Re: Lecherdog

oh ! thanks,
but i think :
to let them bark fiercely is very funny !!!!


Jim Walsh wrote:
On Thu, 16 Mar 2006 12:58:32 +0800, J.Venning wrote
(in article <4418f08a$0$47001$edfadb0f@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>):


Where did you get this figure of $404 a year? Epoch Times?
J.


http://www.bjreview.com.cn/En-2005/05-10-e/10-china-1.htm


Uncut below:


Rural Dilemmas

By LI ZI

As China is an agriculture-based economy, it made perfect sense for it to initiate its reform and opening up from the vast rural areas over a quarter century ago. However, despite an unprecedented period of sustained rapid economic growth and escalation in urban living standards, the country's rural population today lags way behind city dwellers. Farmers labor under a slow growth in per-capita income for consecutive years. Government officials say that developing agriculture and helping farmers play economic catch-up is not only a necessity for the overall development of the national economy, but also vital to the stability and prosperity of Chinese society. Encouragingly, measures taken by China's leadership last year paid off, reversing slow rural income growth. It's a start, but more efforts are needed in this field.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao may well breathe a sigh of relief when hearing the news that per-capita net income of farmers increased 6.8 percent in 2004, ending the sluggish growth of farmers¹ income in the last seven consecutive years. Issues concerning farmers have been weighing heavy on the mind of the premier since he took the post to head China¹s cabinet two years ago. Early this year, Li Deshui, Commissioner of the National Bureau of Statistics, announced that the per-capita net income of Chinese farmers reached 2,936 yuan ($355) last year, 314 yuan ($38) more than the previous year. Allowing for price factors, the real growth exceeded the urban income rate for the first time.

China is a big agricultural country, with 900 million of its 1.3 billion people living in the countryside and developing agriculture has long been a basic national policy of the Chinese Government. Launched in late 1978, China¹s ongoing reform and opening-up drive began in its vast rural areas. Since then, China has witnessed rapid economic growth and enhancing comprehensive national strength. However, the agricultural development has failed to keep pace with the overall national reform and opening-up process. Despite noticeable progress, issues concerning agriculture, the countryside and farmers, also known as the three rural issues, remain hard nuts for the government to crack, prompting their listing as high priority on its work agenda each year. They have also been among the hot topics at the annual sessions of the National People¹s Congress, China¹s top legislature, and the Chinese People¹s Political Consultative Conference, the country¹s top advisory body. Without exception, they are expected to remain a focus of discussion for Chinese lawmakers and political advisors when they meet in March.

Farmers Issue
ANTIQUATED: Modernization of farm production is key to solving poor rural conditions

The overwhelming process of reform in China was originated in the rural areas by introducing what was known as the ³contract system with remuneration linked to output² in the early 1980s. Through separating the land ownership from the right to its management, farmers were given the right to decide on farm production. This policy greatly motivated farmers¹ enthusiasm for production and injected vigor into the rural economy. For a while, agricultural production and farmers¹ income witnessed explosive expansion. When the country was experiencing a shift from long-term shortage of farm produce supply to an abundance, most farmers benefited from the reform.

However, such rapid expansion lasted for only seven years due to the deep-rooted factors that restricted agricultural and rural development remaining unsolved. In subsequent years, the gap between urban and rural income widened further and rural grass-roots governments suffered financial difficulties. Agriculture is still a weak sector in the national economy and the sluggish social development in rural areas has not been completely reversed.

According to Chen Xiwen, Vice President of the Development Research Center of the State Council and an agricultural expert, under the centrally planned economy, China practiced price scissors, which featured low prices on agricultural products and high prices on goods needed in agriculture, starting from the early 1950s, in order to speed up urban construction and build up an independent industrial system in the agriculture-based country as quickly as possible. This practice was to squeeze surplus labor and products from agriculture for the sake of primitive capital accumulation. Some experts estimate that, during the decades of this practice, farmers contributed as much as 800 billion yuan ($96.6 billion) to the country¹s urbanization and industrialization. But, they benefited little from the achievements of the process.

Professor Huang Jikun, from the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, noted that the transformation from an agricultural society to an industrial one is a gradual process. Following economic growth, the share of agriculture in the national economy will decline, as will the number of agricultural population, he said.

During China¹s economic transition, many rural people have left their hometown for cities, forming a big contingent of migrant workers. But due to the restrictions of the long practiced dual structure, which divides cities and the countryside, these migrant workers are still regarded as ³farmer² workers. They are categorized as rural residents in population census though many have been living and working in cities for many years.

The highly decentralized mode of production in rural areas has led to high production costs and low productivity, placing farmers in a disadvantaged position in the market. As there is lack of economy of scale, many farmers are still living at the mercy of the weather. And a social security system has yet to be established in the countryside.

Root Causes

Among the three rural issues, that related to farmers is key, which features low income and slow growth.

China¹s modernization program has been designed to benefit its 1.3 billion citizens, especially farmers who form the majority of its population and are living a comparatively poor life. Although farmers¹ income has been increasing over the past years of rapid growth of the national economy, its annual growth rate is much slower than that for urban income, resulting in a widening gap.

