China Digital Times

Stories tagged with: wealth gap (55)

• Confronting Income Inequality in China

  

  The World Bank’s chief economist, Justin Yifu Lin, addresses income inequality in China in a recently released essay. Reuters reports (via IHT):

  In “China’s Dilemma,” a collection of papers co-published by the Australian National University and the Asia Pacific Press, Lin argued that fundamental flaws in China’s economic model were partly to blame for the yawning gap between rich and poor.

  Lin criticizes a basic Communist Party economic tenet that puts, in the name of “efficiency,” the interests of corporations before those of workers and leaves it to government redistribution policies to deal with the ensuing inequalities.

  “It is our task to ensure that in the course of development, the income of the poor grows faster than that of the rich, but it should not be accomplished by redistribution,” Lin writes.

  Companies may be achieving high profits thanks to the emphasis on “efficiency,” but it is only because the state shields them from market competition and lavishes subsidies on them, Lin argues.

  “Essentially, however, these profits are a kind of wealth transfer that will inevitably lead to social instability,” he warns.

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  • July 21, 2008 9:31 PM

• A Construction Engineer’s Thoughts on the Sichuan Earthquake

  

  Out of the chaos of online chatter about the Sichuan earthquake comes a detailed essay by a construction engineer calling himself Book Blade （书剑子）that has been winning praise for its analysis. Recently published on Chinese blog the Whiteboard Report, the bulk of the essay concentrates on national problems that have come to light since the quake hit. Following are a few of his more salient points:

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  • May 22, 2008 9:24 PM

• My Heart Aches For The Vulnerable Ones

  

  Guangzhou-based writer and blogger Hengjun Yang (杨恒均) wrote the following post on his blog, translated by CDT’s Linjun Fan.

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  • February 15, 2008 12:23 PM

• Wealth Gap Demands Close Attention - Yang Xi

  

  From China.org.cn:

  The Beijing News recently published a commentary calling for closer attention to disparities of per capita income between different areas. The commentary came in a response to the recent release of statistics which show a city’s GDP being 10 times that of a western Chinese province.

  Gaps between regions and economic scales are very common; it is the disparities of per capita income between different areas that demand our close attention, according to Dr. Wei Zhiming from Nankai University in his article published in the Beijing News on January 3. [Full Text]

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  • January 18, 2008 7:39 PM

• Nankai Mass Incident: Of a Bike and a Buick

  

  Hundreds of enraged students at Tianjin’s Nankai University recently battered the bejesus out of a black Buick sedan in an incident that suggests the oft-noted imperiousness of China’s new moneyed class is not just aggravating to those on the lowest rungs of the country’s economic ladder. According to a post on one of Nankai’s BBS forums (translated by ESWN), the ruckus started on Christmas Eve, when the car collided with a student on a bike, leaving a small scratch on the side of the car:

  At that time, the female car owner got out of the vehicle angrily and demanded an apology from the student. Furthermore, an apology was not good enough because there had to be payment for damages. So the student called her teacher for assistance. By this time, many students had gathered around the scene and one of them asked the car owner: “Where do you come from? Why are you on our school campus?”

  The woman said something that was provocative: “If I produce my identification document, you should be scared to death.” [Full Text]

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  • December 27, 2007 11:39 PM

• Minister: China’s Wealth Gap Widens - AP

  

  
  Bad news for the Hu Jintao government’s efforts to ease the social disruptions of uneven economic growth. From the Associated Press via TIME:

  The average city dweller’s income was 3.28 times that of a rural resident’s in 2006, up from 3.23 times in 2003, Agriculture Minister Sun Zhengcai said in a report to China’s legislature, according to the Xinhua News Agency.

  The Xinhua report on Sun’s statement mentioned no new initiatives to narrow the income gap. Sun said income per person for the 900 million Chinese officially classed as rural residents rose 7 percent in 2007 to $550, according to Xinhua. It gave no comparative figures for cities, but the government has reported that incomes in Beijing, Shanghai and other big eastern cities are growing at double-digit annual rates. [Full Text]

  [Image source: Jan Zdzarski Jr. via Flickr]

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  • December 27, 2007 12:49 AM

• Recently, Can You Afford Meat? - Meng Zhang

  

  Global Voices translates reactions from netizens to news about the rapidly increasing food prices:

  “Recently, can you afford meat?” Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao asked when he visited a group of poor people living in an old residential area of Beijing. On the very next day, the National Bureau of Statistics reported that China’s October inflation rate had reached 6.5 percent which was the highest during the last 10 years. Additionally, the food prices jumped 17.6 percent compared to the same month in 2006, while the price of pork, a staple for Chinese people, soared 54.9 percent.

  Although Huanqiu Zaixian, subordinate to China Daily which is the first and only national English paper in China, preached Wen’s visit “let the people live more comfortably”, public voices from Internet were different in their tones. [Full text]

  Also related, see “China in grip of inflation” from the Chicago Tribune, which says:

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  • November 24, 2007 8:17 PM

• In Beijing, Their Pre-winter of Discontent - John M. Glionna

  

  From The Los Angeles Times:

  Today is Li Xiulan’s favorite day of the year — it’s even better than her birthday. It’s the day they turn the heat on. Winter weather has already arrived here, with temperatures dropping into the high 30s on some nights. But Li’s home in the 500-unit Flower Garden Apartments in a northern suburb of the capital has provided scant refuge from the growing chill.

  Instead, Li and an estimated 200 million of China’s poor have been forced to shiver as they mark off the days until Nov. 15 arrives. That’s when municipal managers switch on boilers, radiators and immersion heaters, firing up central heating systems that are a throwback to the Communist-planned economy of the 1960s. [Full Text]

  [Image: A worker sweeps up leaves at a Beijing park on a cool day, by Michael Reynolds from EPA.]

