One child policy

ONE CHILD POLICY（计划生育）

The one-child policy, officially the family planning policy, is the population control policy of the People's Republic of China. this means a couple is expected to have only one child after their marriage. 

***Note:This one-child policy has currently changed. If both parents are the only child of their family, they are allowed to have their second child.

Notice posted by Chinese Government in Tangshan

 Can you image an overpopulated world?

Intentionally one child policy is a plan to control China's huge population,as from the graph above,we can see that the rate of increasing population decreases and by 1995 it slows down. This plan had successfully controlled the rate of increasing population but it also led to a series of problems such as aging and finance problems faced by most of it citizens  

In another perspective

It will also cause adverse impacts to China's economy. The workforce will also suffer 'precipitous decline', when it faces labour shortage, which will lead to poor infrastructure development of the country. Therefore, the one children policy is extremely detrimental and also a huge contributor to the backlash of the nation's economy.

One child policy results a high abortion rate. The idea of “a boy is better than a girl” or “the lineage and inheritance can only be passed from the father’s side” still remains in some traditional families, especially in working class or those who live in rural area, leads woman to do an abortion after figuring out she is carrying a baby girl. Other possibility is that baby girl might be abandoned as fetuses, or being adopted. A better result for the baby girls is doing all the housework while the parents are secretly attempting to have a son. In traditional women’s perspective, giving birth of a baby boy is the only way for female to gain a position in husband’s family. The policy certainly reduced fertility below the level, but this also cause problem with the aging problem. As a result, China has one of the world’s lowest “dependency ratios”, with roughly three economically active adults for each dependent child or old person. The benefit or disadvantage of one child policy is also the beginning of Chinese cultural change.

One child policy also affects the youth culture. It has created a "4-2-1" phenomena. What's that? It's a new family structure that includes 

grandparents from both father and mother’s side (4)

parents (2)

the only child (1).

 It forces the four grandparents and the two parents give full attention to the only child, which results the only child become less independent.The only child might not know how to interact with others, or poor communication skills compared to the ones who have siblings. A lot of pressure were also given to the only child as the elders have a higher expectation on them and a greater responsibility towards the six elders when they grew older 

This will cause more pressure to the only child in taking care of six elders when they start working. Financial problem will be a greater issue to them. 

When the only child of the family gets married, he has the responsibility to take care of his parents in laws as well,this situation turns wose if he has his own children.(School fees and monthly expences）  

The Great Wall of China

The Great Wall of China was built along the northern borders of China to protect the Chinese empire or it's states, preventing them from getting intruded by various nomadic groups. It winds up and down across deserts, grasslands, mountains and plateaus, stretching approximately 8,851.8 kilometers from east to west of China. 

The building of the Great Wall caused many deaths and many more were dead defending it. 

Although many lives were lost in the building of Great Wall, we cannot deny the fact that it has also saved a lot of lives in return.

The Great Wall was built by 3 types of people: soldiers, common people and criminals. The many deaths from the construction are mainly due to the heavy workload, short time limit and tough condition. China had to lose so many precious lives just to save the lives of the people in the future. We, as Singaporeans, should be proud of the security we have in Singapore. We should treasure the fact that we are much more fortunate as compared to China.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Great_wall_of_china-mutianyu_1.jpg

Yi Leo

Singaporeans' & Taiwanese favourites (Teens)

Check out these collages about Taiwanese and Singaporeans' favorites!

Singapore 

Taiwan

Terracotta Army

The terracotta warrior means greatly to China, and also reflects as an important part of China's history. It portrays the army of first Chinese Emperor Qin Shi Huang, in order to protect his afterlife. To the normal Chinese citizens, this is very significant to them as it a form of respect to their previous emperor who had ruled the country. It also signifies the power and importance of the emperor Qin Shi Huang at that time. In the perspective of majority of the Chinese citizens, the terracotta is a lifelong asset to China.

The Teeracotta warrior also have a great influence on us as it sends the message to the society that we should always respect to our elders and contribute much to them. This also educated us on the fact that we should not disregard certain crucial issues such as, for example of china, showing respect to their emperor.

Foo Hong Wee

KMT in mainland China

”In my opinion three principle of people are good ideas generated by sun yat Sen and his party KMT, but on the other hand due to the corruption in later stage, KMT itself loses support from people especially the farmers as the communist promised to provide them with lands which help them to make their ends meet.this shows most of people will follow what benefits them, but do all the farmers understand what communist means? This question is not essential anymore 

The KMT was founded by Song Jiaoren and Sun Yat-sen shortly after the Xinhai Revolution of 1911. 

Later led by Chiang Kai-shek, the KMT formed a military and succeeded in its Northern Expedition to unify much of China. It was the ruling party from 1928 until its retreat to Taiwan in 1949 after being defeated by the Communist Party of China during the Chinese Civil War. 

