St Clare LS paper 1.

2021/22

a) The number of rural and urban internet users rise but the number of rural internet users remain
lower than that of urban user. From source A , the number of rural internet users rises from 178
(2014 ) to 222 (2018 ) by 1.25 times while the number of urban internet users rises for 470 to 607
from 2014 to 2018 by 1.29 times but the number of rural internet users is still lower than that of
urban internet users by 2.73 times (607/222) in 2018

The percentage of rural and urban internet users rises but the rise in rural internet is slightly larger
than that of urban internet. From source a , the percentage of rural internet users rose from
28.76% to 39.36% (2014-2018 )for 10.6% point while the percentage of urban internet users rose
from 62.8% to 73.04% for 10.29% point which is smaller than the increase in rural internet users
by 0.31%point .

b) Long time is needed to teach rural residents how to use the internet . From source a , 54% of
rural residents don’t know how to use computers and 33.4% don’t know pinyin which shows that
the education level of rural residents is not high . As the amount of schools and teaching
resources in poor rural areas is relatively little , not many people can receive quality education
which includes lessons on computer literacy . Hence , in order to promote use of internet , a lot of
time is needed to educate the rural residents who may not be literate as well as instil computer
skills which may slow down the progress of promoting the use of internet in China .

c) to a small extent do I agree that investment in network technologies can facilitate the
development of xiaokang society .

Firstly , the amount of e waste produced will be larger . From source c ,the experts said it will
result in a dramatic increase in e waste as millions of smartphones modems and gadgets
incompatible with 5 G will be discarded . As the batteries of the gadgets contain heavy metals like
lithium , these heavy metals would leak into the soil when the smartphones incompatible with 5g
are disposed in land lls , causing land pollution . The plants which grow in the polluted land will
become toxic to animals and kill the organisms if they eat it then the biodiversity will be lowered
which is irreversible. The resource depletion will be exacerbated as large amount of new gadgets
have to be produced when the old ones are incompatible with the new networks .

Secondly , the economic development of rural areas may be hindered . From source a , the
percentage of rural internet users is still lower than that of urban internet users the number of rural
internet users rises from 178 (2014 ) to 222 (2018 ) by 1.25 times while the number of urban
internet users rises for 470 to 607 from 2014 to 2018 by 1.29 times but the number of rural
internet users is still lower than that of urban internet users by 2.73 times (607/222) in 2018 . The
main reasons rural residents don’t use the internet is because they don’t know how to use it(54%]
so when 5g networks are promoted , the problem of not understanding how to use the internet
will not be solved in rural areas. As more business transactions rely on the internet , the rural
business people may not be able to do business as simply because they lack knowledge of doing
business online so the income of rural businesses may be lowered. Hence the economic
development of rural areas is slowed down .

Thirdly , the bene ts of the investment in network technology is not evenly distributed between
urban and rural areas. From source c, 5g has not fully address the digital divide between those
who have the ability to utilise technology and those who do not . As the education facilities in the
rural areas is not as developed in urban areas so the people in rural areas have little chance to
learn how to use technology. Also the networks hardware is relatively undeveloped in rural areas
when compared to that in urban areas, so the development of new networks will start in urban
areas rst and in rural areas later then the chances of rural residents coming in contact with
mature technology is lower. Hence , the rural people will have less employment opportunities
when the rest of China has more developed technology and will not be able to get higher skilled
jobs that require knowledge of tech . The discontent of rural residents will rise as they believe this
is unfair to them which may lower social harmony .

Some may say that with the development of network technology the rural residents will have
better health as telemedicine will be more readily available however the development of network
technology may lag behind that of urban areas as rural areas don’t have a good foundation of
hardware for network tech so this may not be as readily available to rural residents as mentioned.
The cost of telemedicine will also be relatively high when compared with the health options in rural
areas so the rural residents may not be able to a ord it then the scope of the telemedicine due to
investment in networks is smaller and limited to the rich .

