Aug 29 2007
“China Chokes”: A look at the effects of China’s massive economic growth
Published by Michelle Close at 4:39 pm under
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WikipediaChina Chokes - New York Times, August 26, 2007
This article, one in a series of articles yet to come, is a must read for all IB and AP Economics students. The particular article investigates the effects of China’s massive growth on its population, its environment. and on its pollution levels. The authors present videos, photographs, interactive maps in their article in order to graphically illustrate the many ways that China is affected by its rapid economic progress.
As economists, we all know that there are opportunity costs to all decisions and this article looks at the “costs” of China’s massive economic growth. One video includes information about China’s attempt to apply a Green GDP formula to its own growth and sobered by the outcome. Another interactive map compares economic growth rate of different countries around the world while another looks at the carbon emission rate of different countries. The point is that this article is meant to be very interactive so that the reader can experience how China is choking on its own growth. It is your turn to find out.
About the author: Michelle Close teaches AP Economics and IB Economics the Shanghai American School where she is also the CAS coordinator for the IB program. Michelle has taught in a wide variety of school settings for the last twenty years and truly values teaching, living and traveling abroad.
Michelle has been living in Shanghai with her husband Kevin and two children, Maya and Cooper since 2006 and she previously taught at the Columbus School in Medellin, Colombia. She calls Boston and The Bay Area her home away from home. 
Is rapid economic growth worth the opportunity cost of a delapidated environment and the health of millions of people? This article brings attention to the side effects of such collosal growth. Since firms seek the cheapest possible resources to maximize profit, the cheapest resources are sometimes not most optimal for health or environment. However, these implicit costs were ignored in favor of monetary gain. The residue of such growth- air pollution, unsanitary water, land pollution- could also prove harmful to the economy as health expenses would also increase, in addition to expensive measures toward clearing the air.
It is interesting how China ignored increasing its technology (relying on aging and inefficient factories) and concentrated instead on producing consumer goods. Because of this, although it gained a lot in the short term, its progress is increasingly being hampered by health problems and environmental problems. If China had focused more on cleaner forms of energy, then maybe it would not have to pay such a steep price now and in the future.
However, as the article mentioned, all governments went through a period where they concentrated on GDP growth, and ignored the environment. Perhaps they assumed that it would be more profitable to focus on the economy in the short term and clean up later, but maybe China went a bit overboard.
This article exemplifies the concept that there really is no free lunch. Everything always comes at a cost. And for China’s massive industrial growth, this cost is accounted by the destruction of the natural environment, and the harmful effects on our health. China certainly used the least-cost production methods, a very significant characteristic of a market economy to maximize profit (and one that I would consider China to be today), but they should also consider the opportunity costs that come along with it. The explicit costs may perhaps appear less right now, but is it worth all these implicit costs? That is a question that China should consider before this becomes detrimental to the country, and in the larger sense, the world. I even wonder if this will in turn affect the availability of their resources and China’s economy, as much of their resources, such as land, and labor, are greatly affected by China’s economic expansion.
China may be one of the world’s leading economies right now, but she’s giving up a lot for this position. While China’s infamously cheap labor and products are in high demand from countries like the United States, on the long run, China’s production methods are destroying many of it’s essential resources. On the short term, China’s rapid, inexpensive production is profiting and highly desired, but the destruction of resources such as coal from floods (as depicted in the slideshow) and the cost of loss of labor from severe pollution caused by automobiles could cut off from China’s success in the future. It all comes down to the question: is all this worth it? Is China willing to produce as much as possible on consumer goods right now at the cost of future loss of capital goods, and therefore loss of consumer goods?
If China continues to be stubborn and not accept change, they will most certainly doom themselves and quite possibly the world in the near future with all of their growing pollution problems. In order to continue economic growth and have a cleaner environment, like the article said, a change in the political system may be needed. I hate it when the chinese communist officials complain that the rich developed countries aren’t helping China and are only now raising concerns about the environment only after they had became rich and powerful. Well actually the Chinese had a good opportunity back in the ’50s and ’60s to develop with Mao at the head, but he messed up, terribly. The fact that these officials who are blaming the west about their problems should instead be blaming Mao and his short-sidedness and failure to realize the problems plagued the country. A lot of the current world problems began in the past, and China’s began 50 years ago.
The rapid growth rates of China has resulted in numerous pollution problems; just take a look around Shanghai’s downtown. As I mentioned in the AP Econ in the News China cannot support its rapid growing economy that resulted in numerous problems such as pollution and tainted products. This is also a perfect example of opportunity costs, the great benefits came with a high “price-tag.” I believe these pollution costs are very hard to reverse and solve since it deals with such a large country, the government should first guarantee peoples standard of living before it considers producing more goods.
