China Population

Population is the foundation of a country’s development. More population means more labor and a bigger market. China’s population has continued to grow since 1960, and reached the highest population growth rate around 1970, and then the population growth rate continue to decline until the growth rate approaches zero in 2020. In the near future, the total population of China will be surpassed by India and become the second most populous country in the world.

In the 1970s, the Chinese government implemented the family planning policy, which was to limit the number of children per couple to limit population growth, so after about 1970, the growth rate declined, but the total population was still about 1.4 billion, this is a very large number so it brings a problem, the unemployment rate.

Reference: WBG (World Bank Group) (2023) Population, total [data set], WBG website, accessed 26 May 2023. https://api.worldbank.org/v2/en/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL?downloadformat=excel

Unemployment Rate

Due to the continuous increase of China’s population, the unemployment rate has inevitably increased. In 2020, due to the impact of covid-19, the unemployment rate was once close to 5%, but the overall unemployment rate remained below 5%.

By comparing the average unemployment rate in China and other countries, it can be found that the value in China is at a low level, which shows that even though China’s population is increasing, it still maintains a level of full employment and the relationship between labor supply and demand is relatively balanced.

Reference: WBG (World Bank Group) (2023) Unemployment, total (% of total labor force) (modeled ILO estimate) [data set], WBG website, accessed 26 May 2023. https://api.worldbank.org/v2/en/indicator/SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS?downloadformat=excel

GDP

Analyzing China’s development is inseparable from GDP. GDP is an indicator to measure the total economic activity of a country, reflecting the value of all final goods and services produced by a country or region within a certain period of time. The faster the GDP increases, the faster the country develops.

It can be seen from the line chart that before 2000, China’s GDP growth was relatively slow, but after joining the WTO (World Trade Organization) in 2000, its GDP grew rapidly, and in 2010 it surpassed Japan’s GDP, becoming the second largest economy in the world only to United States. In 2021, China account for 33.2% of the top five countries in the world’s total GDP.

Reference: WBG (World Bank Group) (2023) GDP (current US$) [data set], WBG website, accessed 26 May 2023. https://api.worldbank.org/v2/en/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?downloadformat=excel

GDP/capita

The reason for the rapid growth of China’s GDP is that apart from joining the WTO, it is also because the population growth has brought cheap labor, so there is no labor shortage problem. Since GDP only focuses on the overall rather than the individual, GDP/capita can more accurately measure people’s living standards.

Since the growth rate of the population declined after 1970, the curve of GDP/capita is approximately consistent with the curve of national GDP. Although China is the second largest economy, its GDP/capita is only close to 12,000 US dollars, which ranks about 70 in the world.

Reference: WBG (World Bank Group) (2023) GDP per capita (current US$) [data set], WBG website, accessed 26 May 2023. https://api.worldbank.org/v2/en/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?downloadformat=excel

Poverty Rate

In order to study the development of individuals more deeply, it is necessary to introduce the poverty rate. The poverty rate is an indicator to measure the poverty level of a country or region. When focusing on the individual development of a country, in addition to the GDP/capita, the poverty rate cannot be ignored, because The GDP/capita of homeless and Bill Gates is higher than yours, but it does not mean that homeless people live better than you.

According to the definition of the Chinese government, the per capita annual income in rural areas is less than 2300 RMB (355 US dollars) is considered poverty. China has reduced the poverty rate from 70% to 0% in 20 years by improving infrastructure, education and medical care, completely eradicated poverty in 2016.

Reference: WBG (World Bank Group) (2023) Poverty headcount ratio at $2.15 a day (2017 PPP) (% of population) [data set], WBG website, accessed 26 May 2023. https://api.worldbank.org/v2/en/indicator/SI.POV.DDAY?downloadformat=excel

School Enrollment Rate

Education is an important way to reduce the poverty rate. The Chinese government has increased investment in education, improved educational resources, reduced the unemployment rate, and increased people’s income levels.

