China: Land of the Insane?

Mental illness has now overtaken heart disease and cancer as the biggest burden on the Chinese health system, according to the World Health Organisation, affecting seven per cent of the population. Telegraph_via_Impactlab

China's national mental health center director suggests that over 100 million mentally ill persons call China their home. Most of these likely suffer from anxiety, depression, phobias, and panic disorder. But China has a sizable population of schizophrenics, and other psychotics. And China is not prepared to deal with the problem.

In a nation of world-class pollution, homelessness, unemployment, and the massive internal displacement of hundreds of millions of people, it should not be a surprise that China's mental health environment is less than optimal. Unfortunately, there is no indication that China's government will ever be up to the task -- so the problem is likely to only grow worse with time.

There are only 4,000 qualified psychiatrists and a further 15,000 doctors working in psychiatric hospitals to serve China's vast population. "There are no psychiatry, psychology or psychotherapy students in medical school. You need to qualify as a doctor first, and then subscribe to a course in mental treatment," she said.

As a result, she said the true number of mentally ill could be far higher. "My own estimate is that one-third of the students I was at university with now have some form of mental illness," she said. _Telegraph

Despite its facade of socioeconomic robustness, China faces many severe internal instabilities. Much of China's society and industry is economically and infrastructurally unsound. And while much of the world now looks to China as a rock of stability in an increasingly untrustworthy Obamaworld, it would be a good idea to look very closely before committing to what could be a Potemkin facade.

In a population as immense as China's, the amount of naturally occurring human misery will be large. Add to that the human misery caused by pollution of land, water and air, and the human misery caused by massive population displacements and social engineering on a huge scale -- and it may be a wonder that any sanity exists within China at all.