China needs to adjust its one-child family planning policy to fight a worsening gender imbalance and an aging population with too few children, experts said.
China has 33.31 million more men than women among the population born during 1980-2000. The ratio of males to females at birth has kept rising since the 1980s. The normal range worldwide is 103 to 107 males born for every 100 females born. In China, that ratio reached 120.56 last year, Yuan said.
Only Tibet has a normal male/female birth ratio. The ration in all other provinces and regions is skewed, and is most serious in Jiangxi, Anhui and Shaanxi provinces, he said.
“This gender gap is unprecedented in the history of the populous countries in the world, and will continue to widen in the short term,” he said.
China launched its nationwide, one-child family planning policy in the 1970s. Though it prevented 400 million births, it has been criticized for leading to gender imbalance, a large elderly population and a scarcity of working-age people.
“The country has successfully achieved the goal to prevent its population from growing too fast, which was set in its first population policy advocating ‘one child for one couple’,” Hu Angang, one of China’s leading policy advisers, said in an article he published on the Economic Information Daily on Thursday.
“From now on, we should launch a new population policy advocating ‘two children for one couple’, with the objective of preventing a rapidly aging population with too few children in the future.”
Zhai Zhenwu, director of population and sociological studies at Renmin University in Beijing, agreed that the 30-year-old policy needs adjustment. The central government has already begun researching and drafting a new population policy, he said.
Source: China Daily
Archive for the ‘Changing China’ Category
Experts urge switch from one child policy
Friday, December 11th, 2009Number of Abortions in China is “Cause for Concern”
Saturday, August 15th, 2009There are 13 million abortions each year, compared to 20 million births, according to newly published research.
Researchers believe the real figure could be even higher because there are many abortions at unregistered clinics.
China imposed strict family planning rules in the 1970s in an attempt to limit the growth of its population.
Many pregnant women who have had their full quota of children have abortions to prevent unwanted births.
But young single women are most likely to have abortions in a country where there are 20 million births each year, the research found.
Experts said the high number of abortions was “cause for concern”, adding that many women who have abortions are single and aged between 20 and 29.
China began restricting the number of children each couple can have in 1978. Officials say this has prevented 400 million extra births.
Economic Crisis Hitting the Heart of China
Friday, March 13th, 2009Hunan for years has sent waves of migrant workers to the cities in search of a better life and an escape from tough farm labor.
But now there are as many as two million Hunanese searching for work, the majority laid off from seaboard factories as the impact of the global economic crisis creeps into China’s rural heartland.
Hunan province once sent a million new farmers a year to work in China’s booming cities. Now the financial crisis means it is scrabbling to keep two million unemployed off the streets, a senior official said.
Beijing fears joblessness could lead to destabilizing unrest and has ordered local governments to throw their energy into keeping their citizens in some kind of employment.
Please pray for the people of Yueyang, many of whom are feeling the effects of the global economic slowdown in much more tangible ways than those of us living in more ‘affluent’ countries. Pray that food and housing needs are met and that this crisis would create a new openness to hearing the Good News of Jesus Christ.
Local governments give migrant workers a new name
Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008
Rural laborers who come to China’s cities find a household registration system that denies them many of the benefits that established city residents enjoy – and often widespread discrimination against bumpkin outsiders. To address the latter problem, some cities in China, such as Wuxi, Changchun and Xi’an, have chosen to replace the common name for migrant workers, nongmingong (“peasant laborer”) withxinshimin, or “new urban citizen.”
But a name change alone is not enough, says a commentator in the Huashang Morning Post:
It must be said that under a system whose policies do not provide them with urban residency, describing the migrant worker population as “new urban citizens” is a step forward, the first step toward including migrant workers among the ranks of a city’s residents.
But the entrenched gulf between the “security” of the city and the “insecure” countryside cannot be erased by merely issuing a few documents and changing a few names. Only by truly giving the “new urban citizens” some security, letting them feel the sincerity and warmth of the city, can these practices truly be something more than just a makeover.
