There are some areas of China that are very poor indeed. The Eastern part is enjoying a huge lift in standards of living, especially Shanghai and Hong Kong, but Western China is economically and socially quite depressed. They are the areas that have the dirty heavy industries.

Also Chinese people cannot move easily between areas of their own country, and need permission to travel to the wealthy areas of Beijing for eg. Whilst things are improving throughout the country there's still a long way to go.

Of course if the economic situation improves for the huge number of people in the western half of China they will create a another huge dilemma as they will all want to have an easier life like the more fortunate people of THEIR OWN country.

If we stop buying things from China they could survive for a long time providing for the domestic market, as at the moment a great deal of their production is for export only. Here in Australia, where we are rapidly losing our manufacturers one by one, I doubt we'd last a month without the boats from China with their TV plasmas, cars, clothing and recently food!

I know this post is not about science--- but importing food especially shows just how dumb we can be--- so it is on topic!

Last edited by Ellis; 07/27/12 01:50 AM.