Reflective Journal 4: Reflect on the societal problems faced by China and America. (Hint: you must definitely explain your responses to these societal problems. How can they be resolved? Who should be responsible for resolving these issues?)
No model of government and society is perfect; both China and America face numerous societal challenges and I shall be presenting my views on a few issues.
Today, China has the world’s second largest GDP, of which 35% comes from exports[1]. This is a problem as it is highly dependent on external countries; China’s economic growth this year has been forecasted to halve due to the Eurozone crisis[2]. Thus, China has to rely less on exports and more on domestic consumption. Premier Wen has said that “domestic demand is a crucial and necessary choice for a big country to achieve sustainable economic growth.”[3]
In my opinion, to increase domestic consumption, China has to increase the number of private companies, which account for 70% of economic profits[4]. Private company start-ups also promote the creation of jobs, narrowing the wealth gap, as 93% of China’s companies are private, employing 92% of the nation's workers[4].
In order to do so, more capital has to be invested in private companies, not state-owned enterprises. In fact, loans to small and medium-sized enterprises comprise only 4% of the total made by three of the country’s largest banks[4]. This problem is significant, as the cost to start a company is high, and capital is also required to compete in the global economy, yet the government is not supporting them by providing the necessary capital. In Singapore, the government is highly supportive of start-ups, with incentives in various fields, including funding $40 million to the med-tech industry last year.[5] With these incentives, there were 34000 start-ups in 2007[6].
Next, the society has to be more tolerant of company failures[7]. This is important as experiments which end up in failure provide valuable experience to learn from, as the company learns to be resilient and can better understand what their consumers want. After repeated experimenting (and failing), they are able to come up with successful and innovative products. For example, after Apple's failure of the Macintosh in 1989, it had remained unwavered and eventually pushed out various successful products like the MacBook and iPhone.
To me, I related this back to education. In Singapore and China, examination grades are very important for students as they hugely affect their careers in the future. Tuition centres earn so much money precisely because we have taken grades to be so important. However, are grades that important in which people who fail in exams “fail” in life as well? No, failures provide experience that allows children to learn from their mistakes and rectify them, and also allow them to discover their own strengths and weaknesses. This is important for success in life, as we need to learn how to overcome failures and make the best out of it when the time comes. Shouldn’t the education system prepare us for the future? In that case, why is it so unwilling to accept failures?
In summary, to solve this economic problem, China has to increase the number of private companies by increasing capital investment, and being more accepting of experimentation and failures, which is also applicable to education.
For America, one of its problems is the degradation of moral standards. Various studies which have observed this trend, but there is one I would like to point out that was published in New York Times[8]. In this study, 2/3 of 230 young adults across America could not answer questions about a moral dilemma, and most did not think of drink-driving and cheating in schools and on partners as wrong and evil. Instead, most said that moral choices are based on the individual’s taste, while most others also said that “I would do what I thought made me happy”. The implications of this are obvious – increased crime rates and divorce rates, among many others.
This is a problem that has to be solved due to the extreme emphasis placed on moral individualism, but who should take the responsibility, and has the means to resolve it? My answer is everyone: the individual has to make the effort to see how moral standards are important and change his attitude, parents should regain more authority over their children in order to inculcate certain values and not let them go astray, the community has to be more critical of such poor moral standards, and at the same time foster an environment that promotes them, while the government can implement policies to introduce character education in schools.
Nevertheless, the process will be a arduous one, but America can resolve this issue if its citizens are willing to change their perspectives of moral standards and individualism.
In conclusion, to resolve the issues above, multiple parties have to work hand-in-hand, and be more willing to change their beliefs towards an issue. It is only then that changes will be made and problems can be solved.
800 words.
References:
1: Koopman, R., & Wang, Z. (Date unknown). How Much of China’s Exports is Really Made in China? United States International Trade Commission. http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTRANETTRADE/Resources/Internal-Training/287823-1256848879189/6526508-1283456658475/7370147-1308070299728/7997263-1308070314933/PAPER_10_Koopman_Wang.pdf (28/3/2012)
2: Inman, P. (19 March 2012). IMF calls on China to improve domestic consumption. theguardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/mar/19/imf-calls-china-domestic-consumption (28/3/2012)
3: People’s Daily Online. (14 September 2011). Premier Wen stresses domestic demand to drive economic growth. People’s Daily Online. http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90883/7595346.html (28/3/2012)
4: The Economist. (10 March 2011). Entrepreneurship in China: Let a Million Flowers Bloom. The Economist. http://www.economist.com/node/18330120 (28/3/2012)
5: Channel NewsAsia. (31 May 2011). S$40 million to encourage more med-tech start-ups. channelnewsasia.com. http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1132303/1/.html (28/3/2012)
6: Oh, B. P. (30 January 2010). Going all out to help SMEs make that giant leap. The Business Times. http://www.asiaone.com/Business/News/SME+Central/Story/A1Story20100128-195022.html (28/3/2012)
7: Smale, W. (29 January 2012). What Drives US Entrepreneurship? BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16742137 (28/3/2012)
8: Brooks, D. (12 September 2011). If It Feels Right… The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/13/opinion/if-it-feels-right.html (28/3/2012)
