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In the run-up to the congress in which Beijing must face up to its future, the country's peasants are suffering growing inequality
John Gittings in Poyang Lake, Jiangxi
Saturday October 19, 2002
The Guardian
It is only a small hill but it saved the village beside Poyang Lake from being banished from its land. Long grass hides the ruins of the farmers' old houses, abandoned after the great flood four years ago.
The new village sits on the hill, two rows of single-storey bare brick houses squeezed close together. It lacks the old atmosphere, but it is better than being moved far away.
Only one family has obstinately stayed on. "They came and smashed holes in the roof to make them move", says a villager, "but now they seem to have given up."
Nearly 500,000 people have been "resettled" off the flood plains around the lake in Jiangxi province since the 1998 disaster. Embankments have been breached to let the lake return to its natural size - environmentally sensible but at a human cost. Even today in a far more open China, social engineering on this huge scale can take place with hardly anyone noticing.
There has been little discussion of rural problems in the run-up to the 16th Communist party congress which opens on November 8 in Beijing. Much more attention is paid to urban unemployment, the reform of state industry and banking, and the growing importance of private enterprise.
Yet though the percentage of Chinese living on the land has declined in the last 20 years of economic reform, because of population growth the absolute number is the same - a staggering 800 million.
Serious Chinese experts all agree that agriculture is stagnating for the majority living in the vast rural interior. "The future for peasant incomes and employment is grim," warns Chen Xiwen, deputy director of the state council's research centre, in a recent report.
Not only are average incomes barely rising, but the proportion derived from farming falls year by year. One in four of the rural labour force has left the villages to find work in booming urban China. Entire rural communities only get by because of the urban workers' remittances home.
Last year, according to Chen, there were more than 88 million migrant workers living away from home, most of them employed in "dirty, hard, dangerous and unsafe conditions".
The village beside Poyang Lake provides vivid proof of their flight. No attempt has been made to reclaim the abandoned houses and gardens where a single young buffalo grazes the turf quietly.
"One third of our able-bodied people go out to seek work," says a resident. "My brother is on the southern coast he's found a job for my son. There's no one left to farm the land."
Millions of farmers are also heavily taxed by corrupt local officials who literally live off the land - in the old phrase "eating the emperor's [free] grain".
China's most famous advocate for peasant rights, Li Changping, says "After paying taxes, the absolute majority of peasants do not have enough left to fund their agricultural production or rural industry".
Mr Li is a former rural official from another lakeside community - Dongting Lake in Hubei province. The peasants of Qipan, where he worked for 17 years, were paying three times as much tax as officially allowed to support a bloated bureaucracy. The cadres enjoyed subsidised housing, free cars, mobile phones, holiday travel and lavish banquets.
Mr Li described the peasants' plight in a letter to the premier Zhu Rongji which was then published in one of China's most adventurous newspapers. Stirred by the publicity, the government sent officials to investigate, but it was an empty victory local thugs in league with the officials now collect the money instead.
There has been much official trumpeting about the success of a campaign to reduce rural taxes but the peasants may not be better off in the end.
In the past 20 years, central provision of funds for health and education has been slashed even without corruption, local governments have less to spend on social services.
The little school at the village beside Poyang Lake has one teacher and one class - the first two years of primary school taught together. The teacher has been there for 30 years and his blackboard looks as old. The 35 children - 15 girls and 20 boys - are crammed together in the ground floor, diligently tracing their first Chinese characters.
There is a new district secondary school in the next village serious maths and English is taught to extremely large classes of cheerful kids - some of whom go barefoot.
Real efforts are being made, but attendance rates across the country have fallen as the age - and school fees - rise. Teachers are paid late or not at all Jiangxi province has just announced a new plan to try to give them their money.
Health services have been hit equally. Local doctors over-prescribe because they must live off the fees. Hospital in-patients leave before treatment is completed because they cannot afford the high charges.
In the 1960s, Mao Zedong proclaimed the goal of "narrowing the difference between town and countryside".
After years of neglect, this is beginning to be talked about again, but in the meanwhile the gap has widened. If the hidden value of better urban services is included, the real gap between average urban and rural incomes may be as wide as six to one.
In many Jiangxi villages, Mao's portrait is displayed in almost every peasant house. "We don't worship the chairman," explains one villager, "but we honour him for what he did."
Western predictions of a new peasant revolt are wide of the mark in Mr Li's view. He says "China has the world's best peasants". They blame local cadres and governments, not Beijing for their plight.
However he predicts that, in spite of official restrictions on migration, the flow of jobless peasants will grow till "the rural problem becomes an urban problem".
