Inequality in China - Report Example

The Giant Awakens Inequality in China China’s affluent ranks are among the fastest growing in the earth. Yet there are genuine concerns that all this rapid growth of wealth may be adversely affecting the Chinese social structure. The gulf between the ultra-rich and the poor has expanded to an alarming degree. With the onslaught of privatization and the rapid development of coastal cities, China now boasts nearly 10,000 entrepreneurs every one worth $10 million or more, (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing). In direct contrast to this wealth and prosperity is the number of destitute poor, in China. Classified as those earning less than $75 a year; the government estimates that the number of people in this lowest stratum are around 85 million. 1 Chinas income divide is also destroying the unity of the nation. The rich are spending conspicuously while the poor are literally struggling to put food on the table and cannot afford basics like education and health. The Chinese government has devoted the nations wealth to building urban manufacturing and financial centers, repeatedly ignoring peasants. Farmers do not own the land they work and are left with nothing when the government appropriates their fields for factories or malls. The problem for China is not just that the urban elite now drive BMWs, while many farmers are lucky to eat meat once a week .Few would dispute that Chinese lived better when the government still held fast to an unbending idea of socialist equality. The problem is that the government enforces a two-class system, denying peasants the medical, pension and welfare benefits that many urban residents have, while often even denying them the right to become urban residents. There is widespread dissatisfaction in China and frustration at the government’s corruption and twofold policies. Even in a country that mercilessly punishes dissent, almost three million people took part in protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Most were peasants, laid-off workers and victims of official corruption, who blocked roads, flocked government offices, even immolated themselves to demand social justice. Now almost ten years later the situation has not improved much for the impoverished peasants while the wealthy are steadily growing richer and the inequality between the two is worsening. The emergence of middle class and affluent class groups According to Hung Huang, the magazine publisher China has produced thousands of rags to riches stories. She says “Look at Pan Shiyi and Zhang Xin: a peasants son, a girl who used to work in a Hong Kong sweatshop. I just love it! Pan Shiyi is the Donald Trump of China. This kind of success story was unthinkable ten years ago.” 2 She is amongst the enthusiasts that believe China is on the right path the path of prosperity. Many of China’s newly affluent class grew up poorly educated and in poverty. their newfound riches have left them a little giddy. The Chinese believe conspicuous consumptions the only kind of consumption. Take for example the case of Wendie Xu the wife of a recently rich cotton exporter in Shaohui, a tiny hamlet in Chinas prosperous Fujian province. Wendie Xus one-story bungalow has been substituted for a five-story mansion, courtesy of her husbands success. The house cost $600,000 to build whereas the average annual income in rural China is less than $300. Her neighbors still live in a dirt-floor home. Xu has a T.V. but still hasnt figured out how to use the remote correctly. She can’t turn on the grand lights in her house for fear of short-circuiting the neighborhood electricity. Cut-off from her neighbors by the income divide, money has not made her happy instead she is lonely and visits to the temple her only solace 3 Similarly Pan Shiyi is exploring Taoism as a way to satisfy his soul. At the ages of thirty-nine and forty-one, respectively, Zhang and Pan are the co-C.E.O.s of the Beijing-based firm Soho China, and the most visible real-estate developers in the country.4 In direct contrast to the above mentioned are the concerns of XuYaqing, she’s a 62-year-old retiree who lives on a fixed income in Beijing. Xu and her husband survive on a monthly pension of $263. Lately this hasn’t been enough. The price of the peanut oil that Xu cooks with has doubled in the past few months, and soaring costs for other staples have forced the couple to cut back on milk and to substitute bean curd for meat. Theyre not starving, but theyre scared and anxious about their future survival. 5 Strikes and protests are reported almost daily in China due to increasing unemployment and economic inequalities. Lu Zhiqiang, a top government administrator, admitted that "Income distribution has become the most noticeable social problem in China.” A Shanghai mayoral staff member says, "Chinas income divide is destroying the unity of our nation. The rich have to realize that their irresponsible spending patterns could threaten social stability.” 6 China’s "one child policy" China experienced a population explosion after World War II that doubled its population to 550 million in 1950. As a result China implemented a one child family policy, in 1979in an attempt to control population growth. This policy has remained in place despite the extraordinary political and social changes that have occurred over the past two decades Family planning requires that couples start marrying later in life, and hence have children later in life. Marriage for men under the age of 22 and women under the age of 20 was prohibited. Couples got financial subsidies, better facilities if they signed one-child agreement contracts.  In rural areas, couples were allowed to have a second child, with a minimum three-year gap between the first and second child if they got the necessary governmental approvals. Minorities could have more children, subject to governmental approval.  Families with more than one child without government approval had to pay hefty fines. 7 . The main criticism of the policy is undoubtedly its stimulus to sex discrimination. Faced with tough choices the Chinese girl child has once again become disposable. Peasants with limited savings and without pensions need children to support them in old age. As married daughters moved into their husbands families, a son is preferred and with the advent of ultrasounds female feticide is common. Too many girls, if not aborted, face orphanages or second class lives with reduced chances of schooling and health care as their births are not registered and illegal children received no medical or education benefits. Another problem is one of the highest rates of suicide of women in the world especially in the reproductive years. Increased pressure to produce the preferred child, and a professed reduction in the value of females, only aggravates the problems of rural women. 8 China has enforced compulsory abortions of unauthorized pregnancies when detected.  Various reports of inhumane abortion procedures such as using forceps to crush the babys skull and poisoning new-borns have sparked human rights outcries against Chinese policy. Other controversial governmental policies include compulsory insertion of an IUD /sterilization into women with single child.  Women who refuse to accept abortions were harassed, and sometimes arrested until they complied.  However there are positive aspects this policy such as the reductions in Chinese fertility have reduced the countrys (and the worlds) population growth by some 250 million. These reductions in fertility have eased at least some of the pressures on communities, state, and the environment in a country which still carries one fifth of the worlds people. Still although the Chinese government policies for population control resulted in curbing the population growth relatively well, they remain morally questionable Notes 1. Hannah Beech “Wretched Excess” Time Magazine (Asia edition) Monday, Sep. 16, 2002 2. Jianying Zha “The Turtles; Letter from Beijing” The New Yorker July 11, 2005 3. Beech “Wretched Excess” 4. Zha “The Turtles 5. Austin Ramzy “Chinas Next Big Export: Inflation” Time Magazine(Asia edition) Thursday, Oct. 11, 2007 6. Zha “The Turtles 7. Eunice Lim, The Population Situation in China, Geography Dept. 1998, University of Texas 8. Penny Kane and Ching Y “Chinas one child family policy” Bibliography Beech Hannah “Wretched Excess” Time Magazine (Asia edition) Monday, Sep. 16, 2002 Kane, Penny and Y, Ching “Chinas one child family policy” Lim, Eunice, The Population Situation in China, Geography Dept. 1998, University of Texas Ramzy Austin Chinas Next Big Export: Inflation “Time Magazine(Asia edition) Thursday, Oct. 11, 2007 Zha Jianying “The Turtles; Letter from Beijing” The New Yorker July 11, 2005 Read More