BEIJING
- When visitors arrive in big Chinese cities such as
Shanghai, Beijing or Shenzhen, what do they see? They
see well-dressed, healthy people entering glass and
steel modern high-rise buildings while talking on tiny
cell phones. They see the latest models of European
sports utility vehicles whizzing by on broad
expressways. And they hear the success story of China's
economy roaring ahead at high speed.
That
prosperous appearance is anything but deceptive. Nobody
worth his or her education will refuse to recognize what
is obviously real. China, indeed, has made great headway
in creating wealth.
However, there is another,
less glamorous and lesser-known side to China: the
countryside where a huge number of Chinese who hardly
have enough to eat all year around reside. According to
the government's own numbers, 30 million people live on
an income of less than US$77 per year. Another 65
million earn less than $106 per year. In other words, as
many as nearly 100 million Chinese out of the
billion-plus population live in abject poverty.
It is worth noting that the United Nations
defines poverty as subsistence on $1 a day. Against this
standard, each and every one of the 800 million-plus
farmers in China is mired in poverty: the average per
capita income for the rural population last year was
$317, 13% less than the world average. And that is the
picture in the rural areas only, not counting the 21.6
million poor city residents who support themselves with
a measly income or welfare as low as $30 per month.
Of course, the causes of poverty are many and
varied. Chief among them are adverse natural conditions,
including disastrous acts of nature in some of the
poorest regions, and the lack of welfare for the old,
infirm and handicapped.
But what has the
government done to help them? Beijing claims that in the
past 20 years, from 1983 to 2003, the central government
has provided some $13.1 billion in poverty relief
programs aimed at helping the poor rise above the
China-specific poverty line. (China's own definition of
poverty - an income at or under the equivalent of $77
per year, per head - puts one into the category of "not
having enough to eat or warm clothes". There are 30
million of these as of this year by official stats.)
This sounds like a lot of dough, but instead of
improving, the number of people living in poverty
actually increased by 800,000 last year on a
year-to-year basis, according to the latest official
estimates.
By comparison, various international
organizations have given China a total of $51.6 billion
in different grants and aid in the same 30-year period,
dwarfing China's own effort a few times over. Qinghai
province alone has received $90.42 million - equivalent
to two years' worth of central government grants - from
overseas contributions.
Is the government then
also too poor? China's gross domestic product (GDP)
output grew from $43.8 billion in 1979 to $1.4 trillion
in 2003, registering a 32-fold growth increase. Averaged
out across the population, each Chinese can boast of a
share of $1,090, which is the per capita GDP of China as
of 2003. The problem is, wealth just isn't distributed
that way. It never filters down to the weak and poor.
Chinese farmers have been denied a place at the dinner
table. Nominal rural per capita income was $42 in 1986
and grew only seven-fold by 2003.
The rate of
increase in farmers' income slowed to less than 5%
annualized since 1997, in sharp contrast to the
published growth rate of GDP value as a whole. As a
comparison group, city residents see their income grow
by nearly 8% per year, widening the income gap between
the countryside and cities to a record 1:3.24 by this
year.
While desperate poverty will draw $1.4
billion in government assistance in 2004, $25 billion is
allocated to defense spending in 2004 alone, a steep 46%
increase over 2001. Another $1.6 billion is budgeted for
the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Approximately $3.15 billion
is now being spent on a giant glass dome near Tiananmen
Square because the government feels that China needs a
modern theater house to match its big-state status.
Entertainment for government officials by government
officials costs another $121 billion a year, according
to media reports that have not been denied. Of course,
the government feels it is obligated to show its
big-state largesse by donating a crisp $100 million to
such noble causes as the African Development Fund and
the Asian Development Fund.
As for its own
poverty, Beijing is expecting the rich nations of the
world to help out. Premier Wen Jiabao said in April
during a world conference on poverty relief that it is
the moral obligation of rich countries to aid poor
countries. "The developed countries should provide more
official aid, further reduce poor countries' debt load,
speed up technology transfer and eliminate trade
obstacles," he appealed in the opening speech.
Yet it is reported that Wu Shan County in
Sichuan province, one of the poorest in China, which
receives $3.63 million in government anti-poverty
assistance each year, is planning to build a
138-meter-tall fairy goddess statue on a mountain top
along the Yangtze River, for $48 million, or a dozen
years worth of alms earmarked for the poor in the
county.
To the hundreds of millions of farmers
who haven't participated in the wealth created over the
past two decades, what good is the so-called China
miracle - speedy economic growth and shining skyscrapers
and sophisticated Soviet-built Su-27 fighter planes?
What pride can they possibly derive from a cosmos ship
that costs more than they can comprehend for a shot into
outer space? Even more ironically, where are the bona
fide communist instigators when the landless and
penniless peasants need them?
Li
YongYan is an analyst of China business.
(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for information
on our sales and syndication policies.)