‘industrial cities where people rarely see the sun; children killed or sickened by lead poisoning or other types of local pollution; a coastline so swamped by algal red tides that large sections of the ocean no longer sustain marine life.’ this passage in the article reminds me of those science-fiction short stories that talks about the future and how the newborn have never felt sunlight. Must rapid economic growth include such great sacrifices? For an industrial power, i think the answer would be yes. The Chinese government, while measuring the costs and benefits of its economic growth, might want to put more efforts into educating its citizens to help protect the environment
HOW IRONIC. because you’d think, or you SHOULD think that the purpose of economic growth is to improve living conditions, yet, if economic growth is degrading the environment, how are we improving living conditions? Do improved living conditions include oxygen tubes stuck up our nose and daily cancer creams in the future?
This article demonstrates opportunity costs very well. There is no such thing as a free lunch. In China’s case, the rapidly expanding economy and industry came at a costly price-the environment. Because China manufactures a lot of goods in an attempt to catch up to the advanced Western World, they didn’t pay much attention to the pollution that they produced as a by-product until the situation is very severe, as it is right now.
I think the government should properly know which thing costs more opportunity costs. They are making a faulty decision that generating more goods to improve the economy of china has more benefit than the side-effects of the pollution made out during the process of generating them. I consider that preventing the air, water pollution that comes later will cost more than the earnings they have now by overproducting.
I think China’s gone a bit too far in the sense that they are still using too many rural factories that produce tons of toxic smoke clouds and pollution. When I thought that the pollution in the cities was bad, the rural regions are far worse. Although China’s economy is growing at an amazing rate, the living conditions in places with these factories is just unbearable for any other person.
I like how Joseph Kahn and Jim Yardley said “China is choking on its success.” China’s economy is growing so much but at what cost? The cost of millions of their own people. This article shows the oppurtunity cost of China’s fast growing industry. Almost 500 MILLION people do not have access to safe drinking water. Pollution has made cancer the leading cause of death in China. Only ONE PERCENT of the countrys 560 million people are breathing “European Union” safe air. Children are getting sick from lead poisoning. The coastline is filled with poinsonous algal red tide which kills all marine life. China chooses to have a fast growing strong economy than to take care of their people. China is shortening the lives of millions. It is just hard to imagine that China’s government would do such a thing. I never thought it was this bad.
China asphyxiating on its own growth is an apt metaphor for the paradoxical situation the “Middle Kingdom” has reached. On one hand, China is yielding enormous growth and economic prosperity, but on the other hand the environment and people are suffering. The reasons behind China’s crisis include from outdated technology, inefficient fuel sources, and the exponential growth of cars. If China does not make efforts to fix the “progress problem” the effects on the environment and the population will be devastating. China needs to stop itself from “choking” before it is too late.
I agree that the opportunity cost of industrial growth is the natural environment. The trees in China are not full grown ones, but young trees that look like they were transported to their current location.
Even though China is making some kind of effort to “cleanse” the air and the environment, industry will still prevail.
I also agree that China should first take care of its own people because you still see people living in shacks with no running water. With industrial growth, China needs people to run those industries and work in them, but with so many in China not having the proper education due to poverty, how will all those industries find enough workers?
Its obvious that China needs to start to cut back before it ruins the world. But when will this happen? If you recall the LIVE Earth concert series, with many countries all promoting a greener earth, you will remember that China also had a LIVE Earth Concert here in Shanghai. When it was released that China was having the concert the critics raved that finally China was doing something about its pollution and effects of the pollution on the people. After that fact I don’t know how much else has been done. But it’s a step in the right direction.
If China has at least realized these effects hopefully they realize that economic growth as a whole has brought up other problems and maybe these will be resolved soon as well. After all we all want to live in a clean and friendly China
This article is a perfect example of controversial opportunity cost; does the fact that China’s economy is expanding faster than any other country in the world outweigh the effects of its massive expansion? Or in economic terms, does the marginal benefit (expansion) really exceed the marginal cost (pollution, over-population, etc.)? The seemingly correct answer would be yes, but if we look at the effects it has on the people and the environment, we can see that China is slowly destroying itself. We are going to be the ones living in the after-effects of all this economic expansion and if something is not done about this problem, sooner or later China will be uninhabitable.
After checking out the slideshow, one picture caught my eyes: a picture of a construction worker working on a building, with the polluted skies of Beijing in the background. The caption said something like “Beijing getting ready for the 2008 Olympics.” To me, this was a perfect example of how China was hurting itself by rapidly developing. It’s ironic how this over-populated country wants to take on everything at once (hosting the Olympics, the World’s Fair, etc.) yet can not control one of it’s own major problems: pollution.