Compared with 1998, the annual per-capita net income of farmers increased 460 yuan ($55.6) in 2003, a yearly increase of 92 yuan ($11.1) on average. Meanwhile, the per-capita disposable income of urban residents increased 3,047 yuan ($368), an annual rise of 609 yuan ($74). Last year, the average income of farmers reached a historical high at 2,936 yuan ($355), which merely equals the average monthly salary of an ordinary company employee in Beijing.

Of the average income of farmers, a considerable part is earned from off-farm jobs and non-agricultural business work. Currently, 60 percent of rural households in China earn their income purely from farm production, having no earnings from non-agricultural work. It means that actual income of most of the rural households has not increased in the past five years, some even suffering a decline.

³China tops others in the world in terms of the gap between urban and rural income,² said Li Shi, a researcher with the Institute of Economics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. His research findings show that the ratio of urban and rural incomes reached 2.9:1 in 2004.

This doesn¹t even reflect the real difference, Li said, because the income indicators have not included the nonmonetary income (such as medical insurance and other benefits in kind) of urban dwellers. Taking these factors into account, the difference between urban and rural income could be as high as five, or even six, times, Li estimates.

Although the living standard of many farmers has improved during the country¹s industrialization and modernization, they failed to gain due benefits compatible with the rapid growth of the national economy. An important indicator is the declining proportion of rural consumption in the total national retail sales of consumer goods, which is a key factor reflecting the living standards and consumption level of farmers.

In 1978, when rural residents made up 87 percent of the national population, the value of goods they purchased accounted for 67.6 percent of the total consumer retail sales. The figure dropped to 53.2 percent in 1990, when rural population made up 79.1 percent of the national total, and dropped further to 35.1 percent in 2003, when the rural population accounted for 70.8 percent. The consumption level of farmers lags 10 to 15 years behind that of their urban peers.

Education. In 2000, rural people at and over 15 years of age received 6.85 years of education on average, three years less than those living in cities. Some 75 percent of the 85.07 million illiterates or semi-illiterates (people at and over 15 years of age who cannot read or can read very little) on the Chinese mainland lived in the western rural areas, ethnic minority regions or state-designated poverty-stricken counties. In 2002, national investment in education totaled 580 billion yuan ($70.1 billion), of which 77 percent went to cities and a mere 23 percent to the countryside, while rural population accounted for over 70 percent of the national total.
HEAVY LOAD: Farmers in the underdeveloped western region are in urgent need of development-oriented relief projects

Medical care. Statistics demonstrate the great difference in the allocation of public health resources between urban and rural areas. Rural residents, who form 70 percent of the national population, have access to less than 30 percent of the nation¹s total health resources. There is only one hospital bed and one medical worker for every 1,000 rural people, whereas there are 3.5 hospital beds and at least five medical workers for every 1,000 urban residents. The medical insurance coverage stands at only 9.58 percent in rural areas, while it reaches 42.09 percent in urban areas. To date, there are still nearly 100 million people in the countryside who have no access to medical service, and about 20 percent of the counties have yet to reach the basic standards of the goal of ³Health for All by the Year 2000,² an ambitious program adopted by the first International Conference on Primary Health Care convened by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children¹s Fund (UNICEF) in 1978 in Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan. And 8 percent of rural infants are not guaranteed access to immunization.

Telecom service. While urbanites are keen on updating their cellphones, the penetration of fixed-line telephone service in rural areas is merely equivalent to the urban level in the early 1990s. Varied access to public communication resources further widened the gap between urban and rural areas in acquiring knowledge, information, technology and advanced ideas.

Social status. Economist Hu Angang believes contradictions accruing from the country¹s dual economic and social structure form the fundamental contradictions in Chinese society. From the economic perspective, agriculture is a disadvantageous sector in the national economy, with low efficiency and high risks (market and natural disaster risks). Politically, farmers form the largest disadvantageous group though they constitute the majority of the national population. They are not guaranteed the right to political involvement and expression of interest. From a social perspective, rural population is the largest group living at the bottom of social strata, facing discrimination, social injustice and unequal opportunities.

For example, ³farmer² workers do all kinds of hard work in cities, which few urbanites are willing to do, but get low pay or suffer payment default. They serve the cities while living in poor housing conditions and having no guarantee for medical care and difficulties in securing an education for their children. In a word, it¹s hard for them to get integrated into city life.

Difficulties for Solutions

Ever since the founding of the People¹s Republic in 1949, the Chinese Government has attached great importance to rural issues. But why is it so difficult to solve them?

Chen Xiwen believes the solution to the issue of agriculture is to accelerate modernization of farm production; the issue related to the countryside should be solved by establishing a sound social management system and developing education, health and other social undertakings in rural areas; while the solution to the farmers issue lies in securing employment and income growth for farmers.

The three rural issues are interrelated, Chen said, noting that the government used to focus on finding solutions to these issues from within the countryside. However, the situation has changed, especially in the farm produce market where supply exceeds demand for consecutive years. This makes the rural problems more acute so that it¹s hard to find a cure merely from within the countryside, Chen said.

Encouragingly, the government has changed its approach to solving the problems, said the think-tank expert. The new approach links rural development with accelerated urbanization and the transfer of surplus rural laborers. With the establishment of a structure of coordination between urban and rural areas, it's promising for China to solve its rural issues properly, Chen concluded.





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