20%.
• The economy is growing much too fast for pollution control programs to keep pace, (Livernash, pgs. 6-11).
• Average per capita annual income rose from 235 yuan in 1970 to 2,200 yuan in 1994, (Xin, p.12).

INCREASES IN CHINESE CONSUMPTION THAT COME WITH MODERNIZATION

• Energy consumption tripled between 1970 and 1991.
• Large increases in demand for poultry and beef which in turn raises demand for grain as animal feed. Increased demand combined with any growth in population could easily cause a food deficit.
• Increased demand for transportation (which is also leading to traffic congestion and large increases in air pollution).
• Increased demand for household appliances, especially refridgerators, (Livernash, pgs. 6-11, 25-31).
• As Xiangming Chen states, "it is very common to find that young parents today double or triple the amount of resources (time and money) spent on the single child compared with what the older generations would divide among two or three children, (p.197)."

China and the Environment

• China is experiencing acute water shortages in the North, and air and water pollution across the country.
• The government has embarked on a major tree planting campaign as replacement for resources being used, as well as attempting to combat air pollution, but areas of mature mixed forests are quickly declining.
• There has been a major boom in food production in the 1990's, but it came about mainly through the increased use of fertilizer and high yield seeds on less productive land (which equals high energy consumption) and can only be continued for a relatively short period of time.
• China's actions and inactions in terms of pollution have a large effect not only on their regional environment, but on the global environment as well because of its large land mass and its large human population, (Livernash, pgs. 6-11, 25-34).

As consumption increases in China and the one-child policy continues, ideals of family life have been changing. Phrases like "the small cozy family" and "tiny enjoyable nest" replace the more cooperative ideals depicted by "big revolutionary family" or "noble collective interest", (Chen, p.197).

Experts believe that there have been over 300 million fewer chinese births since the inception of population control policies in the early 1970's, (Xin, 12). But it has also been seen that the sucess of the program has driven up resource consumption. It is concievable that the Chinese government and its people may still run into difficulties in the not too distant future relating to the environment and resouce use even after sucessfully reducing population growth in their country.

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Copyright © Eleanor Lemann, 1996