DISPENCE

This country is gigantic. It’s about the size of the United States but has 1.3 billion people. The United States has 300 million people. In China, that’s how many people smoke. The west half of the country is all mountains so almost everyone lives in the east.

Some Facts:

• Beijing’s population is about 18 million. New York City’s is just over 8 million.
• Coal accounts for 2/3 of China’s energy.
• China consumes seven percent of the world’s oil market.
• Four new nuclear power plants are planned, one already under construction.
• China has seen about a 10 percent growth rate for the last 26 years.
• The Three Gorges Damn will be over 600 feet tall and 1.4 miles wide when completed in 2011. In all, over four million people will be displaced to make way for 400×70 mile reservoir on the Yangtse River.
• Construction has begun on China’s newest tallest building. It’s in Shanghai.
• In a taxi the other night, the driver told us there’s about 67,000 taxis in Beijing.
• Speaking of construction, it’s booming. Especially with the Olympics coming up. Below is an artist’s rendering of the soon to be completed new CCTV building in downtown Beijing’s Central Business District or CBD.

Last weekend we checked out the “Eight Temples” over on the west side of Beijing in the foothills of the nearby mountains. From the top of the area we could see all of Beijing. There’s no real suburbs. Just apartment buildings stretching into the smoggy horizon where downtown Beijing looms. Follow this link to see for yourself.

There are also some big problems. Twenty four people were killed recently in a mine explosion in Wu’an. Just last year, 3,700 people died in mine related accidents in China. (Note how in that story this fact is buried several paragraphs deep.) Pollution is a huge problem but the national government is creating new policy to change that. Rights for farmers, social security, affordable health care, a class gap and the inability to drink tap water anywhere in the country are all challenges facing China. These will by no means go away come Olympic time. My only hope is that media covering the games will realize this.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 19th, 2008 at 7:02 am and is filed under China. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.