China Essay, Research Paper
It seems strange to me that I have underestimated China’s economic power for all this time. After reading and doing the site work, I have concluded that China is in fact a very powerful nation with a vast supply of natural resources and material goods. The amount the country exports to others astonishes me. I’ve always known it was a leader in a few agricultural crops but never realized the extent of the rest of their products. For many years the economy of China has been in good standing with China producing such crops as rice, grain, and cotton, and it still remains at the top of the list of producers even today. One thing that attributes to China’s success in the agriculture field is the fact that around 800 million of its residents live in rural areas. Not to overlook, however, China’s stable urbanized society, which is densely populated with 360 people per square kilometer in some areas and a national population of over 1.15 billion. Along with China’s rich agriculture, it also has a steady hold of the natural resource market as well. It seems to me that China is catching up with the rest of the world as it strives to become more modernized in its techniques of producing agriculture and its industries. Before recent years, China remained behind by sticking with the means of production they had been using for many years. I think this is in part because it saw some of the negative side effects that the revolutions in Europe had, with revolts from unhappy workers to workers being replaced altogether.
In the beginning, China developed itself as an economic leader through the hard work of many peasant farmers striving to gain financial success. Now today it seems that, like all parts of the world, these farmers are being overtaken by the large commercial businesses that mass produce and are more cost efficient, driving the farmers out of business and causing them to work elsewhere. This is nothing new as we are witnesses to this everyday, especially here in Iowa where large-scale hog operations are constantly putting private family farms out of business. So I guess what I learned is that China is becoming more and more like the US. I can’t truly compare it with any other country for I have yet to travel outside the US. By looking at the pictures, reading, and comparing the ancient China to the more modern, I feel that China can still compete for the center of power.