Study Sources H and I. Using these sources and your own knowledge analyze the problems confronting China as a rising great power.
Source H
China's emerging role in world affairs - its future capabilities, intentions, and foreign-policy behavior - remains the major source of uncertainty in a turbulent post-Cold War world that is becoming increasingly integrated and fragmented. China is a major regional power - and incomplete great global power - with myriad world-class domestic problems. In the coming years, the way Beijing manages its economic reforms, especially the state-owned enterprises, rising unemployment and social unrest, rampant corruption, widening inequality, and ethnonational pressures from below and within may be decisive factors that will shape China's future as a complete great power. A weak and fragmenting China would be the worst of all possible scenarios, a disaster not only for China but also for peace and stability in the region and beyond.
Source I
China has a population of 1.3 billion. Any small difficulty in its economic or social development, spread over this vast group, could become a huge problem. And China's population has not yet peaked; it is not projected to decline until it reaches 1.5 billion in 2030. Moreover, China's economy is still just one-seventh the size of the United States' and one-third the size of Japan's. In per capita terms, China remains a low-income developing country, ranked roughly 1ooth in the world. Its impact on the world economy is still limited.
The formidable development challenges still facing China stem from the constraints it faces in pulling its population out of poverty. The scarcity of natural resources available to support such a huge population--especially energy, raw materials, and water--is increasingly an obstacle, especially when the efficiency of use and the rate of recycling of those materials are low. China's per capita water resources are one-fourth of the amount of the world average, and its per capita area of cultivatable farmland is 40 percent of the world average. China's oil, natural gas, copper, and aluminum resources in per capita terms amount to 8.3 percent, 4.1 percent, 25.5 percent, and 9·7 percent of the respective world averages. ...
According to China's strategic plans, it will take another 45 years - until 2050 - before it can be called a modernized, medium-level developed country. China will face three big challenges before it gets there. As described above, China's shortage of resources poses the first problem. The second is environmental: pollution, waste, and a low rate of recycling together present a major obstacle to sustainable development. The third is a lack of coordination between economic and social development.
This last challenge is reflected in a series of tensions Beijing must confront: between high GDP growth and social progress, between upgrading technology and increasing job opportunities, between keeping development momentum in the coastal areas and speeding up development in the interior, between fostering urbanization and nurturing agricultural areas, between narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor and maintaining economic vitality and efficiency, between attracting more foreign investment and enhancing the competitiveness of indigenous enterprises, between deepening reform and preserving social stability, between opening domestic markets and solidifying independence, between promoting market-oriented competition and taking care of disadvantaged people. To cope with these dilemmas successfully, a number of well-coordinated policies are needed to foster development that is both faster and more balanced.