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Leaders must push through difficult reforms
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CHINA is the world’s second largest economy, but for many, the Chinese dream is still far away.
People have to wait too long to see a doctor. Family incomes are too low to support both children and elderly parents. That is why Premier Li Keqiang won applause when he said, “The fundamental goal of a government’s work is to ensure that everyone lives a good life.”
Li pledged to promote fairness and justice to “enable everyone to share the fruits of reform and development” while delivering his first government work report at the national session of the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s top legislature, that ended last week.
More than 30 years of reform and opening up have boosted national wealth, but inequality in the distribution of social resources remains, with education, medical care and elder care being the “hardest nuts to crack” during the next decade.
Take one example of why these issues are so difficult: Ms Wang in Chengdu in Sichuan Province paid more than double the normal price for a house so her daughter would be eligible to enroll in a “key primary school” nearby. The purchase enabled her to move her household registration, or hukou, and thus meet the policy requirement that public primary schools must admit students from local neighborhoods.
Many parents believe such “key” schools, with more money and better teachers, are crucial for children — not only to get into good high schools but also for their future prospects in life. While parents like Wang are driving up property prices near such schools, most people cannot afford to buy a tiny room nearby. Property prices in large cities are unaffordable for the majority of people.
A shabby house near the Beijing No. 2 Experimental Primary School, one of the elite primary schools in Beijing, has exceeded 100,000 yuan (US$16,290) per square meter. In Chengdu, such homes cost as much as 20,000 yuan per square meter.
In his government work report, Li promised to provide quality education to the next generation and ensure all children have an equal opportunity to develop.
While parents like Wang are worried about education for the next generation, the swelling elderly population is also a tough burden for China to cope with.
Empty-nest elders
Mao Xinmeng, 68, in Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province, has been living alone since his wife passed away several years ago. With monthly income from retirement insurance of about 2,000 yuan, he does not know how long he will have to wait until he can afford a bed in an elder care home.
Mao rarely sees his only daughter, who is married and works in another city far from home. “They (my daughter and her husband) have a child to raise. Even though they want to take care of me, their income is too low for them to do so.”
Mao is one of the 200 million people in China older than 60. The number is estimated to top 300 million in 2025.
While 10 million workers are needed for elder care services, China only has 220,000, 10 percent of whom are qualified, said Ma Xu, director of the institute of sciences and technologies under the National Health and Family Planning Commission.
Besides the lack of money, another challenge is inequality in pensions. The monthly retirement pension for government employees is about 5,000 yuan, while for workers in state-owned enterprises like Mao it is only about 2,000 yuan. The pension for farmers is as low as 80 yuan per month.
The government has pledged to establish a unified, basic old-age insurance system for both rural and non-working urban residents and improve the way it is linked with the old-age insurance system for working people. For many, changes may not come soon enough.
China has beefed up spending on medical reform, but it is still happening too slowly. Violent incidents between patients and medical workers have repeatedly made the news.
Zhong Nanshan, a doctor and NPC deputy, said the tensions between doctors and patients are largely caused by a lack of communication and interaction. Patients flood big public hospitals for good doctors and the latest equipment. The time a doctor has for each patient is squeezed. Legislators have called for more government spending in public medical services, especially at community and village clinics.
Without a sound system to improve grassroots hospitals to meet the growing demands of the public, tensions between doctors and patients will never be solved, said Guo Yufen, a senior health official from Gansu Province in northwest China.
Despite sweeping reforms, analysts warned that the implementation at the local level would be difficult because of resistance from those who profit from the status quo.
“There will certainly be some people and government departments who, when deprived of power, will not be happy about the changes,” said Wang Changjiang, a researcher with the Party School of the Communist Party of China Central Committee.
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