Choices, sacrifices, and opportunity costs. China has placed industrialization and modernization before the environment. Is that the wrong choice? For China at the moment, I think it is the correct one, albeit a unfortunate one. For China, its industrialization and modernization is coupled with its plan to bring most of its citizens out of poverty. The marginal benefits is increased GDP while the marginal cost is the environment and human sanitation. In my opinion, the benefit outweighs the costs. Having said that, the government still needs to make it a priority to create environmental limitations on environmentally hazardous industries.
The question of whether china is putting their population at risk in order to expand its industries is worth it? this is like the explicit(bigger industry) and implicit(populations health at risk) we were talking about in class the other day. personally i dont think its worth it. the government should do something to limit the amount of pollution they are causing. China is trying so hard to show that their standards are as high as the rest of the world, however, its the little details that the government doesnt see which causes the rest of the world to think china’s standards still have a long way to go. Pollution is one of the major sitautions that is ignored.
Over the past few decades, China has become “fixated on economic growth”(Joseph Kahn, video) at the cost of the environment and its people’s health. One major consequence of this choice is having over “600 million people live in provinces under water stress”. The purpose of this industrialization was economic growth, to improve the lives of the general population. However, China did not consider the marginal costs of this decision and has sacrificed the lives of millions of citizens. After looking through the slideshow, I realize that we’re all living in a cesspool. The chinese government needs to reconsider their priorities.
The 2008 Olympics is a wake up call to China. The country has to project a good self-image to other countries, and is currently failing. Pollution to the environment is one cost that China pays for its growing economy. As officials rush to clean up the country, some problems cannot be quickly fixed. China’s method to produce energy and goods is not as effective as many western countries, and this contributes to their pollution issue. In the past, environmental costs were not important to many countries, and so cheaper plants and methods were accepted in places like China. A country cannot suddenly change their production methods, it takes time and money. Especially considering that China is so large, the number of factories and machinery to be replaced is numerous. China wants to have a strong developing economy like western countries, and any country that wants to develop to that state has to sacrifice something. To do that, resources have to be used and pollution has to be created. The catch this time is that China’s population is many times larger than many countries, many countries fail to take note of that. China serves as a good example of environmental destruction through industry, but it is the first to try to change that within a year.
This article reminded me of the fact that economic growth, despite its “perfect” appearance”, might be harmful to some areas; as “there is no free lunch”, having a rapid economic growth is also followed by opportunity cost such as environment cost, in this case. Therefore, I think it is crucial that Chinese government employs marginal analysis and makes optimal decisions on how to allocate their resources cleverly.
Also, to add, as similar problems occur throuthout the world, we are putting our earth into more and more danger situation, and to prevent this horrible result, we will have to, as global citizens, preserve our environment and consider the environmental consequences of the rapid economic growth.
While China’s economy may be booming, our environment is certainly paying a price. While I do agree that with China’s growing economy, there is an even greater opportunity cost which involves increase in pollution levels and great health issues. However, I was thinking of Beijing with the Olympics coming soon. Indeed the Olympics are going to bring great business to Beijing, with viewers coming from all over the world. This will boost their economy for at least these few weeks, however even two or three years prior to the event, Beijing is already cleaning up. They have spent large amounts of time and money to plant more trees and they have a certain time period when all factories must be shut down to reduce pollution. This will definitely help their economy and at the same time, help their environment. Hopefully, after the Olympics are over, Beijing will continue to keep it up!
Economists predicts that if China continues its current economic boo, it may even surpass Germany as the third world’s largest economy in a few years. Although this may seem like a favorable thing for China, they are actually “choking” themselves with their massive economic growth. The opportunity cost is too much, and the people of China has to suffer for the government’s selfish act in order to become the top economic country of the world. The pollution caused by China’s economic boom are affecting many aspects of its society. As we can see from the video by Joseph Kahn, many body of water are polluted; thus causing marine lives to die and a vast number of people can not get clean water to drink. Non-toxic smoke are white colored, however, the smoke that are coming out of the factories were orange colored. Despite the economic boom of China, the government should see what the people of China are experiencing and put the people’s welfare as priority.
Personally, I do not think that given the current condition of the entire world that China will be able to become a prosperous nation equivalent to those of the Western world. This is not the fault of China. I believe that our planet Earth will not be able to stand having the currently huge Chinese population having living standards as high as that of the US citizens. A continuing growth of Chinese industry, therefore, will not only choke the Chinese citizen, but will also choke our planet eventually.
