Han Chinese make up about 93% of the population; the rest is composed of China’s 55 officially recognized ethnic minorities.

Although minorities account for about 7% of the population, they are distributed over some 50% of Chinese-controlled territory, mostly in the sensitive border regions. Minority separatism has always been a threat to the stability of China, particularly among the Uyghurs and Tibetans, who have poor and often volatile relations with the Han Chinese. The minority regions provide China with the greater part of its livestock and hold vast untapped deposits of minerals.

Maintaining amicable regions with the minorities has been a continous problem for the Han Chinese. Tibet and Xinjiang are heavily garrisoned by Chinese troops, partly to protect China’s borders and partly to prevent rebellion among the local population. The Chinese government has also set up special training centres, like the National Minorities Institute in Beijing, to train minority cadres for these regions.

Tibetan and Uyghur discontent is likely to increase as China mobilizes its economy to develop the west. The program may materially benefit the minorities, but at the cost of further Han intrusion and reshaping of the local culture.

China’s population has to be fed with the produce of around 15% to 20% of the land they live on-the sum total of China’s arable land. Available land is also rapidly shrinking due to industrial and urban encroachment, urbanization and erosion. The rest is barren wasteland or can only be lightly grazed.

The prospect of an ever-growing population, with an ever-shrinking capacity of feed itself, prompted a limited birth control program in the 1950s, but this was abandoned during the Cultural Revolution.

The one-child policy was railroaded into effect in 1979 without a careful analysis of its logic or feasibility. The original goal was to keep China’s population to 1 billion by the year 2000 and then massaged down to an ideal of 700 million by 2050.

The target figure was however, yanked up over the years, and a figure of 1.25 billion by 2000 somehow emerged. The exact size of China’s population was unclear though, as officials downsized numbers in their areas to match birth control aims.

By the end of the 1990s it was assumed that some 30 million people were unaccounted for.

China’s current population size outstrips the original goal by almost 30%, so the program has failed to meet the objectives that delivered it in the first place. Current projections depict a population close on 1.5 billion by the year 2010.

The cost and difficulty of enforcing the policy has been massive, and its implementation and unprecedented intrusion by state into the reproductive rights of its citizens. The policy was originally harshly implemented but rural revolt led to a softer stance; nonetheless, it has generated much bad feeling between local officials and the rural population.

Rural families (the bulk of the population) are now allowed to have two children, but some some have upwards of three or four kids, who are unreported and consequently receive no education.

A county in Guangdong province was ordered to perform 20,000 abortions and forced sterilizations before the end of 2001.

Families who do abide by the one-child policy will often go to great lengths to make sure their child is male. This is particularly true in rural China, where the ancient custom of female infanticide continues to this day. In parts of China, this is creating a serious imbalance of the sexes. One survey in Shaanix province, for example, determined that 145 male infants were being born for every 100 females. The overall average for China is 114 males for every 100 females.

Psychologists also argue that the experiment has created a generation of spoiled children ill prepared to deal with adult life. Growing up as the centre of attention and treated as ‘little emperors’ (xiao huangdi) has made the sharp edges of the outside world that much sharper.

The policy is also creating a rapidly aging population. The family structure has become 4-2-1, with one child having to look after two parents and four grandparents. It is estimated that China will be looking after 400 million old people by the year 2040, an aged population that will constitute a huge economic drag.

Supporters of the policy argue that without it China would be dealing with runaway population growth. Others note that alternative, less coercive strategies, such as a national family planning program and improved health care could have afforded better results.