China's one-child policy

http://www.economist.com/node/16846390

“Rethinking China’s one-child policy”

Does China have enough people? The question seems ridiculous at first. China is renowned for having the world’s largest population, and many people, although appalled at the draconian measures employed in the brutal enforcement of the one-child policy, grudgingly agree that it was about time China did something to control its gargantuan population and lightning-quick population growth. However, recent censuses uncover some doubts about the one-child policy. The total fertility rate, calculated by dividing the number of new births by the total number of women in the country, may be just hovering around 1.4 – a far cry from the 2.1 rate needed for “natural replacement” when a country can replace its population, keeping it about the same size.

According to statistics published by the Brookings Institution, people above the age of 60 now represent 13.3% of the population, up from 10.3% in 2000, or 39 million more elderly above the age of 60. In the same period, the percentage of young people below 14 plummeted from 23% to 17%. The huge abundance of cheap labour supplied by the population boom – make that a population explosion – that spurred China’s industrialization in the past three decades is nearly over. In the next couple of years, the percentage of citizens above 65 will escalate exponentially, while the population comprising youths below 23 will dip dramatically. The untold effects on China’s breakneck economic growth will be devastating.

I personally think the one-child policy has to be seriously revamped and re-evaluated, if not completely done away with. If the slow population growth continues and results in the drastic dip in the size of the Chinese workforce, the shrinking number of working adults will have to carry the burden of supporting an escalating number of Chinese elderly, in the form of increased taxes. The government will have to increase spending on healthcare and benefits for the elderly. As a result, less money can be dedicated to other more meaningful areas, such as investing in technology to make their factories and industries more environmentally friendly, or in programs to reforest the severely deforested parts of China. These phenomena will take a large bite of China’s already slowing economic growth.

Furthermore, many Chinese prefer to have boys over girls. Boys can carry on the family name, and they have been the head of the house in Chinese traditional culture for millennia to date. While male-dominant cultures are also rampant in countries like India, the one-child policy has played a significant role in exacerbating the situation. Many families will do almost anything to ensure their one legal child is male, including female infanticide and going for ultrasound scans to check the gender of the foetus. This is not only a violation of human rights, it will achieve the effect of “pouring oil on the fire” as Queen Elizabeth once described it.

Some people contend that in the conservative world of politics, it is nigh on impossible to achieve the kind of overnight change China needs to counter the negative effects of its notorious one-child policy. They argue that policies cannot be changed on a whim, that the situation must be evaluated and re-evaluated before the government can take action to remedy the situation. They claim that this boosts foreign confidence in the country. Let me pose a question. Would it be better to have a sufficiently growing workforce or good foreign relations, given that the two are mutually exclusive? I think the obvious answer is a sufficiently growing workforce, for the aforementioned reasons. Yes, quick policy changes are rare in general, but the true mark of a good leader is that he knows when convention needs to be thrown out the window, when tradition can be upturned and trampled on, when policies that have become mainstream need to be kicked out. If and when the situation calls for it, such changes are not only possible, they are also necessary.

If the Chinese Communist Party sees fit to revamp the one-child policy into a two-child policy, well done. If not, China will face its most serious demographic problem yet. And when it does, it will probably be too late.

"Don't wait till places are gone before you enjoy them"

I think Mr Loh, in his article, does have a point. Just like we should not wait until people are dead to commemorate their lives or to praise them, we should not wait until places are closing before we visit them and receive whatever insights and nostalgia that place may bring. I fondly remember the Commonwealth Avenue Cooked Food Center along Stirling Road in Queenstown. Before it closed early this year, I frequented the hawker center often to eat the delicious popiah and nasi ayam or chicken rice. It is, to me, a reminder of the days spent revising for the Primary School Leaving Exam (PSLE). To keep my morale up, my mother often went to buy food back from the cooked food center, especially my favourite chicken rice. I soon came to associate studying for the PSLE with the fragrant aroma of chicken rice. That made the entire experience more palatable and enjoyable for me.

I think this idea can be applied to other areas of life. If we start revising for our tests earlier, we have more time to absorb the material. We can also take a slower pace and thoroughly cover each topic. If there is extra time, we can even go through the material again to “gain new insights” as the saying goes in Chinese. The early bird gets the worm. Isn’t it much better to make good use of our time, rather than fall prey to the numerous inventions technology has for us to waste time? I am sure that instead of rushing through an important assignment a few days before the deadline, it is much better to start a few weeks before, conduct the necessary research or read up on the necessary topics, then finish a beautiful piece that any student can feel proud of.

However, it is necessary to acknowledge that to know what to do is easier than to do. If do were as easy as to know what is right to do, "chapels would be churches, and poor men's huts would be prince's palaces", as stated in The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare. Indeed, it is often harder to practise than to preach. However, everything crumbles to human persistence. Thomas Edison persevered for a thousand experiments before he invented the lightbulb. Colonel Sanders went around asking hundreds of restaurant chains to cook his new recipe for fried chicken before someone said yes. That's how we got KFC Kentucky Fried Chicken today. Is it really so difficult to make time to start on a project early, to go do a bit of pre-lecture reading, to research on the topic before attending a meeting? Is it truly impossible to be the early bird that catches the worm?