In September, Shenyang introduced a more comprehensive package; in addition to the name change, migrant workers were promised free legal services, clinic and cinema admission. Ma Qiao, a poster on the Rednet portal, argues that these measures are both too much and not enough:
While these are things that “new urban citizens” may need or enjoy, there is a bit too much utopianism here in my opinion. More than just a handful of poor Shenyang families rely on the bare minimum to eke out their existence, and they too need these free services from the government. Otherwise, the treatment is inequitable and the government is intentionally caring for one group while losing sight of another.
Can this be done? Unlikely, I think, or at least it can’t last long … Shenyang has over one million laborers; at an average of just five yuan per month in free care, the government has to lay out more than 60 million yuan [per year], and at times possibly more than 100 million. Adding free legal services, free movies and investment in schools for laborers’ children, the figure becomes frighteningly high. We won’t argue for the moment whether the government has the ability to finance this immense handout; even assuming it does, won’t it be loath to fork over the money when the time comes?
No word yet on how migrants, er, new urban citizens have taken to their christening. Perhaps they’re too busy going to the movies to be blogging? Joel Martinsen
Most migrant workers in cities unhappy
Wednesday, January 16th, 2008Pray for China’s HUGE migrant worker population. Not only are they facing incredibly hard living circumstances, they are also difficult to share the good news with.
Only 7.6 percent of migrant workers eking out a living in the country’s cities are satisfied with their lives, a recent survey by Shanghai’s Fudan University showed.
The survey, which polled 30,000 migrant workers in major Chinese cities, found that 68 percent believed the urbanites did not fully accept the workers – if at all.
There are about 200 million migrant workers across the country, filling up positions in urban areas that urbanites reportedly shun and amid a growing income gap between rich and poor.
The survey also showed that working overtime was common for migrant workers – more than 80 percent worked over eight hours a day and 18 percent labored more than 10 hours. Only 16.4 percent of those polled had more than five days a month off, while 55 percent had less than two days off.
Working overtime with few holidays made migrant workers tire easily and could cause accidents, researchers said.
Exhaustion also meant migrant workers had little time to study and in turn led to fewer job opportunities, the study showed. All these factors made migrant workers dissatisfied with their lives in cities, it concluded.
At the same time, the study showed that migrant workers’ incomes rose. Their average monthly wage reached 1,200 yuan ($165) last year, a year-on-year increase of 200 yuan.
Still, 22.2 percent of migrant workers were unable to save money because their incomes were just enough to cover living expenses. About 44.6 percent said they hoped to continue to work in cities, while 17 percent hoped to find jobs in Beijing or its surrounding areas.
Olympics 2008 Unreal For Most of China
Wednesday, November 14th, 2007CHANGSHA, Hunan – Mao launched his revolution from Changsha, but from this provincial capital of 2 million the Olympics seem very distant. Beijing and other cities are frenziedly transforming themselves into showcase cities for the 2008 Olympics, but in China’s interior, where 60 percent of the population lives, the Olympics are just something you watch on television.
“I tried to write a letter at the end of last year to be a volunteer for the games but they said they prefer students from the universities in Beijing,” says 23-year-old Xiao Wei (not her real name) who hails from a farming community about an hour outside Changsha. She is the first of her clan to attend college but says volunteer positions at the Olympics only go to students of top universities, not from smaller schools like hers. “We know many big preparations are happening in Beijing through the TV and newspaper,” says Wei. “It is not a popular or common topic of conversation among the students because we cannot do anything for it and it just seems kind of far from us.”
Her classmate, Wu Yaqiang, 22, who also comes from a farming family in rural Hunan agrees. “As you know, a lot of students like me come from remote places so the Olympics seem like something we can only talk about but cannot take part in. The heart is willing but the flesh is weak.”
“It is something that only the people in cities around Beijing care about,” says Wu Lei, a 22-year-old university student in northern Hunan’s Zhangjiajie City. “People from Hunan and other far away places, we don’t really feel very excited about it and I don’t feel a personal connection to it.” His sentiments are common among young people here. It seems that instead of uniting the country behind a common goal, the Olympics have only widened the gap between interior China and its eastern seaboard. Most young people here never felt a connection with Beijing to begin with; now they have one more reason to feel left out of the picture.
