Amazing Facts About China
China executes three times as many people as the rest of the world.
China carries out almost three times as many executions as the rest of the world put together, according to the most conservative estimate by Amnesty International. In 2008, alone there were 1,718 executions through news reports and public documents, but many others are not reported. Some analysts say the figure may be above 6,000 but the exact number is a state secret. A majority of the executions are done on the road using vehicles which are known as “death vans” .
There are already more Christians in China than Italy, and it’s on track to become the largest center of Christianity in the world. Due to the extremely rapid expansion of Christianity in China, there are now an estimated 54 million Christians in the country, comprised of about 40 million Protestants and 14 million Catholics. Meanwhile, Italy has just 60 million people in total, of which 79% are Christian these days, which means Italy has 47.4 million Christians, that’s 12% less than China.
By 2025, China will build ten New York-sized cities. If current trends hold, China’s urban population will expand from 572 million in 2005 to 926 million in 2025 and around one billion by 2030. In 20 years, China’s cities will have added 350 million people which is more than the entire population of the United States today. By 2025, China will have 219 cities with more than one million inhabitants, compared with 35 in Europe today, and 24 cities with more than five million people.
Over 4000 babies in China were named “Olympic Games” while the country was getting ready for Beijing 2008. It was such an important part of China’s national consciousness that over 4,000 children have been named for the event. Most of the 4,104 people with the name “Aoyun,” meaning Olympics, were born around the year 2000, as Beijing was bidding to host the 2008 Summer Games.
China uses 45 billion chopsticks per year. In China, an estimated 45 billion pairs of disposable chopsticks are used and thrown away annually. This adds up to 1.7 million cubic meters of timber or 25 million fully grown trees every year.
200 million people in China live on less than $1 a day. In most low-income countries this amount is sufficient to guarantee each person about 2000 calories of nutrition per day, plus other basic necessities.
Over 700 million Chinese people drink polluted water. China has 20% of the world’s population but only 7% of global water resources. To make matters worse, 90% of cities’ groundwater and 75% of rivers and lakes are polluted according to the World Bank. This means that 700 million people drink contaminated water every day.
Over 50% of counterfeit goods in the EU come from China. In Europe, China was the main source country for intellectual property rights infringing articles with 54% of the total amount.CD/DVD was the top category of articles detained with a total amount of 79 million, which accounted for 44% of the entire amount, followed by cigarettes (23%) and clothing and accessories (10%).
