Land use in China
China has four times the population of the U.S., within roughly the same area. With 1.3 billion inhabitants, 20% of the world’s population lives in China. While the rate of population growth has been declining for decades, the total number of inhabitants has been growing and is expected to do so through 2030. China’s urban population is growing rapidly; between 1950 and 2009, the percentage of the population living in urban areas quadrupled from 14% to 48%. Meanwhile, the rural population is declining, opening the landscape in areas that are not urbanized. The forests and farming land of eastern China support far more people and major cities than do the grasslands, deserts, and high mountain regions of the west.
Human rights in China
In 1988, the Chinese government began direct village elections to help maintain social and political order whilst facing rapid economic change. Elections now occur in about 650,000 villages across China, reaching 75% of the nation's 1.3 billion people, according to the Carter Center. In 2008, Shenzhen, which enjoys the highest per capita GDP in China, was selected for experimentation, and over 70% of the government officials on the district level are to be directly elected (as of 2008). However, in keeping with Communist Party philosophy, candidates must be selected from a pre-approved list.