As one of the few ancient civilizations in the world with a history of 5,000 years, China's history has never been interrupted, which is largely due to its unique geographical advantages. In fact, China has a vast territory, diverse terrain, and the coexistence of land and sea, which only India and the United States can match in terms of geographical conditions.
However, no country is perfect, and China also has some geographical disadvantages, and while these disadvantages are not fatal, they do limit the further development of the country to a certain extent.
Geography of China
What exactly are these weaknesses and what challenges do they pose to us?
This means that the area of China's plains is actually only about 2.7 million square kilometers, and this also includes desert plains, saline-alkali plains and other areas that are not suitable for farming. After excluding these areas and adding non-traditional plain arable land such as terraced fields, China's actual arable land area is only about 1.43 million square kilometers, accounting for about 16% of the total land area, which is lower than the 18% of the United States and far lower than the 51% of India6%。
Distribution of arable land in India
India's arable land is extremely highly utilized, and although it has a land area of only 2.98 million square kilometers, its arable land area is similar to that of China, which is an important reason why India's population can surpass China's.
In addition, the distribution of plains in China is not ideal, and in terms of climatic conditions, the south is more suitable for agriculture, but unfortunately, most of the southern region is mountainous and hilly, and the only few larger plains include the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River Plain (160,000 square kilometers), the Chengdu Plain (180,000 square kilometers) and the Pearl River Delta Plain (110,000 square kilometers) and so on.
Plain distribution in China
Other regions, such as Zhejiang, commonly known as "seven mountains, one water and two lands", have less than 0 per capita cultivated land4 acres, Fujian is "eight mountains, one water and one land", and the per capita cultivated land is only 033 acres. In the north, the North China Plain covers an area of 310,000 square kilometers, and the Northeast Plain is as high as 350,000 square kilometers.
If China can have a large plain spanning the north and south with a total area of 1.53 million square kilometers like the United States, then there will be more industrial land in the north, and the shortage of arable land in the south can also be supplemented, which will be of great benefit to the overall development of the country's economy.
In fact, there are many large plains in southern Asia, such as the Red River Plain, the Mekong Plain, the Chao Phraya River Plain in the Indochina Peninsula and the Ganges Plain in the Indian Peninsula, but unfortunately, these are not part of China's territory. These plains surround southwestern China and pose another challenge: the lack of access to the Indian Ocean.
Distribution of arable land in Indochina and Peninsular India
Although China is a maritime power, the total length of coastline is more than 180,000 kilometers, with many large ports such as Dalian Port, Qingdao Port, Shanghai Port, Ningbo Port, Shenzhen Port, etc., but these ports are located on the Pacific side, so they are at risk of being blocked by the island chain.
From Sakhalin to Japan and the Ryukyu Islands to Taiwan, the Philippines and the Sunda Islands, only Taiwan is part of China's territory, and the risks are obvious. Having access to the Indian Ocean would greatly reduce strategic pressure from the Pacific.
Even in peacetime, the cost of transoceanic ** can be quite high if you rely only on access to the sea in the Pacific Ocean. For example, when importing oil from the Middle East, tankers need to depart from the Persian Gulf, cross the narrow Strait of Malacca, and then pass through the South China Sea to major coastal ports, which is not only time-consuming, costly, but also risky.
The narrowest point of the Strait of Malacca is less than 3 kilometers, and if blocked, China's transoceanic ** will face serious challenges. Therefore, having access to the Indian Ocean will greatly improve China's ability to control maritime risks.
Although there is no shortage of large rivers in China, these rivers mainly run east-west, and there is a lack of large-flow rivers that can connect various river systems from north to south. Except for the historical phenomenon of the Yellow River, there are few main rivers in the river system, resulting in "drought and flood disasters". In contrast, the Mississippi River in the United States, which irrigates almost the entire Central Great Plains, is remarkably effective.
The course of China's rivers
China's Yangtze River basin has a total surface water resource of 848.5 billion cubic meters, the Pearl River 540.4 billion cubic meters, the Yellow River only 57.7 billion cubic meters, and the Huai River only 61.4 billion cubic meters. Water is scarce in the north, and the provinces of the Huang-Huai-Hai region must rely on 7% of the country's water resources to support 35% of the country's arable land and 32% of the country's GDP. If there can be a large river running north-south to divert the water resources of the Yangtze River and the Pearl River to the north, it will be of great help to solve the water shortage.
China's South-to-North Water Diversion Project aims to address this problem, and in the long run, this disadvantage is expected to be ameliorated by manual measures.
South-to-North Water Diversion Project
Lakes are mainly used to store and regulate water, and it is embarrassing that China, one of the world's top five countries by area, does not have a freshwater lake in the top 30 in the world.
Distribution of lakes in China
For example, Lake Superior in the United States is the fourth largest in the world in terms of water storage, and Lake Baikal in Russia is second in the world, after the Caspian Sea, and first among freshwater lakes. China's largest existing freshwater lake, Poyang Lake, has a maximum storage capacity of only 26 billion cubic meters, which is only one-thousandth of Lake Baikal.
Lake Baikal, the largest freshwater lake in the world
In the face of extreme weather such as heavy rainfall, it is a pity that large areas of water are likely to accumulate due to the lack of lakes to regulate the amount of water, and these water resources are often not effectively used after disasters.
Despite China's geographical disadvantages, there are very few countries on a global scale that have perfect terrain. For example, Russia's European part has a flat terrain and seems to be better than China's, but in fact its defense capability is weaker.
Russian terrain
Although the Great Plains of the United States are protected by mountains on the east and west sides, they are open from north to south and are susceptible to the hot and humid monsoon in summer and cold waves in winter, often leading to serious natural disasters.
U.S. terrain
Therefore, we should not be presumptuous, this land is guarded by our ancestors and predecessors with flesh and blood, no matter how many disadvantages there are, we should cherish and love it.