In order for the Chinese to continue their greatest economical conquest in the history of mankind, a few things should be done. First and foremost, the Chinese (and hopefully the rest of the world) will need to find more environmental-friendly resources to replace the non-renewable resources. Yes, yes, this is what we all are trying to get to, but it doesn’t seem like we can put too much hope on this one given our current, still somewhat lacking level of technology. Next, China needs to reduce its huge population in order to compensate for the limited production rate that Earth has granted us. With a smaller population, the living standard of individuals should increase. However, even with the one-child policy implemented a few decades ago, China’s population is still huge. Therefore, I don’t think we should count on this solution too much either. Finally, one final way to assist China’s economic growth is to hope that the top nations of the world, such as the USA and the European nations, will lend a helping hand, lowering their living standard by a reasonable degree (we don’t really need four cars per family) so that the Chinese may enjoy a higher living standard they, under normal conditions, wouldn’t be able to achieve. However, this is like asking for a communist policy to be placed over the whole world, and in the end, solving China’s economic growth cap this way doesn’t seem to be practical.
So, with no obvious way present currently for China to get around this limit on industrial expansion, if the industrialization isn’t stopped in time, China will end up sucking dry whatever hospitality Mother Nature had granted us. If the world was not to be destroyed, I think China should halt some of its factory productions for a while and concentrate on improving the living standards of its people. This includes making the environment greener so that health issues regarding pollution are less likely to be present.
This article clearly shows the opportunity cost china took to have such a high economy: the destruction of its environment. I’m sure that china knows about global warming and what happens if a country polutes too much. They chose to simply strengthn the economy rather then take care of its environment. I personally think they went overboard. Yes a country must strive to create a better economy and the environment will suffer one way or another, but it’s the matter of how much you make the land suffer. China’s economy has boomed amazingly over the past few years and have reaches astonishing goals that no other country has ever achieved, but all on the cost of the land. This leaves me with this one question in my mind, is it really worth it? People falling sick and dieing, land totally destroyed, is it worth the big economy? I think china has realized what it has done with its environment and now is trying to fix it all up, but it will never be the same. I guess china’s values were simply rather to have the strongest economy in the world, rather then the cleanest or safest country.
It seems as if China’s factories are growing cancerous lumps; however, it has a catch: these “lumps” are feeding its people with cash. Though China has acted to fix this crisis, many industrial areas have shown cancer rates in 60 percent of the population. In my opinion, the marginal benifits outweight the cost as China’s carbon emmissions are due to international firm’s demand for cheaper goods i.e. the United States thats emmissions per person outweighs China’s. It is ironic to see an American journal to write about “how China should stop polluting” when Americans produces the most carbon emmissions and are also adding to China’s. Therefore, though China should try futher regulate their emmission standards, it is the international community that has to help with this process–even if it may lead to a massive inflation in prices.
In this pragmatic world nowadays, every single decision, choice any individual or society makes comes doubles sides—gain and lost, and this characteristic of economics also includes the fastest developing country, China. On the outside, through these years of hard work, with those prospering industries, prominent factories, glamorous hotels, cars, China finally catches up with the rest of the western world, holding on a golden name tag that reads “The fastest industrializing country.†But, what comes along, as a “set lunch†with this fame is the sacrifice of people and environment’s heath. As more business firms take notice of the economic profits gained by opening factories that produces exports, the industries expand, contributing more smoke, noxious gases and liquids that slowly thickens the rivers in the NingXia Provinces—from blue to ink black. As industries (factories, coal, mines) expand, the opportunity cost of these profits is fresh air and actual land for natural forests that help regulate the air.
This situation is not only happening in Shanxi or NingXia or Wunan provinces in China, but also in well-known cities, such as Macao and Hong Kong. Due to the lack of land resources in Hong Kong, every inch or land is precious, therefore both governments and private companies invest money to fill up sections of the sea to create more “new discovered†land for buildings, hotels, factories, etc. Nevertheless, the direct result of these “new discovered land†is increase rate of pollution, which not only cause death rates (pneumonia, lung cancer) to increase, but suffocating weather that traps Hong Kong. Facts have actually shown that 1 out of 560 million people in China breathe what European Union claims as “clear air.â€
Now the question comes along: Is industrialization really worth sacrificing the health of billions of Chinese people and destroying the natural environments that was once considered the best in the world? After all, there is no free lunch in this world.
