China and the Change

China and the Change

“Keep a cool head and maintain a low profile. Never take the lead - but aim to do something big.”

Deng Xiaoping

By: Erreh Svaia

And after nearly 40 years, China's imposed one child policy is about to end, imbalanced male-female population and aging seem to be the main causes for this important decision taken at the center of the communist party, impossible not to notice that this event comes at a time when China's fabulous economic growth is starting to decay, exports and imports at losing strength, as some countries like Brazil or Argentina can confirm, China is having troubles with their workforce as it be ones expensive, and also is having trouble with its interns consumption, a fast decision, as usual in authoritarian regimes may help China enormously to increase their workforce making it cheaper and more competitive in short term, as well as giving impulse to their internal markets, an strategy that will take decades to happen in places like the European Union were the population growth and aging are becoming big menaces for the future, Europe doesn't have a one child policy but economic conditions influence couples' decision to have smaller families.

China is taking an important step forward, although it could be a risky one, it could mean growth in short term but in the long run it will require stronger infrastructure to give proper conditions, housing, education and health to the new population, let's not forget an important history lesson another communist regime taught us, in Romania, Ceausescu urged couples under harsh communist conditions to have more children, abortion became severely punished, Romanian population grew up in explosive way, no proper conditions made life harder and those children Ceausescu insisted couples to have, ended up opposing his regime, toppling it, and hope you know how Ceausescu life ended.

Another important lesson here, the world is aging fast, countries like Japan, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, the U.K. and Canada could benefit from immigration to counteract aging in it's populations, but the proper conditions should be created first, young population is vital to strengthen the welfare state, otherwise it becomes unsustainable like is happening in southern Europe, either children or immigrants will require housing, education and health made available in order be assimilated successfully into the guest countries, Canada is another country that seems to be decided to make important changes within, once a paradise for immigration, Stephen Harper's extremely conservative policies hurt the country's economic growth and ended up in recession a situation the Canadian people are hoping to change with the recent election triumph of Justin Trudeau.

Countries need to stay vital in order to face the world constantly changing conditions, we all wish to have Nordic style welfare states, and that requires young population and preparation, things can't be solved in long term by crazy radical decisions, and let's hope these new policies taken in China end up in good terms for the country itself and for the whole world, also its important to remember that this is a short term action, as the future demands constant changes that will need to be quickly assimilated, cheap workforce won´t solve China´s problem in the long run, education and technology, as in India´s case, might be a better policy for a better future.

Big changes will become the norm in China as the two child policy will give women a bigger role in China´s society, it will undoubtedly give a complete turnaround to the county and give more equality between genres, it’s a constant, the only things that refuses to change is change.