China resumed the entrance examination for higher education in 1977, so after 1980, the enrollment rate mentioned a very high increase. It can be expected that in the future, with the further increase of the enrollment rate, China’s knowledge level will also be improved.

Reference: WBG (World Bank Group) (2023) School enrollment, tertiary (% gross) - China [data set], WBG website, accessed 26 May 2023. https://api.worldbank.org/v2/en/indicator/SE.TER.ENRR?downloadformat=excel

Forestry Area

The cost of economic growth is usually environmental damage, but as a responsible country, China has been paying attention to forest coverage while economic growth, whether it is before 2020 when the economy is slow, or the development of economy is fast after 2020, China has always maintained an increase in forest coverage, which is of great significance to ecological environment protection and sustainable development

Reference: WBG (World Bank Group) (2023) Forest area (% of land area) [data set], WBG website, accessed 26 May 2023. https://api.worldbank.org/v2/en/indicator/AG.LND.FRST.ZS?downloadformat=excel

Foreign Investment

To observe China’s development, we must not only observe internal factors, but also need to pay attention to external factors. Foreign investment can promote China’s economic growth and increase employment opportunities. Due to the continuous improvement of China’s enrollment rate, future high-quality talents will become more, through the technology transfer by foreign investment, these talents can be utilized to promote the development of economy.

The starting time of the statistical data is 1979, which is different from the previous chart because of the lack of data, which is because of China start opening up policy in 1978, but it can be seen from the data that in the first 10 years, foreign capital was very cautious, and did not invest in China immediately, but increased investment after observation.

It is worth noting that foreign capital investment in China began to decline in 2013. This is due to the trade confrontation between the United States and China after China became the second largest economy, which forced some foreign capital to reduce investment, but in the confrontation China did not fail, so the investment rate rose again after that.

Reference: WBG (World Bank Group) (2023) Foreign direct investment, net inflows (BoP, current US$) - China [data set], WBG website, accessed 26 May 2023. https://api.worldbank.org/v2/en/indicator/AG.LND.FRST.ZS?downloadformat=excel

Milarity

Military strength is also an important factor to measure the development of a country. Military strength is generally proportional to economic strength. Since the comparison of military strength is multifaceted, the military strength that can be best reflected by data is The navy, and the number of ships in the navy can reflect the strength of its military capabilities. Military capabilities require an imaginary enemy, so here I set up a control group, the United States.

Before 2014, the number of Chinese naval ships was less than that of the United States, even if China’s gdp started to grow rapidly after 2000, this is because China did not prioritize funds for military, but for improving education and poverty. Obviously, after reducing the poverty rate to 2% in 2013, the number of Chinese naval ships has increased rapidly, and surpassed that of the United States in 2014, but what needs to be considered is that the advantage of quantity may be overtaken by the advantage of quality, because the US has more aircraft carriers.

Reference: Andrew S. Erickson (2020) China Navy Ship Numbers through 2040—Unique U.S. Navy Projections Published Only by CRS—“China Naval Modernization: Implications for U.S. Navy Capabilities”, andrewerickson website, accessed 26 May 2023. https://www.andrewerickson.com/2020/12/china-navy-ship-numbers-through-2040-unique-u-s-navy-projections-published-only-by-crs-china-naval-modernization-implications-for-u-s-navy-capabilities/

Transportation

Highway mileage is an important indicator of national infrastructure construction and can be considered as a catalyst for national development, because transportation can promote material circulation, personnel flow and industrial development. Since 2005, the statistics of rural roads have been included in the data, so the data has changed greatly.

The development trend of road mileage is similar to that of GDP, and it only increased rapidly after joining the WTO in 2000. It is worth noting that even though China has experienced foreign investment and GDP growth, it has not blindly increased investment in transportation networks, it’s still growing at about the same rate. From the line chart, it can be found that there was a small decline around 1960, because China was in a three-year natural disaster period which slowed down road construction.

Reference: Andrew S. Erickson (2020) 中国历年公路里程(1949年-2021年), shujujidi website, accessed 26 May 2023. https://www.shujujidi.com/hangye/165.html