China's Changing
Economic Concerns
China
Facts
Student Worksheet
1:
China's
population is 1.3 billion people
- Over the last
decade, it has had one of the fastest growing economies in the world
(7.8% in 1998)
- Mountains
and rivers run west to east
- Warm wet weather
comes from the southeast
- Southern region
is a moist, rice growing region; the north is a dryer - wheat region
- China is approximately
the same size as continental US. Most of the population is settled
in the eastern half of the country as the western half is not as
habitable. Consider that 1.3 billion people would live east of the
Mississippi river.
- 25% of deaths
are caused by pulmonary diseases
- "To be rich
is glorious" Deng Xiaoping
- "Is your stomach
too full?" Ancient saying
- "The mountains
are high and the emperor is far away." Ancient adage
- "Whose camel
is it?" Current saying
- "For years
no boy from the Huai River area had been healthy enough to pass
the physical examination required to enter the army."
- Environmental
official: "Heavy pollution may kill you in a hundred days, but without
enough heat and food you die in three."
- Coal is abundant;
most power is provided by coal-fired power plants
- Tsp (soot
and dust in air) UN recommends: level 40-60 range: northern Chinese
cities 400, 500 even 800 range
- Dai Qing,
author of "Yangtze!, Yangtze!," spent 10 months in prison for criticizing
the Three Gorges Dam Project.
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