“CHINA’S FUTURE”
The Perspective of Demographic Dividends
China is so popular in the world. China is so close to Indonesia, even China will always be close to any country in the world. In everyday life, we must find something with the label "made in China". The country of bamboo curtain is successful worldwide with a wide range of products. In 2000-2010 China succeeded in dominating the world market in various fields, especially in agriculture and industry[1]. Its success is one of the "surprises" of demographic dividend and education reform in China. Many people predict that China can surpass the EU countries in the future. Even the United States, known as the superpower country, is predicted to be defeated by forces of China.
Demographic Dividends in China
Talk about demography, you can imagine that at this moment, when you are reading word by word in this article, in other parts of the world there is a happy to see the baby was born, but there is also a crying because one of his family dies. That is the dynamics of life, there are always two sides of good and bad. It can happen anywhere in the world, and most likely it happens in China, considering China is a country with the largest population in the world. We must realize that demographic changes will greatly affect the development of a country. China has been in golden periods when successfully utilizing demographic dividend. But now China must regulate the strategy after population explosion.
Demographic dividend experienced by China will soon be experienced by Indonesia and some other developing countries. We can learn a lot from China on how to use an explosion to be a "gold field". One of the most important lessons is how China can make its people productive because based on the results of research, rapid growth in China over the last three decades is more influenced by productivity growth than by capital investment[2].
The productivity of the population directly affects the income level of the population and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of a country. Productive people get their skills from education, whether formal or informal. Even the results of the study showed a positive correlation between population income with education level[3]. One of key from golden periods of China is education. The question is whether China's education system is relevant to the current situation?
China implements education with a specialization that leads to economic and industrial development. The results obtained according to expectations. Many people have skill and ready to work in the industrial sector. But now the world has progressed, obsolete things have to be abandoned or replaced with new ones. The problems faced by China are increasingly complex. The education system should evolve into innovation-based education. On the other hand, the Chinese government should consider for the decentralization of higher education. Besides educational issues, China must also be ready to face other problems.
China's readiness to face post “explosion” is still lacking. It takes a lot of strategies to resolve a variety issue from the post of population explosion. So, now China doesn’t only get one "surprise" from the phenomenon of population explosion. Now China is slowly opening gift wrapping and soon China will get a surprise again. What kind of surprise will China get after going through the golden periods of a population explosion? Whether the surprise is something good or vice versa. Of course, we can not find a definite answer to that question. We can only speculate, hypothesize, and predict it. Descriptions of China's future are always seen on both sides of the negative and positive. It depends on how China's efforts to solve every problem. There are several points in this article that will describe the future of China.
China’s Future
First, in the future, Chinese possibilities will get a very serious environmental problem. One of the most terrible problems is air pollution. Last year, there were 32 cities that had emergency air pollution[4]. If it continues to be ignored, then the possibility of cities in China is no longer suitable for habitation. Life expectancy in China will decrease. This environmental problem will greatly affect the health of population and ultimately the productivity of the population will decrease. Not only air, water quality in China is also getting worse. Air and water contamination is caused by industrial activities, large volumes of vehicles, coal energy, and deforestation. Here the authors suggest that the Chinese government not only campaign for the environmental movement but also make breakthrough technology that is environmentally friendly and do revitalization in regulation related to the environment.
Second, the most crucial problem is the Chinese demographic that shows the aging population has dominated. Now the reallocation of labor from rural to urban areas has slowed, less than 10 percent of healthy working age people[5]. We all realize that to obtain maximum production requires a healthy and skilled employee. Healthy employees may be difficult to find in urban areas and most industrial sites are not located in rural areas that demand villagers for migration. But the reallocation of labor from rural to urban areas is very difficult due to one of the old systems that China still retains the Hukou system. This system also resulted in a high social gap between villagers and urban dwellers. It is not easy to change something that has long been done, but in this case, China needs to open up to changes that occur. China needs to increase the mobility of its population but also keep control of the labor balance in the village and in the city.
Third, China's economic problems. the fall of fertility since the early 1980s, the size of the working age population 16-59 (this age group is the official definition of the Chinese workforce) peaked in 2011 and has declined since the first. China's demographic dividend, from a larger than usual share, the population at the prime working age, has ended. In addition, China's education level will be well below US levels by 2035, so the forecast that China can maintain an annual growth rate of 7 percent is not in line with China's current situation. A study shows that the possibility of an annual economic growth rate for GDP per capita China of 3 percent in the next 20 years[6].
Until now, China focused on the building of manufacturing and infrastructure in large-scale. It is now time for the Chinese government to reduce the emphasis on heavy investments in physical capital for public interest where the marginal returns are still low and do the greater emphasis on investment in human capital which we believe that they will become stimulate for the important Chinese growth. Human resource development can be implied through education. China still has some spaces in order to improve and raise qualities for both rural pre-tertiary and higher educations. If such investments could be produced and implied, so they should help each unit of educational measurement translated into higher income levels. But overall, the analysis shows benefits for Chinese economy.
Last, another possible problem is political and inter-state relations. it can be said that the relationship between Indonesia and China is quite harmonious. But the fact it is not all countries have a harmonious relationship with China. One of issues became the serious attention is South China Sea crisis. On that issue, China is not only concerned with Manila, but many other countries are involved. In addition, now China also may be concerned with America because of Yuan fluctuated, even on last year Yuan have reached the highest value against the US dollar.
China’s future is determined by the spirit and fighting power of its people and government efforts in order to solve crucial issues. Whatever occurring in the future can only be awaited and seen. What we know that China is still a powerful country. It still sustains the needs of the world community. Even, China also is very popular and Chinese civilization has grown in various places. What is a collapse for China, it will be a collapse for other countries? May we all learn from how China becomes a great and powerful country.
[1] "International Rankings of China - 2013". Theodora.com based on CIA World Factbook. 2013.
[2] Hongbin Li et al, Human Capital and China’s Future Growth, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2017, p.25
[3] Ibid
[4] Prof. Mu Li, Associated Press Beijing, 2017
[5] Hongbin Li, et.al, Human Capital and China’s Future Growth, op.cit., p.25
[6] Hongbin Li, et.al, Human Capital and China’s Future Growth, op.cit., p.26
Panjang juga ya Teh ... tapi kerennn untuk artikelnya. (y)
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