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Millennium Development Goals in China

Child in Guyiang, China © Tamilla Held

There has been spectacular achievement in human development in China over the last 30 years and the country claims to be on course to achieve most of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. According to the 2005 China Human Development Report, only 26 million Chinese live in absolute poverty, a reduction of nearly 225 million over the preceding 26 years. However, these figures are based on China’s own definition of the poverty line which is barely one quarter of the UN’s figure of $1 per day purchasing power; by this latter benchmark there are almost 220 million Chinese living in extreme poverty. Furthermore, the broad progress in human development is offset by regional unevenness, gender, HIV/AIDS and environmental issues which lag behind in progress and priority.

Tibetan kids at a rural school © Barefoot Images / Tibet Information Network

For example, the large investment in production and infrastructure has been concentrated on the developed urban eastern regions of Shanghai, Tianjin, and Guangdong. The majority of poor Chinese live in the underdeveloped western regions of Shaanxi, Guangxi, Sichuan and Gansu. In Tibet, 50% of the population is illiterate. These regional disparities are creating a new category of poverty through migration to the eastern cities where 150-200 million workers grapple with the constraints of the hukou system of household registrations which expose them to exploitation in the cities. The Gini coefficient (which measures income inequality) has increased by 50% in China in the last 20 years and is now significantly higher than the measure in the US, an embarrassing contradiction for a country which remains under communist party rule.

Health in China

Children, Guyiang, China © Tamilla Held

The effect of chronic environmental pollution on health in China is adding pressure on an already inadequate health system. When the World Bank produced a report in 2007 estimating that dangerous air and water quality contributes to 750,000 premature deaths each year, the Chinese government requested that key sections be deleted for fear of social unrest. And with almost 50% of sewage being returned untreated to the ecosystem and ineffective controls over factory pollutants dumped in rivers, many people in China endure regular bouts of diarrhoea or intestinal worms and there are reported to be 650,000 cases of dysentery each year.

Economic reforms initiated in the late 1970s gradually replaced a collective and free medical care system with a more individual-financed approach with the result that illness can bring economic ruin to a poor rural family. The government’s response is the Rural Cooperative Medical Care fund which levies insurance contributions on central and regional governments and individuals. Although the scheme should extend to all by 2008, payments from the fund rarely meet the full costs which therefore remain a barrier to seeking treatment. The great strides in health taken by China in the period since 1949 have been slowed, with concerns in particular for infant and maternal mortality rates which form part of the MDG programme.

Official statistics suggest a low rate of HIV/AIDS prevalence in China with 650,000 people living with the virus. Although anti-retroviral treatment is available for those in need, the conditions now widely recognised as necessary to avoid stigma and prevent the disease taking hold have not been established. Indeed activist groups are discouraged and there is growing concern over the high levels of sexual ignorance amongst young people.
Politics in China

President Hu Jintao © Radio Netherlands Wereldomroep

Ironically, the current leadership in China has taken great pains to address issues such as HIV, health and the urban-rural divide, in search of what President Hu Jintao calls a more “harmonious society”. The Prime Minister, Wen Jiabao, promises that the 11th 5 year plan (2006-2010) will see significant increases in spending on rural infrastructure, aiming for equal provision of public services and representative local government.

However, the great weakness of China’s one-party system is the failure of central government to implement its policies at regional level. Free of scrutiny by press or civil society activists and accountable only to local power-brokers, regional government officials readily succumb to the temptations of corruption that thrive behind closed doors. Despite increasingly tough anti-graft measures, corruption in China is estimated to cost $86 billion pa, about 10% of government spending. Crucial government targets for energy consumption and pollution in 2006 were missed by some distance.

With over 70 million members, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is by far the largest political party in the world and holds an iron grip over government of the country. Key policy direction and leadership selections are resolved at the quinquennial National Party Congress, the most recent held in October 2007. Over 2,200 representatives carefully selected by the CCP elect 200 full members of the central committee which is turn influences selection of 20 members of the Politburo. The real focus of power lies with the final subdivision into nine members of the Standing Committee which includes the president and prime minister who normally hold office for two 5-year terms. These committees which form the government are chosen through behind-the-scenes consensus rather than explicit election.

The legislative body, the National People's Congress, consists of an unwieldy 3,000 delegates elected "by the people" in a process largely controlled by the Party. This Congress meets annually to rubber stamp government proposals. The Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau are the only areas of China in which top government officials are elected by popular vote. Since 1988 a system of local democracy has been permitted in which village committees are directly elected by the people. Until recently the innovation has been largely successful but, as evidence of social disturbance in rural China increases - often in protest at local corruption over land sales, it is far from certain that village democracy is the stepping stone for wider governance reform.

Chinese citizens protesting © Asia America Initiative

The emergence of a growing civil society movement has been permitted in modern China, especially in the context of environmental issues, but few groups address governance or human rights, nor are there many which are truly independent of the CCP. However, the controversial publication of Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party (revealing the truth behind the CCP and its brutal methods) originally published by The Epoch Times is thought to have triggered a mass exodus from the CCP and strengthened dissident movements.
Human Rights in China

In securing the right to hold the 2008 Olympics, China promised the International Olympic Committee in 2001 that there would be an improvement in the country’s abysmal human rights record. Human rights groups say that this promise has not been fulfilled, with the exception of a decision to refer all death sentences to the supreme court for review. Currently, far more executions are carried out in China than any other country, at least 1,000 in 2006 according to Amnesty International.