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 2. The younger the respondent the more willing to accept exible employment . From source a ,
the percentage of acceptable and above for 20-24 is 51% and 36.2% for 30-34 showing that
more young people are willing to accept exible employment .

People who are exible workers are more accepting to exible employment from source a, the 42
.4% respondents who answered acceptable are exible workers while 9.2% of respondents who
answered unacceptable are exible workers

b) economic incentives for workers : from source b, the median monthly income of the causal
employees rose by 72% and the income of part time employees rose by 22% so the the income
of working for short term jobs rises which may attract people to work in a gig economy as they
believe the higher income can sustain their livelihood or they believe their income will continue to
rise in the future .

Job nature : from source a, the respondents who answered neutral to highly acceptable is more
than 50% in all age groups showing that most people in Hong Kong would not oppose to working
in a gig economy . The workers get paid for the gigs or short term projects they do which are
rather exible so people especially those who are individualistic and want more personal freedom
would like to work in a gig economy so they are not bound by their permanent positions

c) one of their concerns is the unstable income although the median monthly income of the gig
workers have rose they are still paid on the basis of how many gigs they are able to get . When
they get more gigs they have higher income but when they get little gigs their income is very low
so they may not be able to sustain their livelihoods and their families as the living cost in Hong
Kong is very high . They would have to work harder than permanent workers to earn higher
income .

Lack of recognition by employers : the employers often question the working attitude of the
exible workers and they may not get promotions as easily as permanent workers do so in order
to get higher salary and recognition for long term career development, the workers may go back
to working in permanent positions

Value con icts : individualism vs collectivism : due to the in ux of western values like
individualism , the people would think that they should have the choice of how many children they
want to have . However , as China was relatively poor in the past and don’t have so much
resources to be allocated to a large population , the one child policy is needed to reduce the
population so that resources can be allocated wisely and each person will be able to get an
adequate amount of resources . This policy restricts the number of children couples can have
which goes against the wishes of young couples who want more children so these two values can
hardly coexist

Economic gains vs sustainable development : the policy restricts couples to one child so the
future labour population will be smaller. The production cost of rms would rise due to the smaller
labour force so the economic productivity will be lowered and the companies may not be able to
capture all the pro ts . The government holds the value of sustainable development as the
immense population will cause great strain on the economic and social resources like schools and
medical services and would cause greater resources depletion and environmental pollution due to
the large population. In order to achieve the balanced development in economic , social and e
environmental aspects , the government must reduce the population size . These two values
could hardly coexist because one requires a large population for higher pro ts while the other
seeks to reduce the population size .

Human rights vs gov priority

Why is it important to conserve culture : increase the sense of belonging to the country / increase
the the soft power of country ( cultural export ) / uphold value of sustainable development
( equity : allow future generations to be able to inherit the culture and enjoy it )

Chinese intangible cultural heritage : acupuncture ( knowledge ) , Chinese New Year ( festival ) ,
Great Wall and the dunhuang cave ( monuments ) , kunqu ( performing arts )

Hong Kong intangible cultural heritage : herbal tea ( knowledge ) , Wong tai sin temple
( monument ) , Cantonese opera ( performing arts ) , Daoist rituals ,nanyin music

The government should not relocate the homeless people because it causes greater side e ects .
As the homeless people leave the bridges and the subways , they would choose to stay in fast
food restaurants like McDonald’s . The hygiene of homeless people is poor so they may attract
di erent kinds of pests in those restaurants which means the environmental hygiene would be
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 lowered and the risk of spreading disease would be higher hence endangering the physical health
of citizens , the government may have to spend more money on treating outbreaks of disease like
cholera or food poisoning .

The social harmony would also be a ected as the homeless people are pushed around
everywhere and told that they shouldn’t stay in the bridges but there are no places that would
accept them then the homeless would feel that they are treated like garbage by the government
and excluded from society . The discontent of homeless people would rise and damage social
harmony as they may turn to violence and attack citizens or civil servants responsible for the
homeless.

