“China’s fast-growing population was a major policy matter for its leaders in the mid-twentieth century, and, in the early 1970s they implemented a stringent one-child birth-control policy. As a result of that policy, China successfully achieved its goal of a more stable and much-reduced fertility rate; in 1971 women had an average of 5.4 children versus an estimated 1.7 children in 2004. Nevertheless, the population continues to grow, and people want more children. There is also a serious gender imbalance. Census data obtained in 2000 revealed that there were 119 boys born for every 100 girls and, among China’s “floating population” (see Migration), the ratio is as high as 128:100. These situations led Beijing in July 2004 to ban selective abortions of female fetuses.” p.9,HIV/AIDS: “China, like other nations with migrant and socially mobile populations, has experienced increased incidences of human immuno-deficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS). Based on 2003 estimates, China is believed to have a 0.1 percent adult prevalence rate for HIV/AIDS, one of the lowest rates in the world and especially in Asia. However, because of China’s large population, this figure converted in 2003 to some 840,000 cases (more than Russia but less than the United States, and second in Asia to India), of whom 44,000 died. About 80 percent of those infected live in rural areas. In November 2004, the head of the United Nations AIDS program (UNAIDS) cited China, along with India and Russia, as being on the “tipping point” of having small, localized AIDS epidemics that could turn into major ones capable of affecting the world’s response to the disease. In 2004 the Ministry of Health reported that its annual AIDS prevention funding had increased from US$1.8 million in 2001 toUS$47.1 by 2003 and that, whereas treatment had been restricted to a few hospitals in major cities, treatment was becoming more widely available.”
