quick overview of some statistics from China taken from a UK newspaper in May 08.
30,000: The expected number of Chinese MBA graduates in 2008. The number in 1998: 0
5.7 million: Students graduated from Chinese universities in 2007 (compared with 270,000 in 1977)
30: Number of nuclear power plants being built in China
500: The number of coal-fired power plants China plans to build in the
next decade
10 million: The estimated number of Chinese people who have no electricity
97: New airports to be built in the next 12 years, bringing the total
number to 244 by 2020
540 million: Number of mobile phone users in China, with an increase
of 44 million in the past six months
180: The number of foreign
press correspondents arrested or harassed in 2007
67: The percentage of journalists who replied "no" when asked in a
survey by the Foreign Correspondents Club of China if they believed
Beijing had kept its promise to give foreign media "complete freedom
of reporting" in the run-up to the Olympics. Only 8.6 per cent said
"yes"
33: The number of Chinese journalists thought to be held in prisons in 2008
95: The estimated percentage of DVDs sold in China that are fake.
Uncensored foreign films are widely available from 50p
20: The approximate number of foreign films passed by Chinese censors each
year for screening in cinemas. Banned films have included 'Ben
Hur' (for its depiction of religion), 'Brokeback Mountain' (for
its
homosexuality) and the 'Borat' film (for its depiction of, among other
things, incest).
Passed films are often subject to further editing. Examples
include
the deletion of scenes showing hanging laundry in Shanghai in 'Mission:
Impossible III' and the removal of footage containing Chow
Yun-Fat that 'vilifies and humiliates the Chinese' in 'Pirates of
the Caribbean: At World's End'
160: Cities in China with populations that exceed a million. In the USA there
are nine; in the UK just two
80: Percentage of the world's zips produced in factories in the
Zhejiang Province city of Qiaotou (amounting to 124,000 miles of zip
each year, or enough to stretch half way to the moon). Qiaotou also
produces 60 per cent of the world's buttons (15 billion a year), while
nearby Datang makes a third of the world's socks. As many as 80 per
cent of the world's toys are made in China, which boasts more than
10,000 toy factories
21 million: The number of Chinese-made toys recalled last year by the
US toy company Mattel
0: Miles of motor way
in 1988 30,000: Miles of motor way today
6.3 million: The number of passenger cars registered in 2007 (compared with
2.3 million in 2004). More than 1,000 new private cars hit the
roads every day in Beijing alone
68: The number of crimes thought to be punishable by death in China, including
non-violent offenses such as tax fraud, embezzlement and the taking of bribes
350 million: The number of Chinese people who smoke (a third of the
world's smokers). Around a million people a year are thought to die
from smoking-related diseases
240bn yuan: (£17.3bn) The estimated amount earned by the Chinese
government in tobacco taxes in 2005
1.3 billion: China's population. The country accounts for one in five
people in the world
400 million The estimated number of births prevented by China's
one-child policy, introduced in 1979
22: The number of suicides per 100,000 people,
about 50 per cent
higher than the global average. Suicide is the fifth most common cause
of death in China, and the first among people aged between 20 and 35
700,000: The number of people living with HIV or Aids in China. The UN
has warned China it could have 10 million cases by 2010 unless action
is taken
45 billion: Estimated number of chopsticks China produces every year, the
majority of them disposable. In 2006, Beijing introduced a five
per cent tax on disposable wooden chopsticks in an attempt to help save the
country's forests
30: The number of different animal penises on the menu at Guolizhuang,
Beijing's `penis emporium'. A yak's costs about £15, while a
tiger's (which must be pre-ordered) will set you back £3,000
Additional research by George Bull
farooqtariq@ hotmail.com
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