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  • November 15, 2007 8:58 AM

• Chinese Divided On Health Reforms - Jill McGivering

  

  From BBC News:

  China’s Communist leaders have overhauled the healthcare system, intending to make it more affordable for the poor. But are the reforms exacerbating China’s problems?

  I visited a small village in Hubei province - a cluster of old and new houses set in paddy and wheat fields.

  The doctor, Cho Yuen, was in her small clinic sweeping the cement floor, alongside an old-fashioned shop counter stacked with dusty packets of pills.

  When she had finished sweeping she put on her white coat, ready for patients. [Full Text]

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  • October 19, 2007 6:48 PM

• China’s Leader Stresses Spreading Wealth - Christopher Bodeen

  

  From AP, via Newsvine:

  China must urgently tackle corruption and spread wealth more fairly among its 1.3 billion people, but political reform will be gradual and only under continued one-party communist rule, President Hu Jintao said.

  In a major speech laying out his future agenda, Hu told Communist Party leaders they must meet a 2020 target for achieving a “basically well-off society,” a key motif of his nearly five years as head of state and party chairman.

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  • June 26, 2007 7:52 AM

• What Price a Chinese Emperor? - Antoaneta Bezlova

  

  Following news that violations of the one-child policy by China’s wealthy elite may cause a population boom in the near future, Asia Times takes a closer look at the societal implications of the “money for baby” privilege:

  The trend of rich people bypassing the one-child rule comes at a time of rising social tensions caused by the widening wealth gap between haves and have-nots. A recent online survey by the China Youth Daily newspaper found that more than 60% thought it was unfair the rich could enjoy the “money for baby” privilege.

  While the rich pay money to skirt the rules, poor pregnant women in the countryside risk their lives and those of their babies by seeking back-alley deliveries to avoid the hefty fines, according to a senior health official. [Full text]

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  • May 10, 2007 9:17 AM

• China: More rights for millionaires - Pallavi Aiyar

  

  From Asia Times, a look at how the government is addressing concerns about growing social and economic inequality, and the lingering tensions over the issue:

  Increasingly squeezed between the demands of the right and the criticisms of the left, the CCP is engaged in an ever more delicate juggling act, balancing the interests of the urban middle class, who have emerged as a key constituency of support, and a restive peasantry, once the party’s mainstay but progressively disaffected at being left behind by the economic boom in the cities.

  China’s unique form of “socialism with Chinese characteristics” is rent with contradictions, and many of these are forcibly coming to the fore. The recently concluded annual session of China’s parliament, the National People’s Congress (NPC), usually a sedate piece of set political theater, was thus the site of some unusually feisty debate this year. [Full text]

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  • March 22, 2007 1:26 PM

• Waiting and Watching, Hoping to Be Heard - Maureen Fan

  

  From the Washington Post:
  
  

  On a recent Sunday night in an old neighborhood near the South Railway Station, not far from several government departments, a string of shacks and tents shielded hundreds of peasants who had recently arrived in the capital to see the authorities.

  In theory, it was a day of rest, since the receiving hall of the Supreme Court and other government buildings were closed. But the peasants, who had traveled here from across China, were just beginning to prepare for the week. They had come to petition authorities over grievances in their home towns — in some cases alleging official abuses that went back 30 years…

  The path the three men were on has been well tread. It is common for villagers to seek recourse with authorities in Beijing, and just as common for them to be sent packing. They are routinely stopped by police from their home provinces who come to Beijing’s government plazas, listen for accents like their own and round up the locals, lest villagers speak ill of officials back home and the number of complaints in Beijing rises. [Full Text]

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  • March 16, 2007 12:07 AM

• 2007 Central Budget Proposes Spending be Concentrated in Eight Areas - People’s Daily

  

  From People’s Daily:

  The State Council issued its Report on the Implementation of the Central and Local Budgets for 2006 and the Draft Central and Local Budgets for 2007, and submitted it to deputies for review at the 5th Session of the Tenth National People’s Congress on March 5.

  The report outlined the 2007 budget: central government revenue will total 2,442.108 billion yuan, 318.877 billion yuan more than the previous year; central government expenditure will total 2,687.108 billion yuan, 338.882 billion yuan more than the previous year; national revenue will reach 4,406.485 yuan, up 533.423 billion; and national expenditure will reach 4,651.485 billion yuan, up 630.169 billion.

  The report also outlined key focuses of central expenditure and fiscal policies: [Full Text]

  - Also read CDT post China Parliament Session to Focus on Pollution, Wealth Gap, China to Increase Its Military Budget, and Beijing Moves to End Foreign Favours

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  • March 7, 2007 9:59 AM

• Chinese Premier Focuses on Pollution and the Poor - Jim Yardley

  

  From The New York Times:
  
  

  Prime Minister Wen Jiabao conceded Monday that China was failing on important energy and pollution goals and declared that the country must become more energy-efficient and quickly improve environmental protection to safeguard the long-term health of its booming economy…

  Mr. Wen described serious structural problems in the country’s economy, but he emphasized that nothing was more important than maintaining the country’s boom, which many experts consider essential to the Communist Party’s continued rule.

  Environmental protection and energy conservation have earned an higher profile from government leaders in recent years as it has become evident that China’s economy is devouring its resources and polluting its land and air. The most recent five-year plan calls for a 20 percent reduction in energy consumption per unit of gross domestic product. [Full Text]

  Related article: Premier Says China to Focus on the Poor says, “In the countryside, where most Chinese live, spending on agriculture, schools, medical clinics and other programs will rise 15 percent to $51 billion, Wen announced.”

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  • March 4, 2007 10:15 PM