Not everyone in Hunan feels so distanced from Beijing. Yang XiXi, 21, is a university sophomore from the remote city of Jishou in the far northwest corner of the province. She spent last summer in Beijing at an intensive private English school and is enrolled in a selective exchange program in Jishou that will let her spend her senior year in England. “Hunan is in the south of China but distance doesn’t mean anything,” says XiXi. “Take me for example: I am an English major so I think my ability to speak English and to listen and interpret will be useful for helping this great party. I’ll go to Beijing in 2008. I need this chance to do a favor for my motherland. Maybe in some ways she needs my help.”
Most of the young people interviewed seem acutely aware of the fact that their government has spent vast sums of money preparing for the games. It’s always the first thing mentioned when the topic of the Olympics comes up. They readily accept that holding the Olympic Games in Beijing will help the economy and enhance the international image of China. But there is also resentment towards 
Beijing and a fear that the games’ positive effects will be limited to that city and its neighbors. The fear is that the financial incentives for holding the Olympics will never trickle down to the inner provinces. “The bad thing is that the gaps between the rich and the poor, the big cities and small cities, will broaden,” says Wu Yaqiang. “As you know after all, the Olympics can only affect a very small part China. The rest will be left behind.”
“If foreigners only stay in Beijing and other mega-cities, they won’t know very much about China,” says Wu Lei. “They will only feel the air of the big city’s richness instead of the air of the backwater’s poverty. If they could go to the deep countryside they would find that there are still many, many problems in China.”
Most young people in Beijing or Shanghai are aware of what exists in the interior of their country but for many that awareness doesn’t go beyond what they see on TV. In places like Changsha people take pride in their tough lives. A punk rocker who just returned from a trip to Shanghai dismisses that city as full of “foreigners, yuppies and office ladies.” To him it’s “not really China.” Changsha, he says with a grin, in English, is “more hardcore.”
There is, however, a feeling that the truth, however ugly, can only help China. Chen Yu is a gifted 26-year-old graduate student from an upper middle class family in southern Hunan’s Shaoyang City. He agrees that Beijing has spent too much money on the upcoming games but hopes that above all, the world will be allowed to see China for what it truly is. “They will report, good or bad, but at least they will report the reality of China and let others know about my country,” says Yu. “I don’t need them to report only good things. Most foreigners know nothing about my country. 2008 will give them a chance to gain a stronger point of view.”
Wu Yaqiang is not as hopeful as Chen Yu. “Since most of the focus will be on the big, representative cities I bet foreign countries will think highly of China,” says Yaqiang. “A long-term price will be paid if China leaves them with a bad impression. As a Chinese, I feel responsible to participate in it but the doors are shut for me. We can only learn of its progress by means of the media.”
On a recent Saturday night, thousands of people stroll up and down the central shopping street of Changsha. One of the few stores licensed to sell Olympic paraphernalia is open. It shares a storefront with a boutique selling specialty chopsticks. The shop is dwarfed by the massive video arcade that glows next door, with oversized statues of Batman and Superman standing guard at its entrance. There are only three people in the Olympics store browsing through the overpriced pens and coffee mugs. The chopsticks have twice as many admirers.
China dismisses Olympics Bible ban as rumors
Saturday, November 10th, 2007
BEIJING, Nov. 8 (Xinhua) — China Thursday rebuked reports that the it would ban foreign athletes from bringing Bibles to the Olympic village during the Beijing Olympic Games next year, dismissing them as “sheer rumors”.”We have taken note of the reports and checked with the relevant authorities. The facts prove that the reports are sheer rumors,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told a routine press conference.The Catholic News Agency published a report in November citing the Italian sports daily La Gazzetta dello Sport and Spanish daily La Razon as saying that Bibles were on a list of “prohibited objects” in the Olympic village.
“The Chinese government has never ever issued such a rule, nor any such statement,” Liu said. “China’s religious affairs authorities and the Beijing Olympic organizing committee have not – and could not – issue a rule banning the Bible in the Olympic village.”
China has always respected and protected the religious freedom of foreigners living in China in line with laws and regulations, he said.