Public health : physical health , mental health, accurate health information, medical / health
expenditure

Values : something you believe is right or wrong

Elaborate on : provide details or gures

Impact : good and bad

Factors = characteristics = features

Trend : overall !!,!!,!!,!!!

Compare ( similarities and di erence = both are rising but one rises to a greater extent )

Something is the best way : compare something with other ways =A vs B / A vs C / A vs D

Criteria for comparison of e ectiveness : scope , pertinence , term of e ect , solve root problem ,
feasibility , e ciency , tightness of monitoring work , incentive , cost e ectiveness ( small amount
of money can be used to help large amount of people )

Government responsibility : promote economic development , legislator , resources allocator

( resource have to be used wisely ) ,maintain city image , promote environmental protection ,
maintain social harmony and stability

National power : hard power : economic development eg gdp , human development index for
social development, infrastructure, military spending , education level

Soft power : cultural export ,

Digital divide : disparity between old ppl and poor ppl who don’t know how to use tech and those
who know how to use tech

Dependency population : old and baby ppl

Smart city : purpose : e ciency / leisure , sustainable development, accurate grasp of real time
information

The amount of energy used will be much higher than before . The purpose of developing smart
city is to collect accurate real time information so a large amount of cameras monitoring the
streets will be installed to collect the information such as the number of people walking on the
streets . In the past, only street lights and tra c lights run on electricity . As most of the hardware
like cameras run on electricity , the amount of energy used will be greatly increased .

The use of energy resources will be more diversi ed. The purpose of smart city development is to
develop into a more sustainable society by using di erent gadgets so the energy source for
powering the hardware may be renewable energy like solar power for curtains that detect light
intensity so as to close together . Then the energy source used will be more diversi ed than the
old coal and natural gas for power.

The distribution of energy resources may be uneven . The smart city development usually starts in
the more developed areas rather than less developed areas because developed areas already
have a rather mature network system so it takes less time to build on the foundation of the
developed areas than the less developed areas . For example, the information collected by
cameras for monitoring the streets have to be transmitted to the cloud space for big data analysis
so swift network system with transmission towers are needed which may be what less developed
areas lack . Hence the energy resources will be more concentrated in developed areas.

The use of energy becomes more e cient . The smart city development will increase the
e ciency of use of energy resources . For example , there will be curtains that detect light
intensity and when it gets too bright the curtains will close which will limit the temperature
increase indoors so the amount of energy used by the air conditioning will be lower . The light
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 sensors and temperature will be able to regulate the amount of energy used by detecting the
environmental changes and change the use of energy accordingly .

To a small extent can the development of smart city aid the development of sustainable city .

The development of smart city will increase the amount of e waste produced . As sustainable city
development aims at collecting real time information , a fast and steady network is needed like 5g
network . However , many gadgets nowadays are incompatible with the 5g network so when the
smart city develops these old gadgets have to be replaced which will cause rise in amount of e
waste produced , if improperly treated ie displaced in land lls , the lithium in the batteries could
leak out and cause land pollution . The plants that absorb the heavy metals may become toxic
and the food source of animals will become smaller hence more animals will die leading to
irreversible biodiversity loss.

The development of smart city will cause social disharmony. As the smart city development aims
to collect real time information for city development and other purposes, there will be many
cameras installed on the streets for monitoring the real time situation. At the same time the faces
of citizens will also be captured and stored in the cloud. This will make citizens worried about their
privacy and the safety of their personal information hence there will be many people against the
smart city development who may protest against it and worsen social grievances leading to social
disharmony.