Chiangmai Kai Shek(left) Mao Zedong(right)

A few years after Japanese invasion, in 1948.most farmland in the north were under the Communists' control, the cities governed by the KMT lacked food supply and this adds to the hyperinflation.

with the country suffering from widespread corruption and other economic ills, the KMT continued to lose popular support. Some leading officials and military leaders of the KMT hoarded material, armament and military-aid funding provided by the US. 

By the end of 1949, the Communists controlled almost all of mainland China, as the KMT retreated to Taiwan

 NOTE: THERE IS STILL KMT IN MAINLAND CHINA and many other parties,but CCP has the most number of people&power

Zijin

Reflection on China's history

The history of china was basically formed by many dynasties. When a dynasty becomes worse, people will try to make a new dynasty to take over the current one. However, under the leadership of Sun Yat-Sen, a series of uprisings were staged to overthrow the last dynasty, which was the Qing, making china a republic country. China will then be ruled by a president instead of an emperor.

Mao Zedong gained the support of Chinese masses during the second Sini-Japanese war and the civil war by being kind to the peasants, uniting them against the Japanese. After that, he tried to turn china into a socialist country which meant that everyone became equal. However, the socialist idea failed but Mao Zedong was unwilling to abandon his idea. 

When Mao Zedong died in 1976, china became a capitalist country under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping.

Personally, I feel that the history if China is very interesting. It started from dynastic rule, to republic rule, to socialist rule and lastly, capitalist. It is surprising how different people with different ideas stood up and tried to rule the countries without their own, very different methods.

Yi Leo

The Great Wall of China

In the north of China, there lies a 8,851.8-kilometer-long magnificent series of fortifications made of stone, brick, tamped earth, wood, and other materials — the Great Wall of China.  With a history of over 2,000 years, the Great Wall witnessed the changes of time, the lives of people, the happening of events, and the stories of many individuals. In my eyes, the Great Wall is a graveyard — a place where many chinese died. Many people have given their lives building the Great Wall of China, and many more defending the Wall. However, to China, the Great Wall may mean a different thing. 

To China, the Great Wall may be something that serves as a security purpose, something that can protect the lives of Chinese, something that can prevent the chinese from suffering the pain of losing a kin. This shows that in the past, China was very dangerous. The chinese were not safe from the other people in the world, or even their own fellow chinese. Therefore, they had to build this Great Wall in order to protect themselves. 

From this, we can learn one thing: We should treasure the security that we have in Singapore. We should treasure the fact that there is very little crimes in Singapore. We should not take for granted the efficiency of the police.

Wan Yun

http://www.fantastictraveling.com/20-top-tourist-attractions-in-china/

Beijing National Stadium

Remember the 'Bird Nest'? It's not the delicacy that makes your mouth watery.

It's the world's unique stadium.

Located in Beijing,it is designed to use throughout the 2008 Summer Olympics and Paralympics. To me, it is one of the fascinating buildings because of its unique structure. It is one of the biggest steel buildings in the world! This stadium is not only beautiful but stable too, it could withstand an earthquake measuring up to 8 on the Richter scale. It is not only a normal stadium but an iconic symbol of Beijing that projected an image of the advanced development of China. To China, it holds a certain importance as the time and money used to build the stadium makes it invaluable. The stadium represents the modern and the constantly changing side of China too. Till now, Beijing National Stadium still remains a highly popular tourist attraction. 

This stadium reflects Chinese culture. The design that looks like a bird nest was inspired from Chinese ceramics because of the beautiful random patterns of cracks on the pots.The shape of this stadium relates to the Chinese traditions and culture too. It's circular form represents heaven. 

From this stadium, I have learnt that no matter how much a country develops, we must always remember the history and culture of it. The advanced technology has make the world today into a modern society where our cultures might vanish the next moment. If we had forgotten all our cultures, "Bird Nest" wouldn't have appeared as what it is today. It serves a simple reminder to us : Preserve the cultures and traditions that we have now.

Beijing National Stadium

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing_National_Stadium

Wee Lin :)

Interesting facts about China

What interests me greatly of China is it's one-child policy. The china government has imposed this law in 1979 to control the overall population of China. It's also used to ensure the absence of any social, political and environment problems in the country. Compared to other countries, china has a relatively large population living within an average land size. Although many people are restricted to giving birth to more than 1 child, more the half of the country's citizens supports the policy.

From my perspective, I feel that the Chinese citizens should not be denied their human rights in such cases, as giving birth to more the 1 child is perfectly alright as long as the parents are able to support the children. Furthermore, this does not cause any third party harm and does not infringe on the rights of any other citizens. 

Just because they are afraid of the country's uncontrollable population, they are restricting the rights of the normal civilians. 