China's city dwellers, most of whom only go to the countryside to visit famous beauty spots, will no longer be able to ignore the 800 million.
http//www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,7369,815160,00.html
John Gittings in Poyang Lake, Jiangxi
Saturday October 19, 2002
The Guardian
It is only a small hill but it saved the village beside Poyang Lake from being banished from its land. Long grass hides the ruins of the farmers' old houses, abandoned after the great flood four years ago.
The new village sits on the hill, two rows of single-storey bare brick houses squeezed close together. It lacks the old atmosphere, but it is better than being moved far away.
Only one family has obstinately stayed on. "They came and smashed holes in the roof to make them move", says a villager, "but now they seem to have given up."
Nearly 500,000 people have been "resettled" off the flood plains around the lake in Jiangxi province since the 1998 disaster. Embankments have been breached to let the lake return to its natural size - environmentally sensible but at a human cost. Even today in a far more open China, social engineering on this huge scale can take place with hardly anyone noticing.
There has been little discussion of rural problems in the run-up to the 16th Communist party congress which opens on November 8 in Beijing. Much more attention is paid to urban unemployment, the reform of state industry and banking, and the growing importance of private enterprise.
Yet though the percentage of Chinese living on the land has declined in the last 20 years of economic reform, because of population growth the absolute number is the same - a staggering 800 million.
Serious Chinese experts all agree that agriculture is stagnating for the majority living in the vast rural interior. "The future for peasant incomes and employment is grim," warns Chen Xiwen, deputy director of the state council's research centre, in a recent report.
Not only are average incomes barely rising, but the proportion derived from farming falls year by year. One in four of the rural labour force has left the villages to find work in booming urban China. Entire rural communities only get by because of the urban workers' remittances home.
Last year, according to Chen, there were more than 88 million migrant workers living away from home, most of them employed in "dirty, hard, dangerous and unsafe conditions".
The village beside Poyang Lake provides vivid proof of their flight. No attempt has been made to reclaim the abandoned houses and gardens where a single young buffalo grazes the turf quietly.
"One third of our able-bodied people go out to seek work," says a resident. "My brother is on the southern coast he's found a job for my son. There's no one left to farm the land."
Millions of farmers are also heavily taxed by corrupt local officials who literally live off the land - in the old phrase "eating the emperor's [free] grain".
China's most famous advocate for peasant rights, Li Changping, says "After paying taxes, the absolute majority of peasants do not have enough left to fund their agricultural production or rural industry".
Mr Li is a former rural official from another lakeside community - Dongting Lake in Hubei province. The peasants of Qipan, where he worked for 17 years, were paying three times as much tax as officially allowed to support a bloated bureaucracy. The cadres enjoyed subsidised housing, free cars, mobile phones, holiday travel and lavish banquets.
Mr Li described the peasants' plight in a letter to the premier Zhu Rongji which was then published in one of China's most adventurous newspapers. Stirred by the publicity, the government sent officials to investigate, but it was an empty victory local thugs in league with the officials now collect the money instead.
There has been much official trumpeting about the success of a campaign to reduce rural taxes but the peasants may not be better off in the end.
In the past 20 years, central provision of funds for health and education has been slashed even without corruption, local governments have less to spend on social services.
The little school at the village beside Poyang Lake has one teacher and one class - the first two years of primary school taught together. The teacher has been there for 30 years and his blackboard looks as old. The 35 children - 15 girls and 20 boys - are crammed together in the ground floor, diligently tracing their first Chinese characters.
There is a new district secondary school in the next village serious maths and English is taught to extremely large classes of cheerful kids - some of whom go barefoot.
Real efforts are being made, but attendance rates across the country have fallen as the age - and school fees - rise. Teachers are paid late or not at all Jiangxi province has just announced a new plan to try to give them their money.
Health services have been hit equally. Local doctors over-prescribe because they must live off the fees. Hospital in-patients leave before treatment is completed because they cannot afford the high charges.
In the 1960s, Mao Zedong proclaimed the goal of "narrowing the difference between town and countryside".
After years of neglect, this is beginning to be talked about again, but in the meanwhile the gap has widened. If the hidden value of better urban services is included, the real gap between average urban and rural incomes may be as wide as six to one.
In many Jiangxi villages, Mao's portrait is displayed in almost every peasant house. "We don't worship the chairman," explains one villager, "but we honour him for what he did."
Western predictions of a new peasant revolt are wide of the mark in Mr Li's view. He says "China has the world's best peasants". They blame local cadres and governments, not Beijing for their plight.
However he predicts that, in spite of official restrictions on migration, the flow of jobless peasants will grow till "the rural problem becomes an urban problem".
China's city dwellers, most of whom only go to the countryside to visit famous beauty spots, will no longer be able to ignore the 800 million.
http//www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,7369,815160,00.html