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)
(continued as the comment box only allow 4,096 characters) You also state that the society of China should be more tolerant of company failures. However, just to clarify, does the society of China not tolerate company failures or is this just a stereotype? Also, I agree with your point that there is valuable experience for the company to gain even if the business fail. I would also like to add on on your point that after the company fail, the company may improve by looking at what their consumers want (like what you said), and possibly venture into other field of business to suit the consumers’ need instead of just improving their old business which may not be what people prefer.
ReplyDeleteI am very glad to see you relating the issue back to Singapore’s context, however, I feel that you may have had the wrong idea about tuition in Singapore as you state that people go for tuition for the sake of their grades. Although most people go for tuition to improve their grades, there are still the minorities who go for tuition even when they are already getting very good grades and instead go for tuition for the sake of understanding the topic more as they may like that particular subject a lot and also to practice more to master the topic, not just only for improving their grades. You may also have stereotyped that examination grades of the students affect their careers as people who are not getting good examination grades, can still excel in their career, for example Steve Jobs from Apple, therefore, examination grades does not exactly determine the career of the students. Also, you state that mistakes and failures allow the students to learn from their own strengths and weaknesses. However, you did not state how exactly the students can go about doing that. I would suggest that the students can probably reflect regularly on their mistakes so that they can learn from them and also identify their own strengths and weaknesses. I also disagree with you that our education system does not prepare us for the future and is unwilling to accept failures. This is because I feel that the different streaming we have allows the students to learn at their own pace and when it is found out that they do not do well academic wise, they are most probably sent to the ITE after graduating from secondary schools where they can learn technical skills which is useful for them in the future. Therefore, our education system does actually prepare us for the future.
Apart from the points for improvement, there are also good points of your reflective journal.
I like the way you relate the incidents back to our country as this is where you can apply what you have learnt. You have also provided some of your own insights to the issues the two countries faced, for example, you thought of the idea of China putting greater emphasis on private-owned companies so that they can be more self-sustainable economic wise. The points you presented are also very well-organised and coherent. I like the societal problems and solutions you proposed for America as the ideas are clear and well-supported, for example, you took the effort to look for statistics proving that young adults are having moral degradation and goes on to evaluate the issue, giving solutions on how each sector of the society can do their part in helping resolve this problem.
Thanks!
Hi Ivan,
ReplyDeleteYou state that China should encourage private companies and not rely too much on exports to improve their economy as this will make the country more self-reliant. Also, more revenue and jobs will be created in the country as well. However, what if the private companies bring their business overseas and hire the people overseas after their enterprise has succeed? Won’t this be a waste of the resources China used on these companies? A possible method which I feel can address this concern, would be to attach certain conditions before the private companies can benefit from the government’s help, for example, asking the company to hire 80% of their employees from China and keeping their business headquarters in China etc.
You also state that the society must be more tolerant of company failures. Just to clarify, does the society of China not tolerate company failures? Also, I agree with your point that there are valuable experiences for the company to gain even if the business fail. I would also like to add on on your point that after the company fail, the company may improve by looking at what their consumers want (like what you said), and possibly venture into other field of business to suit the consumers’ need instead of just improving their old business which may not be what people prefer.
Dear Ivan, I found out that there is a repeat of point for the two comments I posted. Please take note of that and I apologise for this slight error when commenting.
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