Tiananmen Square in 1989

On all other counts observers are more likely to refer to deterioration rather than improvement, denying China’s wish to erase its association with the events of June 4th 1989 when between 100 and 3,000 people were massacred in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, during protests sparked by the death of liberal party leader Hu Yaobang. Charges of almost every headline abuse continue to be laid at China's door - prohibition of independent trade unions, suppression of religious freedom, torture and ill-treatment of prisoners, a serious lack of judicial independence and due process, arbitrary detention and inadequate efforts to halt violence against women or the abduction and trafficking of women. And China’s intensive development has led to forced evictions in both urban and rural areas – the controversial Three Gorges dam has already prompted the world’s largest displacement programme involving 1.2 million people and latest estimates suggest that 4 million may be displaced by 2020.

Chinese flag at Tibet's Potala Palace © Tibet Information Network

For the Han majority racial diversity is considered a threat to national integrity and relations with China’s national minorities have always been tense - most notably with the Uighurs, Tibetans and Hui peoples. The situation in Tibet remains a world concern as the government encourages Han Chinese to migrate to Tibet, exporting their modern lifestyle whilst continuing to close Buddhist monasteries and a more traditional way of life.

Human rights issues unique to China include the “one child” policy and the persecution of the Falun Gong. The longstanding "one child" policy designed to control population growth has distorted the natural gender balance at birth and encouraged violations against female children. Although any form of pre-birth selection is illegal, traditional preference for a male child is reflected in the national sex ratio of 119 male births for every 100 girls. Falun Gong is a traditional Chinese meditation and exercise which was adopted by so many people that the government perceived the gatherings to be of a political and religious nature and banned the "movement" in 1999.

As China rapidly deepens its global influence, these low standards are effectively exported. Massive investments in Africa with no transparent strings attached, in parallel with arms sales to countries such as Burma and Iran, run counter to the direction of western aid policies, for example raising fears of new debt crisis. The Olympics factor is believed already to have been influential in persuading China to engage with Sudan on conflict resolution issues, overturning its often-stated policy of non-interference with other countries’ internal affairs.
Information and Media in China

Vigorous government censorship controls the output of all media and China remains firmly at the bottom of international press freedom rankings. Journalists are banned from covering fundamental issues such as the process of government, the military or ethnic minority concerns. Foreign journalists have been granted temporary freedom for the period up to the Olympics but there are concerns about retribution against sources and travel inside Tibet remains prohibited.

Huang Qi, Chinese internet dissident

Hopes that the enthusiasm of Chinese people for the Internet – 170 million users by mid-2007 – would open cracks in the control culture of the authorities have proved sadly misplaced. Vast new government departments have erected the “Great Firewall of China”, blocking thousands of local and international websites, probing emails for subversive content and arresting those inciting political opinions online. Chinese language versions of Google, Yahoo and Microsoft compromise Western concepts of Internet freedom by excluding sensitive material from search results.
The Economy in China

Cuisine, Guyiang, China © Tamilla Held

As a new member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) with vast capacity for low wage production and consumer potential, China is being courted by the major economic nations for investment. Entry into the WTO has increased China’s international reach and highly competitive Chinese goods such as textiles are swamping world markets. Now the 4th largest economy in the world, China even has a grip over the US economy through holding its massive foreign currency reserves in dollars.

The gradual privatisation of the Chinese economy is provoking conflict in the countryside as local authorities sell off land, on which peasants have lived and worked for generations. In the decade to 2005, 21% of arable land was converted to non-agricultural use along with the loss of 20 million farmers. Environmental degradation affects the remaining land; for example, in the North China plain, the groundwater table is falling by 1.5 metres each year. These factors together have led to China losing its hard-earned and prized status of sufficiency in food production, undermining continued progress in poverty reduction.
The Environment in China

Concerns about food security will be heightened further by the potential impact of climate change in China. The uncertain effect of drought and floods on crop yields together with the upheaval in freshwater availability caused by melting glaciers have rung alarm bells in government. Access to safe water and sanitation in much of rural China is already no better than the poorest countries in Africa and most of the country’s cities are already short of water.

China’s environmental problems are gargantuan because of the sheer numbers of people who await their rights to the benefits of an industrialized economy. The State Environmental Protection agency (SEPA) has conceded an estimate that pollution costs a staggering annual $200 billion, wiping out the country’s headline economic growth. Not surprisingly the government has recently acknowledged that it may need to sacrifice some economic growth for the sake of environmental protection, especially in the context of drinking water, sewage treatment and air pollution.

The China budget car

Dozens of coal-fired power stations are coming on stream and China accounts for over 40% of global usage of cement. During 2007 China overtook the US as the world’s largest contributor of carbon dioxide emissions, years ahead of forecasts. Nevertheless, global finger-wagging at Chinese pollution should be tempered by the inherent complicity of rich country corporations who are happy to outsource manufacturing to China’s special economic zones where they benefit from lower environmental regulations than apply at home. To a degree, China’s emissions should be attributed to western consumers.

Floods in Tianjin, China

Although China has announced a National Climate Change Programme which contains long term goals for energy efficiency and the use of renewable sources, the government refuses to contemplate specific emissions targets for as long as its per capita carbon footprint remains so much less than that in developed countries (3.5 tons per person pa compared with 20 tons in US). Equally the US refuses to accept a Kyoto commitment without China’s participation. Meanwhile the WorldWatch Institute State of the World 2006 Report demonstrates how the earth cannot possibly support Chinese per capita consumption of the earth's resources on the same scale as currently enjoyed in the US. Which of the two countries takes the lead in resolving these fundamental predicaments will be a defining issue of the 21st century.



The OneWorld China Guide was first published in January 2005 with a text written by Volunteer Editor Tawia Abbam

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