As we read from this article, we should all realize how fortunate we all are to be living in Shanghai. As it is mentioned in the New York Times article, Shanghai is one of China’s cities that are at least trying to improve environmental conditions by tighting environmental regulations. And we still complain how murky the sky is here. Imagine what it would be like in one of those mining provinces…
Industrial China has been a famous topic for some time and many countries are predicting its great economic success in the future. The fact that China has benefited greatly from its industrial revolution can not be denied. Truely the statistics say that china has improved its economy by 200%. However, viewing this issue from an economist point of view, does China’s explosive growth of economy really overcome the cost of exposing 99% of China’s city dwellers to air condition considered hazardous by the European Union? Does the marginal benefit of boosting the countries GDP overrun the marginal cost of having children killed by lead poisoning and other toxic gases and making China the leading nation of carbon emission?
China’s skyrocketing growth may be tempting and even addictive for some. However, China’s economy of cheap labor and product will only last short term. Afterall, we live in a world with scarce resources and even in a land as big as China, its resources will generally run out and bigger problems will face China as it is forced to clean up its mess and invest colossal sum of money, exceeding what it has earned, to restore its degrading environment. I say it is time that China realize its overly ambitious greed for money is tearing itself apart.
As china grows, there are more and more problems that arise due to the fact that china has ignored new technology advances. Pollution is the main problem and even though china is trying to get ready for the Olympics by clearing out the factories from the city, the people who work in the factories would have to move with it and that would not help the level at which they are exposed to the pollution. This clearly shows opportunity cost and that there is no such thing as a free lunch. China will eventually have to come to terms with the consequences of their decisions and one day I am sure that they will regret it.
Every time we read about an issue, face a dilemma, or just simply almost everything, the question of choice arises. It is just something that can not be omitted in this world - and upon learning Economics, it is just so surprising how this question of choice by sacrificing another is applicable to any thing you can think of, which includes the accelerating growth of China’s economy in the past few years.
Personally, I always thought that economic growth is absolutely beneficial to a country and the individuals involved no matter what. But as Economists commonly say, there is in fact no “free lunch” for a nation’s economic growth, either - and China’s case, the opportunity cost is severe pollution and degradation of public health.
After reading the article, it almost seems as though the marginal cost of China’s economic growth in fact exceeds its marginal benefit. Yes, economic growth is definitely desirable, because it means the increase in capacity for larger total outputs that will correspondingly increase the utility of more of its people. However, the marginal cost of it is not as light as it is assumed by most people, either. China as shown a sharp increase in its industrial power, which led to economic power since the country has allocated more resources on capital goods, making investments for a greater future production capacity. However, the consequent pollution caused by industrial zones is so severe with such domestic and international repercussions that it not only poses a long-term burden on the Chinese public, but also a “political challenge towards the ruling government party.”
Also, the public health is deteriorating due to the pollution requires a huge cost - the sacrifice of the nation’s people, the potential or current labor resources. The carcinogens released to air from factories affects a large population’s health, along with acid rain that kills marine lives and damages its historical heritages.
It is extremely ironic how China faces a major problem due to its major achievement. Although it is definitely a hard problem to solve as much as it is ironic, China has to solve it. In my opinion, China should turn some of its focus on economic growth and relocate its time and money on resolving the environmental and health problems that are occuring first, because, eventually these opportunity costs will ultimately affect its economic growth altogether.
The Chinese Government may be trying to progress to the level of 1st world country like the US; however, in doing this they have to ask themselves: Is it really worth it? Is it really worth polluting China with unsafe products, smog filled airs, toxic rivers, and a devastated environment. China may be trying to solve its economic problems, but quick fixes always end up worse than before. This sacrifice is not worht the outcome.
I think this article is an excellent demonstration of the decisions and choices that the government of China has to make. This is an excellent example how everything has its costs. China can choose to either attain extraordinary economic growth but have a cost of ruining the environment of the people, or it can to choose to attain less economic growth but have a better environment. Both of these decisions have their opportunity costs and this emphasizes how humans will never be able to fully satisfy their wants because their wants are unlimited and the resources are limited.
In order to understand why the government has chosen to invest in economic growth over the environment I think we must have an understanding of what China’s long term and short term goals are. Maybe the people are paying a price right now for the unhealthy environment but this may be for the better in the future. Perhaps this short term of suffering will result in a long term of flourishing.
This article shows us how big of a role the government plays in command/semi-free market country. Their decisions will greatly impact the present and the future of China both economically and environmentally.
This situation of economic growth is very ironic because the economy is growing; but in a sense, the people are not and are “choking†on it. Now this makes me wonder if there is a way to achieve economic growth without any costs. The answer is no because the fundamental rule of economics, scarcity, gives everything a cost.