China's Other Challenges

Mathematician, control theorist, and retired Harvard professor, Dr. Larry Yu-Chi Ho moved around a lot as a child, following his Nationalist Army (Guomindang) father to various places in the interior of China during WWII. (See post one.) At the end of the war, Larry and his families escaped to Taiwan. When he graduated high school at age 15, he came across the Pacific to attend MIT.  He met many helping hands along the way. (See post two and three.) He graduated, found a research position in one of the first-ever washing machine companies, and won the immigration lottery. (See post four.) He returned to school, this time to Harvard where he was one of a handful of students.( See post FiveIn 2001, Larry tried to retire. Instead he was asked to provide guidance to the MIT of China. (See post SixWith one foot in each country, I asked Larry what he saw as some of the challenges. He mentioned that while China is trying to woo students home, many of them remain in the U.S. to enjoy freedom. (See post Seven.)
Some other challenges he noted facing China: severe pollution, water quality, and a population problem. “Too many old people and not enough young, because of the one-child policy. Even though they (China) have relaxed that (law), most people choose not to have a second child because they want to enjoy life.” Not only are there too many old people and not enough young, but not enough young women."

“You know the old Chinese custom, male is very important, female is not. There’s actually like—last statistic I saw—120 available males to every 100 females. That’s a terrible ratio.”

In addition, he noted income inequality. “Even though lots of rich people, there are still vast amounts of people who aren’t as rich as they would like. And now they’re exposed (via the internet) to what’s impossible. Everybody wants to become rich And here not everyone will be able to do that. And that will become a problem."
(To be continued. Next: The Main Three Problems Facing U.S.)