Essay on China :: essays research papers

China is a geographical region in East Asia. It holds over one-fifth of the world’s population. Most of it is now known as the People’s Republic of China, but the name of the region refers to one of the world’s longest standing civilizations, which dates back almost 5,000 years. Because the length of China’s history, it has been characterized by repeated overthrowings and reestablishments of the government, and many civil wars. China was governed as an empire until 1912, when the Republic Of China, or the ROC, was established under Sun Yat-sen. China was the world’s technological leader for centuries, credited with the invention of paper, rockets, and other things. However, by the 19th and 20th centuries, China was losing political and economical power. Japan and the Western Powers were gaining influence, which eventually led to the evolution of the PRC, or the Peoples Republic of China. China has the world’s fastest growing economy, but it’s an unstable state underneath. It has the biggest rich/poor urban/rural divide, which means that the farmers are poor, and the people who have city jobs are rich. China is also hugely overpopulated, so as a population control method families can have only one child. Because of traditional honor, everybody wants male children instead of female ones so that they can carry on the family name. This has led to an imbalance between genders in China, so the government has established a program to compensate families for having female children. China has been working to reform its economy from a centrally planned economy to a market oriented economy. A centrally planned economy is where decisions about production, consumption, and allocation of goods is managed by a central power. This basically means that the government has complete control over what’s made, where it goes, how it’s made, and how it’s used.