According to the Provisions on the Administration of Religious Activities of Aliens Within the Territory of the People’s Republic of China, foreigners are allowed to bring in religious publications, audio-video materials or other objects for personal use, Liu said.
“We are suspicious of the ultimate motivations of those who spread such rumors. They should be responsible, and not do things that are not beneficial for themselves and undermine mutual understanding between China and the world,” he added.
Official: Transparency key to public faith
Wednesday, October 31st, 2007
A senior central government information official has urged local governments to be more open and transparent, saying their attempt to block media coverage of negative incidents was “too naive”.Wang Guoqing, vice-minister of the State Council Information Office, said “blocking bad news” was becoming more difficult, given the wide use of new information technologies such as the Internet, mobile phones and the central government’s commitment to information transparency.
“It has been repeatedly proved ‘information blockage’ is like walking into a dead end,” Wang told CCTV.
Wang revealed that some local government spokespersons used to believe that some 90 percent of “bad news” could be muffled while only 10 percent would be unluckily exposed by the media.
However, because governments at all levels had started to introduce a spokesperson scheme, information blockage was becoming increasingly outdated and impractical, he said.
Wang gave the four-year-old spokesperson scheme a score of 60 points on a full-score of 100-point evaluation system.
The recent brick kiln slave scandal highlighted the importance of a cooperative and forthcoming government to the media.
Having uncovered the illegal practice in April, Shanxi government had started cracking down on illegal brick kiln owners and rescued the first batch of slaves.
But keeping the information out of media spotlight until the scandal came under full public glare left the Shanxi government in a very vulnerable position.
“Had the government kept the media and the public informed, we would have seen different result on discussion of officials’ accountability,” Wang said.
Mao Shoulong, a professor at Beijjing-based Renmin University, said lots of local governments were still weighing the pros and cons of information transparency. They thought “saying something wrong” could be as bad as gagging the media.
“With the implementation of The Decree of Government Information Openness, by which the quality of being forthcoming will be accounted as the officials’ accountability, things will be better,”Mao said.
Brushing media aside in handling incidents of public interest was destined to fail as public faith and support would be lost.
“We should enlist the media in any emergency plans,” Wang said.
In the wake of the openness decree, which was approved in January and due to take effect next May, Wang said spokespersons alone were not enough to satisfy the public’s demand for information.
Government and Party leaders at all levels should hone their news sense and improve media communication skills, he said.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-07/16/content_5435353.htm
Catholic Church to be built in Olympic village
Thursday, September 20th, 2007A temporary church will be set up in the Olympic Village during the 2008 Games for Catholic athletes, and all churches in Beijing will be open to Catholic tourists, a senior official has said. The Beijing diocese is training priests fluent in foreign languages to celebrate Mass during the upcoming Games, said Liu Bainian, vice-president of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association.”All will be arranged in accordance with the practices adopted by other Olympics host cities,” he said.
According to Games organizers, a religious service center will be set up in the Olympic Village with professional religious personnel providing services to meet the needs of athletes from various religious convictions.
Athletes and those who accompany them can enjoy different dishes specially made in accordance with their religious beliefs, the organizers said.
Religious services and information will be available in Beijing as well as the six other co-host cities.
A total of 60 volunteers from the five major religions in China – Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Christianity and Catholicism – recently attended a three-day training session organized by the Beijing municipal administration of religious affairs for providing religious services during the Games.
Anyone else getting the impression that China is REALLY trying to put forth an image of religious tolerance during their time on the world stage of the Beijing 2008 Olympics?
University Students Banned From Living Off-Campus
Monday, September 17th, 2007Sometimes China’s citizens ‘push back’ a little when being told what to think or do;
Although the Ministry of Education bans university students living off-campus, many students ignore the ban and continue to rent housing outside their colleges.
In a notice issued recently, the ministry states that all university students should live in school dormitories, and forbids students renting private accommodation off-campus in principle.
The ministry said the ban is motivated by a concern for students’ safety, as well as a desire to simplify administration in educational institutions.
Plenty of dissenting voices have been heard since the ban was issued.
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