Central China Drought

If you've followed the China news carefully you've come across the drought already.

Perhaps it's not worth it to share the full statistics again, but there are 200 million farmers suffering from a lack of water for crops and drinking. The image I dug up should cue you in on how large a piece of China we're talking about. You can find the rest from any site offering more complete news coverage.

I wish I could offer more valuable insight to this, but I've never been to these areas and I recognize I Don't Know that part of China. However, potable water is in my opinion the one issue which could cause severe unrest in China. Healthcare has improved in less than 10 years significantly. Human rights are on their way up and people are less impoverished - all these contribute to the stability. And at the moment China is stabile. However, these do not mean much to people who have no water to drink.

China is working on it, and we will need to wait and see if the efforts are effective. I hope the millions of hectars of wheat affected are not a sign of worse to come. They plan to cut the amount of water used per dollar of GDP significantly by 2020. It's a lofty goal, but perhaps not impossible.

OP Out.