Country Research Questions

1. form of government and name of your current leader

· President Hu Jintao

· Communist

2. type of economy, current level of prosperity

· Communist in theory

· Capitalist Market Economy in practice (reforms in 1980s)

· GDP (2008) - $4.22 trillion

· Industry – 46% on China’s GDP

· Agriculture – 13% of GDP, but over 40% of China’s labor force

3. social values/issues: (class; gender roles; family structures; cultural values, etc.)

· Overpopulation has led to China’s enforcing only one child per family (two in some cases)

· Social values come from ideas of Confucianism and Taoism

· Starting to develop a more Western social structure (breaking away from equality of Communism)

· Men are more respected than women still (women work in household while men support the family)

· Uyghurs in Xinjiang rebellions (want independence from Han)

4. major religion(s), with %

· Taoism – 23.9%

· Buddhism – 7.5%

· Muslim – 1.5%

· Protestant – 1.1%

· Catholic – .4%

5. major ethnic group(s), with %

· Han Chinese – 91.5%

· Other ethnic groups – 8.5% (Uyghurs about 7 million)

6. key events in your 20^th c. history that might affect your policy decisions today, and how

· Mau Zedong’s “Great Leap Forward” sparked industry and agriculture and China which both play huge part’s in China’s economy today. The Great Leap Forward itself may have failed, but some of the ideas still are alive today.

· Mao’s Cultural Revolution was a disaster because of the millions killed. China has kept communism in theory, but has moved closer to capitalism since then. They aren’t nearly as radical today as they were in the Mao Era

· The incident at Tiananmen Square has led China to open up their economy more (led by Deng Xiaoping’s drive for capitalism)

7. your key current issues (include detail-you’ll need to refer to these)

· Overpopulation (almost 1.5 billion) – China is making a lot of changes to try and slow down the rate of population growth

· Environment – industry has caused a lot of problems with carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions

· Uyghur rebellions – recent rebellions in Xinjiang to get independence

· Strong allies with Iran – China has said that they are concerned about nuclear weapons program in Iran, but they cooperate with each other (no problems yet)

8. membership in major international or regional organizations (i.e. UN, G-12, NATO, EU, Arab League, etc.)?

· UN – permanent Security Council member

· NO NATO or G-12

9. military strength? do you have nuclear weapons?

· People’s Liberation Army

· Army, Navy, Air Force

· Nuclear Weapons Program

· International arms exporter