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U.N.'s Brief Assessment of China's Development Challenges

In China, in which the population is increasing by ten million people a year, it is inevitable that demands on the infrastructure and the environment are intense. At the same time the form of governance is changing from a central planning system to a socialist market economy. In the process, disparities arise in the equity of development, for example, discrepancies arise between the coastal regions and the poorer interior provinces, between males and females, between the demands to sustain a still increasing population and the capacity of the environment and natural resources to accommodate an estimated 1.5 billion people by 2030.
Overall access and coverage of a range of basic social services has improved during the last two decades with notable progress towards, for example, reduction of infant and under-five mortality. There is almost equal enrolment of boys and girls in primary school; a rapid increase in housing stock and living space for families; and increase in access to potable water resources, to name but a few impressive achievements. Some important initiatives are also underway with respect to fuller realisation of the rights of children and women and the prevention of desertification and land degradation.
On the whole, there is more that is similar than dissimilar with other developing countries in the kinds of strategic challenges China faces in achieving various goals and implementing provisions of conventions. Some of these challenges include:
How to accelerate achievement of more regional equity and reduce inequities;
How to maintain economic growth and avoid destruction and pollution of the natural resource base;
How to expand the progress made in increasing access to basic services into higher quality and more widespread coverage;
How to bring about the consistent implementation of existing laws and filling gaps in present legislation;
How to better match gains in development of technical expertise with greater progress in managerial and regulatory competencies.
At the same time, however, there are some more systemic and probably deeper challenges associated with the overall stresses incurred in China’s social and economic transition from a centrally planned economy to a socialist market economy. There are a number of instances in which national policy changes are underway or could benefit from major improvements, for example national health and nutrition; prevention and control of HIV/AIDS; environment and energy and social protection.
China is wedded to an overall purpose of increasing the well being of its people. Changing economic and social conditions over the next decade, partly spurred by leaps in technological applications, will open many possibilities for improvement in both societal and personal well being. However, there remain a host of important national goals, partly inspired by global initiatives, the sustainable achievement of which would bolster both national and international development efforts.