SUN
WUKONG Divorce, Chinese
style By Wu Zhong, China Editor
HONG KONG - In China, the production of
fake goods is so rampant that there is a saying
that "everything can be forged". Indeed, forgery
is not limited to manufactured goods. "Faking it"
is easily transferred to social and legal arenas,
such as divorce court. In recent years, the number
of media-reported fake divorce cases has risen,
all for various "reasons" or excuses - but they
all boil down to m-o-n-e-y.
Divorce used
to be rare in China until the country began opening
its
doors for economic reforms in the late 1970s.
(Among other regulations that previously made
divorce in China difficult was one that required
the permission of one's danwei (work unit)
superior as part of the procedure.) A new marriage
law, effective since October 2003, simplified the
process and also boosted the divorce rate.
According to statistics from the Ministry
of Civil Affairs, the divorce rate more than
doubled from 1985 to 1995, and by 2005, the rate
had more than tripled, to 1.37 divorces per 1,000
people. In 2005, 1.79 million couples divorced,
while 8.23 million couples ignored the rising
divorce rate and tied the knot.
And last
year, more than 1.9 million couples were divorced
in China, an increase of 128,000 couples or 7%
from the previous year. Civil-affairs authorities
across the country handled 1.29 million of the
cases, and 622,000 couples severed the knot
courtesy of the courts.
This pushed last
year's divorce rate up to 1.46 cases per 1,000
people, from 1.37 in 2005, according to the
ministry.
Like its economy, China's
divorce rate still lags far behind that of the
United States, which recorded 3.7 divorces out of
1,000 people in 2004. But the speed with which
China catches up with the "advanced" countries in
this regard is also astonishing, considering its
divorce-unfriendly social and cultural traditions.
China's economic statistics have long been
questioned for their accuracy. What about
divorce-rate figures? At first glance there
appears no reason to cast doubts, as divorce
figures are much easier to compile, just as one
plus one equal two.
However, if some
divorces are not truly heartfelt, then the
statistics could have been inflated. As a matter
of fact, there are quite a number of "convenience
divorce" cases reported by the Chinese media.
For instance, the Beijing-based Legal
Daily reported that early last year, 86 couples -
aged from 20 to 60 - in a small village in Yibin
county in the southwestern province of Sichuan got
divorced within three months. A sudden wave of
mass marital instability? Consider the case of one
of the couples, Liu Fangzhai and Ma Xiuyun (not
their real names).
But just 25 days after
they were certified for divorce, they registered
for marriage again. So what was the reason for
their "divorce"?
It happened that the
county government wanted to demolish part of the
village and requisition the land for a development
project. The evicted villagers would be
compensated. But the compensation would be granted
on the basis of households and, as a married
couple, Liu and Ma would be compensated as a
single household. But if they were divorced, they
would be compensated as two households. No wonder
that, like them, all the "divorced" couples were
remarried as soon as they received their
compensation.
Local officials were fully
aware of the ruse but they could do nothing about
it. "It is legal for the villagers to ask for
divorces. We cannot block them. As along as they
follow legal procedures, there is no reason for us
not to give them divorce certificates," a local
official said.
And what happened in Yiban,
called "collective divorce" by the media, is by no
means an isolated case and doesn't just occur in
rural areas.
In the eastern Shanghai
suburb of Pudong, more than a dozen couples were
suddenly divorced last July. The area where they
lived was targeted for redevelopment and they
hoped to be compensated with bigger floor spaces
as separated households. For similar reasons, in
Renhe town in the suburbs of Chongqing
municipality, more than 1,000 couples
"collectively" filed for their divorces.
And there are other reasons for phony
divorces.
There is a social-security
program in Beijing to help the unemployed,
disabled and others in need. The welfare is
granted in such a way that it does not increase
proportionally in accordance with the number of
people in a household. Therefore, the per capita
welfare amount for a household with fewer members
would be larger than one with more members. This
is reasonable because the increase of the
"collective" living costs for a household does not
increase proportionally with the increase of its
members.
But this gives an opportunity for
some savvy families to seek advantages. Some
couples have arranged fake divorces so they (and
their children) would be spilt into two households
and receive more per capita welfare.
According to a survey of 30 households
receiving social security in the Fushuijing
community in Beijing's Xicheng district, 20 of
them were divorced couples who still lived
together after they qualified for welfare. Another
three couples are in the process of divorce.
Other couples have sought divorces for
employment's sake.
With the reform of
state-owned enterprises in recent years, many
workers have been laid off - and many of them were
married couples. However, local authorities have
been required to help them find new employment.
Perhaps because the number of laid-off workers has
been so large, some local authorities launched new
rules that they would only help one partner of a
laid-off couple to find new employment. As a
result, many unemployed couples rushed to get
divorced.
It is entirely possible that the
publicly reported phony divorce cases are just the
tip of the iceberg. So of the 1.9 million divorces
in 2006 reported in official statistics, how many
were for mutual financial gain? There are no
statistics available - much less recorded - on
fake breakups, so the number is anybody's guess.
Some Chinese academics condemn the
fake-divorce phenomenon. "It is disrespectful to
the law," said Xia Xueluan, a sociology professor
with Peking University. Fake divorce is also fraud
and the results could be quite serious, Xia
warned. "It will have a negative impact on the
government's authority, the dignity of the law and
will result in the loss of public property," Xia
predicted.
Despite such condemnations, one
can bet that as long as there are some potential
benefits, there will be people who will continue
to try to exploit the system, just as in
manufacturing, as long as it is profitable, the
counterfeit-goods industry will continue to
flourish in China.
Li Juan, an associate
professor with the Chinese University of Political
Science and Law, has suggested that authorities
close the legal loopholes involving compensations
for land requisition, social security and
employment to stem the flood of fake breakups.
Fake divorces, as well as the unceasing
production of phony goods, are evidence of a
profound problem facing China. While the country
has rapidly turned itself into a bustling
commercial society, Western moral norms - such as
personal integrity and credit, values that are
somehow alien to Chinese tradition but essential
to modern social/commercial activities - have yet
to take firm root.
Hence in China's
prevailing money-worshipping climate, everything
and anything that can be forged is, simply for the
sake of the almighty dollar, or yuan.
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