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Main article: Demographics of the People's Republic of China
Officially the PRC views itself as a multi-ethnic nation with 56 recognized ethnicities. The majority Han Chinese ethnicity makes up about 93% of the population; however it is the majority in only about half of the area of the PRC.
The People's Republic of China, in an attempt to limit its population growth, has adopted a policy which limits urban families ( ethnic minorities such as Tibetans are an exception) to one child and rural families to two children when the first is female. Because males are considered to be more economically valuable in rural areas, there appears to be a high incidence of sex selective abortion and child abandonment in rural areas to ensure that the second child is male.
This has resulted in a sex ratio of 115 boys being born for every 100 girls which is considerably different from the natural rate, but which is comparable to the ratios in South Korea. The PRC government is attempting to mitigate this problem by emphasizing the worth of women and has gone so far as to prohibit medical providers from disclosing to parents the sex of an expected baby.
The official language of the PRC is Mandarin Chinese which is taught in schools, thereby making it the native language of more people than any other language on Earth.
Main articles: Public health in the People's Republic of China and Environment of China
Celebrating victory over SARS
The PRC has several emerging public health problems: health problems related to air and water pollution, a progressing HIV-AIDS epidemic and hundreds of millions of cigarette smokers. The HIV epidemic, in addition to the usual routes of infection, was exacerbated in the past by unsanitary practices used in the collection of blood in rural areas. The problem with tobacco is complicated by the concentration of most cigarette sales in a government controlled monopoly. The government, with limited resources, and dependent on tobacco revenue, seems sluggish in its response to the tobacco and other public health problems.
Hepatitis B is endemic in mainland China, the majority of the population eventually contracting the disease, with about 10% being seriously affected. Often this causes liver failure or liver cancer, a common form of death in China. A program initiated in 2002 will attempt over the next 5 years to vaccinate all newborns in mainland China.Main article: Space program of China
On October 15, 2003, using a Long March 2F rocket and Shenzhou V manned spacecraft, the PRC became the third country to put a human being into space through its own endeavors.
Launch of the Long March rocket
The country had plans for a manned space program as early as the 1970s, with "Project 714" and the intended Shuguang manned spacecraft. Because of a series of political and economic setbacks, the programs for a manned flight never came to fruition until 2003.
The Long March 2F rocket and Shenzhou V manned spacecraft carried Yang Liwei inside the Shenzhou 5 spacecraft into Earth orbit, where it remained for 21 hours, making a total of 14 revolutions.
Some specialists regard the Shenzhou manned spacecraft as based on Russia's Soyuz spacecraft.
The PRC's burgeoning program is considered to be cause for concern in some quarters. A Congressional report following the 2003 launch said, "While one of the strongest immediate motivations for this program appears to be political prestige, China's efforts almost certainly will contribute to improved military space systems in the 2010-2020 timeframe." Others are less impressed. A week after the launch, an editorial in the Times of India called it "'China's Late Creep Forward,' given that Beijing is attempting to showcase a four-decade-old technology."
Whether China's advances in this area will produce another space race remains to be seen.
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