However, I also think that more can be done to promote this attitude in Singaporeans, of starting early and finishing early. At work, projects could be given larger timeframes, but more projects could be taken on simultaneously. Employees would be encouraged to start early, and do a little more of the project everyday, instead of rushing through one project. In school, more groupwork can be assigned by teachers, but be given a larger timeframe so students develop the habit of good time management. In school, it should be compulsory to take on two projects at the same time, but the timeframe for each project can be larger. Instead of the current four and a half months given in Hwa Chong Institution, students can be given seven months, but will be forced to juggle two projects. This will not only encourage good time management, it will also achieve more results in the same amount of time. Instead of one project per year, now there are two projects per year.

People talk about getting through the day to relax. Instead of wishing time passed more quickly in school or at work and later wondering where the time went, why not take each day slowly, and start things for the long-term future?

Panel Discussion #1

Welcome back, my avid fans/friends and let's kick start the term with something interesting to perk you up.

Recently in Singapore, there was a huge hullabaloo over the Dr Susan Lim controversy. Dr Susan Lim was one of Singapore's most brilliant doctors, and the Brunei royal family had requested her expertise in treating the Sultan of Brunei's sister-in-law. The patient had advanced breast cancer, and was unlikely to survive even with treatment, but was adamant on demanding treatment. For six years, Dr Lim treated the patient. The total bill came to $22.4 million dollars.

The big question: Was it justified? Is it ethical?

There are many different responsed regarding the former question. One must take into account how the doctor scurried around to attend to the extremely demanding patient. According to the accounts of Dr Susan Lim, the patient was very insistent and required her to attend to her personal needs whenever she asked, not even consenting to nurses who took instructions from Dr Lim herself. On one occasion, Dr Lim had just undergone eye surgery, and was having bed rest. However, the patient demanded that Dr Lim attend to her anyway. No matter how people tried to convince her, the patient would not budge in her demands. In the end, Dr Lim had to rely on many other people's help to take an ambulance to the patient's residence, and took a huge medical risk in the fact that she might have lost her eyesight by forgoing bed rest. If that scenario had panned out, she would have been blinded for the rest of her life, just because of one patient's impatience. Also, Dr Lim was the coordinator of many other specialists, such as gyneacologists, psychologists, carcinologists, cardiologists and biologists. There was an entire team of doctors managed by Dr Lim, managing and coordinating their efforts to provide efficient and effective treatment. One can only imagine how torturous the experience must have been.

On the other hand, many assert that the fees charged were simply too high. Even if Dr Lim had been earning a couple million per year, the fees still did not add up to the whopping sum of $22.4 million dollars. Also, it was confirmed after the initial public outburst that she had inflated the bills sent to her by many doctors, by factors of more than twenty. One doctor had sent a bill for $400, which was inflated to above $80,000 by Dr Lim. The Singapore Health Ministry in particular is extremely upset that an offical from Brunei had to come to Singapore personally to make a request on the Sultan's behalf to lower the medical price given by Dr Susan Lim. Additionally, many point out that the patient died despite all the treatment. Worries abound that Singapore's reputation for providing cheap, yet high-quality medical treatment will be tarnished by what has now become a widely publicised affair not only in Singapore, but in surrounding Asia-Pacific countries as well.

This question will remain unanswered for a long time yet.

With regard to the second question, the replies are even more variegated. How ethical is charging high fees? To answer this question, we must ask another one. Why is the public upset over this? Is it because they feel indignant on the patient's behalf? Is it because they fear repercussions on themselves? Is it because they feel ashamed that one of their countrymen has inadvertently tarnished their country's reputation?

From the Government standpoint, I think it is the third reason. The Singapore Health Ministry was and continues to be extremely distraught over what they perceive to be a breach in the code of conduct that all doctors are expected to honour. The message they have been promoting for the past half a century is that Singapore provides cheap, good healthcare. Of course they'd be more than upset, perhaps furious, that a doctor registered in Singapore, a Singaporean, would go so far as to directly contradict them. They fear losing popularity, and while the next general elections are five years off, five years is not a long time. Singapore doctors are expected to provide good, cheap healthcare, and solidify the world perception of Singapore.

From the public standpoint, I think it is the second one. Singaporeans have always been rather selfish, and "kiasu" or afraid to die. Why should they feel for a rich member of the Brunei royal family when they perceive the lives of the rich to be so much better than the lives of the middle class, of the working class, of the poor? I think the majority of Singaporeans are just trying to prevent such an incident from occuring to themselves. Chances are you, the reader who is absorbed in this blog post, are also indignant for this reason. Of course you'll try to cover it up, but what is the real reason for any anger you may be feeling over this incident? You are afraid it's going to affect you and your nice familiar comfortable life.

Back to the question. Is it ethical? The line of ethics is murky. It does not run straight. It curves all over the place, constantly changing along with public expectations. I cannot answer this question yet.

This question is far from answered.