REMOVAL OF POVERTY 97 1 According to the United Nations, 1973 estimates China's birth rate is 27 per 1,000, and death rate 10, making a percentage rate of natural increase of 1.7 per annum. A more recent estimate by the Worldwatch Institute, Washington DC in Worldwatch Paper 8, October 1976, puts the birth rate at 19 per thousand and death rate at 8 yielding a natural rate of increase of only 1.1 per cent. 2 The corresponding figures for some other Asian countries for 1975 are: India 196; Pakistan 194; Indonesia 198; Sri Lanka 186; and Thailand 332, according to FAO Food Balance Sheets, 1975. 8 The eating habits and culinary traditions of China, reflecting their age-old wisdom have also contributed to better nutrition. Unlike the average western citizen, the Chinese do not consume much fat and sugar, and for protein, they rely more on soyabeans, poultry and pigs than on beef. 4 The term 'man' is used here in a generic sense and includes all men and women. So is the term 'he' used subsequently. 5 The Chinese philosophy of good and bad, or right and wrong is very different from the western. According to the traditional Chinese philosophy, energy -(chi) circulates through the universe under the control of forces called yin and yang, which correspond to the ebb and flow of any pair of opposing forces such as good and bad or light and dark. This explanation not only leads to many theories basic to the Chinese system of medicine and techniques like acupuncture (which serves to restore the natural rhythm of energy flow), but also provides the^ basis of the Chinese concept of dialectics. For a further discussion of this aspect of China, sec John Galtung and Gumiko Nishimura, Learning from the Chinese People, 1976, chapter 2. 6 The Cultural Revolution was steeped in the idea that bureaucrats can create class antagonism and thus departed from the Marxian thought that they would "wither away". 7 China —- a Re-assessment of the Economy^ Joint Economic Committee, US Congress, Washington DC 1975. 8 Quoted by John Gittings in "New Light on China's Political Economy", IDS Bulletin, August 1975. 9 According to some recent studies, there has been a definite reduction in interregional inequality in China between 1952 and 1971. Unlike the experience of most other countries with an inverted U-shaped pattern of regional distribution of income, in China the reduction of inter-regional inequality began simultaneously with a sustained increase in per capita GDP growth. This has been achieved through intensified industrial activity in less developed areas, since the per capita agricultural income has been unevenly distributed from the outset. See Nicholas R Lardy, Regional Growth and Income Distribution' The Chinese Experience, presented to Research Conference on "The Lessons of China's Development Experience for the Developing Countries" (Hyatt Puerto Rico, San Juan, Perto Rico, 1976), Economic Growth Center, Yale University.