Colonization by stealth?

“The Unintended Consequences Of China’s One-child Policy”, io9, 3/10. I usually emit a groan when this topic comes up, as the critics of the policy come out in force. The article points out the issues with such a policy:

• Males outnumbering females due to a long-standing cultural preference for boys.
• “Surplus males” – men greatly outnumbering women, which can be an instigator of social unrest from frustrated males. This was “traditionally” (if not consciously) dealt with by war.
• The elderly outnumbering the young in a declining population.

As more than one commenter remarks there, however, what else was the Chinese government to do? If they allowed unrestrained reproduction the population would be even greater than the already huge figure (1.4 billion or so), with all the social problems and environmental damage that result (and still are afflicting the country, anyway). The policy does not apply to everyone, anyway – some ethnic groups, for example, are exempt (perhaps to keep them mollified?), and some cities are reversing the policy to address the aging problem (see previous entries with the China label).

Another traditonal way of dealing with “surplus people” is to export them, and China is certainly doing this – Australia is a popular destination. However this strategy can incite resentment amongst the host country’s citizens as they face increased competition for living space and jobs, as described this article: “In Africa’s warm heart, a cold welcome for Chinese”, Reuters, 18/9. Many African citizens are growing resentful of increased Chinese immigration there, as the latter can undercut them with cheap imported labor and goods. They also have no qualms about bribery when deemed necessary.

China is also, to put it bluntly, plundering the rest of the world for resources, such as Australia and Africa for minerals and farmland. This is also another potential source of conflict, though those raising alarm about this – such as recent controversy over the sale of a large cotton farm to Chinese investors – are invariably branded “xenophobic”. With future food and resource security at stake, though, why is this so unreasonable? I doubt the Chinese government has any scruples about their activities. In Africa’s case, China is effectively colonizing and exploiting the continent, as Europe did in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries – the term for this new version is neocolonialism.

Edit, 28/10: forgot to mention Tibet as an example.

Collected letters

Another round-up:

31/7, H-S:

Slower growth

THERE is nothing virtuous about perpetual growth — it is a cancer eating away at the world’s environmental balance, its diversity, its flora and fauna and its moral compass.

Once there may have been a need for growth, but that need has passed and growth is now more about wanton greed.

The planet is all we have and in a more enlightened and responsible era, growth will be condemned.

– Bruce Mullinger, Kurnell, NSW

2/8, The Age:

Growth is abnormal

IRRESPONSIBLE levels of population growth, encouraged by state governments, have resulted in increasing difficulties for residents, particularly in the outer suburbs (“Northern growth corridor residents driven to despair”, 1/8). It is negligent in the extreme to send people to the outskirts where infrastructure is inadequate. There has clearly been a lack of foresight as to how the city can continue to function with never-ending growth.

It is a no-brainer that transport infrastructure and services such as kindergartens are required before people move in to an area. If the necessities are not put in place first, the people of Melbourne will be living in a constant state of deficit of those elements that make a reasonable urban life possible. According to demographer Graeme Hugo, Australia’s annual rate of population growth is more than three times the average of advanced countries. It is time our politicians and planners stopped treating this as normal.

– Mark O’Connor, Lyneham, ACT

A related article from that link noted that almost 1000 people a week are immigrating to Melbourne (from interstate and overseas). No wonder traffic has become almost gridlocked in many areas, and housing unaffordable.

Melbourne was also recently voted most livable once again. The city is still much better than many others in the world – one reason being its relatively small population and low-density layout – but its livability is rapidly being eroded due to population growth and urban densification.

4/8:

Planetary predators

BARNABY Joyce is right when he says the $244 million threshold for an assessment of a proposed farmland purchase was so high it was ridiculous (“Hands off farm: Coalition”, 3/8). Globalisation has given rise to planetary predators trying to pry open weak national borders. Foreign owners of agricultural land will give priority to their populations, and only sell the leftover to Australia.

There is also prevalent an assumption that because we now produce more food than we need, this scenario will continue, despite climate change and global population growth.

Brazil and Argentina, poorer nations than Australia, have limited foreign land grabs. No agricultural land can be bought by foreigners in China. Australia is a leader in harnessing the short-term profits from globalisation, to our detriment.

– Vivienne Ortega, Heidelberg Heights

Selling off valuable arable land to other countries is foolish in the long-term for food security reasons. I wonder, though, if the government has plans to re-appropriate the land if the food security situation ever gets really dire?

14/8:

Discard convention

THE simplest and obvious solution to the boat influx is to withdraw from the 1951 Refugee Convention. Having an international organisation dictate to us on this global problem is inappropriate and contrary to our sovereign interests. We should be free to make a deal with Malaysia or Indonesia.

People smugglers see Australia as a “rich” country, an “immigration nation” and a soft target for resettlement. Yet this country is losing jobs, thousands of people a year are being turned away from housing and homelessness services, infrastructure is under pressure, and food security and environmental concerns in a continent largely composed of semi-arid desert are growing.

