Essay on “China Today” Complete Essay for Class 9, Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes.

China Today

Outlines: China’s Premier has called upon the lawmakers of the country to rekindle Beijing’s continued war on corrupt officials, branding graft a shameful abuse of public trust and a “matter of life and death for China”. Addressing the opening session of the 8th National People’s Congress, he said in an emotional appeal: “The power in our hands is given by the people and it must not be misused. We should only use it to work in the interests of the people and must, on no account, abuse it for personal gain or small around interest”, Mr. Li said in his keynote address.

Chinese PM echoed many themes, laid out in January 1995, by ‘Communist Party chief Jiang Zemin, who warned that officials who worship money, run after beautiful women and want power!, at any cost, forget that without hard struggle they would lose power.

He said in, what has now become, an annual anticorrupti1 tirade in his state of the nation report: “we must pay more attention  of to the importance of combating corruption which is a “matter  life and death for our nation”. “We should oppose money worship, ultra individualism and decadent lifestyles, and create a society with high ethical standards.”

Chinese PM called for controls on spending and slowing of the country’s inflationary economic growth. He urged price rises to be held to 15 per cent this year, blaming last year’s 22 per cent inflation on mistakes of government at all levels. The emphasis, in the great hall of the people, on austerity was matched by the lack of decoration outside.

Absent are the red silk Chinese flags lining Change’ an Avenue on the approach to Tiananmen Square. Also gone were the plastic floral arrangements that usually crowed the steps leading into the Great Hall during this time.

Premier Li’s annual government work report called for reduced spending, slower growth and controls on inflation. It advocated the reform of state run enterprises, cracking down on corruption within the system, and increased spending for agricultural development.

Recent sharp rise in prices is due both to objective reasons and to the mistakes of government at all levels, Li said, adding that price readjustments for commodities such as grain, cotton and crude oil, and the adoption of reform measures caused the hikes.

Despite recognition of an increase in the standard of living for both urban and rural Chinese, Mr. Li advocated a tight financial policy that limited expenditures. He said that in a developing country, high levels of consumption were not acceptable.

It is necessary to adhere over a long period of time to the principle of plain living and hard struggle, and of building up the country with industry and thrift, he said.

Agriculture comprised a significant portion of the 35page report. Flooding, drought, and the conversion of more and more land for industrial or commercial use has strained farm production.

Enterprises producing outdated goods should change their line of production, he said, merge with other enterprises or change hands.

While China continues to face the problems of its economy because of the transition from stiff communism to gradual liberalizing, and encouragement to the private enterprises, its defence Policy denotes new nuclear development programme.

The modernisation of Chinese atomic arsenal, as evidenced by Beijing’s nuclear explosion soon after the NPT extension was being finalised in New York, and its test of an advanced intercontinental ballistic missile, once again proved that, unless global abolition of nuclear weapons and missiles becomes a reality, any progress towards disarmament can only be illusory. In other words, as long as nations have nuclear weapons, they will seek to refine them, replacing obsolete inventories with new and more advanced ones. This is also amply borne out by the fact that the latest up gradation of Chinese nuclear and missile inventory is itself believed to be in response to American plans to develop and deploy thereat missile defences, a scaled down version of former US president Ronald Reagan’s Star War proposals in the early 1980’s. Nuclear arms race is, therefore, something that feeds upon itself.

Throughout the Cold War era, as long as the balance of nuclear terror kept US-Soviet rivalry in check, China seemed content, to follow the doctrine of minimum deterrence. It, therefore, possessed a small nuclear force with about 300 nuclear warheads currently deployed. The end of the cold war, however brought about consequent changes in the strategic thinking of Washington and, Moscow. With the newfound threat of missile proliferation from the developing world, the two agreed to introduce missile defences into the nuclear equation. The two pledged cooperation over this project even at the recent Moscow summit. Afraid that the introduction of missile defences might render its nuclear deterrence obsolete and irrelevant, Chinese defence experts have since been pressing for expansion in both size and range of its nuclear arsenal. Adding to Chinese paranoia in this regard were plans by the US and Japan to jointly develop and deploy missile defences in Asia. The resultant acceleration in Beijing’s nuclear modernisation has led to the testing of solid-propelled Deng Fong-31 with a range of about 8000 km. Capable of being launched more frequently, solid fuel propelled missiles are said to be more destructive.

But what is more dangerous is the fact that China’s expanding nuclear and military capabilities are likely to trigger off a complex nuclear arms race in Asia. Japan’s outburst against China’s nuclear explosion could well be a prelude to such a development. New Delhi must watch these developments with greatest care. Mr. Pranab Mukherjee, on a recent trip to the US, reiterated India’s stand that the country’s nuclear option would remain dependent upon the emerging strategic environment in the subcontinent. Indeed, the Chinese developments have only served to reinforce India’s consistent stand on the nuclear issue.