From the citizens' perspective, this is unfair to them as some of them may have the preference of having more than one child. If this continues for a long-term period, these citizens may consider changing their nationality. Therefore, I'm my opinion, the Chinese government should abolish this policy. 

Hong Wee

Reflection on China's history.

There are three interesting fact about the history of China.Firstly the Chinese history is formed by dynasties. When the previous dynasties falls, the new dynasty often led by an uprising take over. This cycle repeated itself for almost five thousand years until the revolution lead by Dr Sun YatSen in 1912 during the Qing dynasty.Since then China has stepped to its modern age. But the dynasty cycle had shaped people's thoughts. Most people were waiting for solutions from the heaven if their government was corrupted instead of overthrow it.Sencondly, China is a socialist republic ruled by a single party, the Communist Party of China since 1949.Power in the People's Republic is divided between the National People's Congress (NPC), the President, and the State Council. The NPC is the single legislative body, whose members are selected by the Communist Party. Hence election need not be carried out and most of its citizens do not have a opportunity to vote.Thridly, most of the Chinese are free thinkers who do not involve in religions.This is due to the cultural revolution which took place in 1950-60s when religions were officially discouraged by the government as they encouraged its people to believe in communism. 

Zijin

China's past and present

Have you ever wondered how did China came to this step from being once having dynasties? Why is there an end for the dynastic rule? Over these centuries, China has being changing from a country that is ruled by emperors once to now it is ruled by a president. Sun Yat-Sen and his revolutionary organization overthrew the last Qing dynasty, the Qing, and make China a republic.Corruptions, inequality... All these reasons made Sun Yat-Sen having the determination to make China into a republic.Personally, I feel that changing China to a republic is a right choice made. Having dynasties would not make China a better place but to bring harms to many people as the country would have a 'pyramid', distinctively shows the superior ones in China that needed more respect and authority than others. I am sure no one wants to live in such an environment, having inequality in your own country.

Because of this, one-party system in China is occurring. What do I think about the one-party rule? It has both its advantages and disadvantages. What's more important is... Would China be able to progress on with the one-party system? I think one-party system will not be able to help China progress on but it may help for other countries. As we know China is a very big country and its population is huge,thus with only one party ruling, there definitely would be problems and issues that would not be able to solve in time. If every corner of China has small issues that needed to be solve, the only party would then be unable to solve each and every problem. Hence, the party would start to only focus on major issues instead. This means the party would be unlikely able to give as much concern and care to everyone as compared to countries having more than one party ruling.

Wee Lin

Reflection on China's history

Did you ever tried to figure out the history of China and Taiwan? Well... Originally, China and Taiwan was one country. However, the Chinese civil war broke out and the winning party, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) remained in china to govern the country, while the defeated party, Kuomintang (KMT), fled to Taiwan and continued their rule of the Republic of China. I personally feel that the splitting of China and Taiwan can be prevented. Since the CCP and KMT have similar ideas for China, these two parties could compromise and lead china together. This way, China would be more united, with no splitting of territories.

After the CCP won, it has the sole power of China, also known as the One-Party system. I feel that this system allows greater unity, strength and focus. There would not be any wars between parties, which will occur when these parties do not have a common plan for the China, causing a clash of opinions. However, this One-Party system also has its disadvantage. When this one party in power has a bad plan for the country that will not help its people but might cause them to suffer, there will be no other party that will have the power and authority to stop the wrong party. Other than that, when there is only one party in charge of a huge country like China, it is difficult to improve the situation of each and everyone in China. The party will be too busy to be able to help the people's needs. On the other hand, when there are more parties, each party can assigned to focus on a certain part of China, allowing more people to lead better lives.

Don't you find this kind of familiar? For me, this One-Party system in China reminds me of the system in Singapore. In Singapore, there is only one party in power of the country. However, this system is more efficient for Singapore as compared to China. This is because Singapore is much smaller in size as compared to China. It is thus much easier for the single party to handle the needs of people since the number of people in Singapore is greatly lesser than the people in China. Therefore, the percentage of people in Singapore with improved lives is more than those in China. 

Also, I learnt that China has been involved in a number of other international territorial disputes. Since the 1990s, China has been involved in negotiations to resolve its disputed land borders, including a disputed border with India and an undefined border with Bhutan. China is additionally involved in multilateral disputes over the ownership of several small islands in the East and South China Seas, such as the Senkaku Islands and the Scarborough Shoal. Personally, I think that China need not dispute over several islands. As the fourth largest country in the world, I feel that China's territories stretches far enough. China can be considered as self sufficient based on its resources. Therefore, I think that china need not dispute over land borders, or ownership of lands, as it would not make a large difference. Even if China gets larger, it may not be a good thing. The government would have to handle more affairs, which will cause the government to be much busier, and might even lower the efficiency of the government. 

Wan Yun