The development of smart city harms the ability of the poor and the old to nd jobs . The smart
city development would convert many jobs into one’s that require knowledge of tech such as in
the past the people who work in logistics to bring supplies to shops may only need to know how
to drive and be t but with smart city development , they may need to know how to use tech to
deliver the supplies to the clients . The elderly who may need to support their livelihood in old age
will not be able to nd jobs easily as they have little knowledge of tech and have lower learning
abilities . The poor would not be able to seek employment easily as well as they have little
exposure to it in schools since they may not have the money to buy and use gadgets. The
development of smart city widens the digital divide and harms the ability of less tech savvy
people to seek employment which will raise the unemployment rate .

Some may argue that the use of energy will become more e cient through smart city
development since the sensors can regulate the amount of energy used which will reduce costs
on energy consumption. However , the amount of resources in smart city development is mainly
allocated to more developed areas which have a good network foundation , the prerequisite to
smart cities that poorer areas may not have. The resources available is limited so when more
resources is allocated to smart cities, there will be less for the poorer areas so the economic
development of poorer areas will continue to lag behind .

Encouraging healthy elderly to re join the job market is not the best method because of the short
term e ect . The health of elderly can deteriorate quickly as they are more prone to age related
illnesses like dementia and Parkinson’s so they may take up a job and become unable to work
very quickly which means the labour shortage is not reduced for a long time . However , creating
female friendly environments which mainly attracts younger to middle aged mothers to join the
labour force may have a longer term of e ect than encouraging elderly to re join the labour force
because the health of female who have become mothers may be better than that of the elderly so
the duration these females are able to work for is longer so the term of e ect of this policy is
longer than encouraging elderly so encouraging elderly to work may not be the best way to solve
labour shortage

The scope of the encouraging elderly to work is limited . The physical strength of elderly is low so
they are not able to deal with labour intensive jobs like transportation and logistics which is mainly
where the labour shortage is the most extreme . The elderly are also unable to take up
technology related jobs because their exposure to computers and gadgets is limited . The scope
of importation of labour is larger because Hong Kong is an international nance centre so it is
attractive to all sorts of labour since Hong Kong can provide a high salaries . The labour imported
from less developed countries like Pakistan and Philippines can be used to relieve labour
shortage in the labour intensive industry while the labour imported from the western countries like
the us and the uk can be used in technology related industries as the tech industry is more
developed in those countries . Then in terms of scope the encouraging elderly is not the best way.

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 There may be side e ects from encouraging elderly to work because the positions taken up by
the elderly may have been taken up by young people by being promoted . The young people may
think that they work very hard in order to get promoted and earn a higher salary but their
opportunities to get recognition is taken away by the old people so the feelings of discontent in
young people towards elderly may rise The inter generational competition for old and young
people may be exacerbated . The amount of grievances rise and social harmony may be
damaged.

Some may argue that the cost e ectiveness of encouraging elderly to work is high as the elderly
have a lot of experience in work when compared with young people for instance old people know
how to communicate in a workplace and these skills take a long time and lots of money to be
instilled in young people . However , as the workplace now requires much knowledge about
computers like word or excel which may not be the common knowledge of elderly so it also take
time to train old people how to work in a modern workplace and may be more di cult as old
people may be more conservative and unable to learn these knowledge . Also , this policy doesn’t
solve the root issue of labour shortage which is the lowering number of childbirths . As the
number of deaths exceed that of the number of births , the amount of available labour will still
decline in the future when the healthy elderly die and there are less and less children .

The number of foreign students in China and number of Confucius institutes both rise but the rise
in number of foreign students in China rises faster than that of Confucius institutes . From source
a , the number of foreign students in China is 259136(2013) rising to 397763 (2016 ) for an
increase of 1.53 times and the number of Confucius institutes rises from 279(2013 ) to 334(2016)
for an increase of 1.19 times .

The number of foreign students and Confucius institutes in Africa is smaller than that of Europe
but the di erence between number of foreign students from Africa and Europe is smaller than the
gap between number of Confucius institutes in Africa and Europe . From source a, the gap
between number of foreign students in Africa (61594 in 2016) and Europe(71239 in 2016) is 9645
while the gap between number of Confucius institutes is 123(171-48)
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