Little Emporors?

Guardian
Unlimited | Special reports | Home alone:
Continuing my interest in what makes the world's next superpower tick, I saw this article. One of the things it says is that obesity was predicted to become a big issue - I have to say that I want to question that; all the Chinese I have met who have come over to Britain to study seem to be fairly thin or average ... and apparently they are typical. Obesity is not [yet] a big problem.

Of greater interest is the cultural effect of heavy messaging on having fewer children ...
"'Twenty or 30 years of propaganda and government implementation of the policy has really changed people's minds about reproduction,' explains Peng. 'The problem for demographers and policymakers in Shanghai is not, 'Will these children have two or three kids?' - but whether they will have any kids.'"

And of course this does mean -like in western Europe, there is likely to be an issue, crisis even, over pensions at some point in about 40 years. Apparently a state pension is not guaranteed so parents need that one child to maximise their earning power.

So the other issue -one that I have heard Chinese students articulate is that being an only chiold means carrying all the hopes of your family; "One of the things that happens when you're an only child, the thing that happens in China," says, Zheng Xiu Yi, a boy who has lived in the States, "is that everything is focused on your grades, every aspect of expectation is focused on your grades. If you don't have good grades, you aren't a good child." A kind of protestant work-ethic without the religious dimension.

And when it comes to studying we should be aware how bright these kids can be and note how it works with our university system:
Everyone in China knows that the cleverest, most ambitious students choose top universities at home first; the US - where there are scholarships - second; and English universities only third or fourth. Chinese students know our speciality is selling prestige for money. That chiimes with what my friend Jem Clines discovered when he went to China; that British Universities were being sold as 'easy' ways to get a degree.

Interesting stuff and impacting our future in 10 years time.