We should discard the UN convention and replace it with an orderly processing queue offshore. We could easily accommodate more refugees if we slashed our heavily imbalanced permanent skilled migration program, and our family reunions and unlimited temporary employer-sponsored intake.

– Vivienne Ortega, Heidelberg Heights

18/8:

Sort out our backyard

MICHELLE Grattan makes a valid point about the need to provide services, education and training for asylum seekers on Nauru and Manus Island (Comment, 17/8).

However, we need to look at the wider picture in our own cities. In Melbourne there have been reports of troubled youth in western suburbs who don’t have access to these services, education and training. A report on housing shortages for the disadvantaged this week highlighted further problems. Surely we need to look after our own backyard before we provide money for refugees who may or may not end up coming here. There is a limited amount of government money; it should be spent first on much-needed infrastructure to help those already living here.

– Irene Ritchie, Balaclava

I have been mostly refraining from commenting on the farcical situation involving asylum-seeker boat arrivals, but the situation is well and truly out of control (nearly 7000 arrivals this year alone). I can only feel exasperation at weak-willed Government policies that are all but encouraging this. Some idealistic fools in the Green political party are just as bad on this issue – they practically want to throw open the borders to all. Another concern is that many already in Australia are becoming a part of a disadvantaged underclass here. To put it bluntly, we can’t take in everyone in the world who wants to come here, not if we want to retain some quality of life and maintain the public services and welfare systems we have now. My own policy would be to withdraw from the Convention and refuse to take any illegal/boat arrivals (I could imagine the outcry at that!) – only accept applications when done the proper way.

I am also baffled by those who support illegal immigration (which is a massive problem in the USA) – they don’t seem to understand the meaning of “illegal”. Problem is, if you criticize their policy you get branded as “racist” and “xenophobic”, even if this never enters your argument.

Housing vs. farmland

“The fertile fringe”, The Age, 26/5. Melbourne’s future food security was the focus of this in-depth article on the weekend. The inexorable spread of population-growth-spurred housing developments are consuming the fertile farmlands around Melbourne like fast-growing cancers. It shows an utter lack of foresight and planning from State governments, who seem only concerned with shoehorning in as many people as possible rather than trying to stabilize population growth, and the influence of greedy developers who are only concerned about making profits. Another growing threat is coal-seam gas and other mineral mining developments.

Australia initially seems to be a big continent with lots of space, but – as has to be pointed out again and again – much of it is desert with little fertile land, as this article extract notes:

We are being cautioned, however, against complacency. The Prime Minister’s own Science Engineering and Innovation Council has warned that Australia’s food capacity faces a challenges with a population forecast to rise to 40 million as fertile land is undermined by factors such as land degradation such as salination, and urbanisation.

Australia is one of the driest continents on earth. Its soils are ancient and depleted, and just 6 per cent of its total area, 45 million hectares, is arable land. Most intensive agriculture occurs on the fertile soil on a relatively thin strip of land along the coastal fringe. It is an area heavily and increasingly contested.

Australia is also among the most urbanised countries on earth, with the vast bulk of its population huddled on this coastal strip, their homes competing for space with farms, roads, factories, offices, shops, car parks, golf courses, native forests, plantation forests, native grasslands and national parks. Victoria is the most densely populated state, with more than 1500 new residents arriving weekly.

Under the same coastal band are vast seams of brown coal that have provided the fuel to power Victoria for decades and are now being eyed for additional uses, including gas. […]

In his many journeys to and from Melbourne, Vizzarri often ponders what has been lost under the housing and industrial estates he passes. “Australia is a big country,” he observes, “but all its people are concentrated on the eastern seaboard and that’s also where our best land is. I’d prefer that food going to Melbourne is produced on the outskirts; it was once upon a time.”

(If you were paranoid, you’d think it were some conspiracy to make Australia dependent upon imported food.)

You certainly can’t say that authorities and businesses have not been warned. But they seem to prefer to stick their heads in the sand and pretend we can carry on with this reckless growth and development indefinitely with no consequences.

Contrast this to the idiotic statement PM Julia Gillard made a few weeks ago that “We can be food bowl of Asia”; also “No reason why we can’t become a global food superpower”.

We know that global demand for food will escalate dramatically in the coming years, as the world population heads for 9 billion, while scarce resources of arable land and fresh water will become even more scarce. It isn’t just about sheer numbers, however, it’s about the changing nature of these populations.

In China, it’s planned that a further 350 million people will move – the largest internal migration in human history - from the countryside to the cities by 2030. This means fewer farmers and more consumers. Of the 580 million people living in south-east Asia, a quarter do not yet have access to electricity. As an Asian middle-class rises, with its associated consumer needs, the demand for food, energy and other resources is going to dramatically escalate.

As a planet and as a nation, we don’t have a choice – we simply must do much more than is being done to help feed a hungry world, and notwithstanding the obvious challenges and the doomsayers, we believe that we can.

WTF? I don’t see it as our responsibility to feed that region or any other if countries can’t or won’t contain their population growth. They should take responsibility for their own self-inflicted problems, not expect other countries to bail them out.

Letters in response, 28/5: