The Hindu Business Line : In the land of contradictions

Capitalism fast replacing socialism, widening gap between rich and poor, gender bias, more jobs but not for women... All these and more make China a study in contrast, says Rasheeda Bhagat as she looks at the country-in-transition.

CHINA is a land of real contradictions. One moment it delights you with the progress and development it has made in ushering in a free economy. But the next it infuriates you by the way it tramples on individual rights, telling its people to have only one child per family. But what if you think you need more? Sure go ahead, they tell you, but after paying a penalty. In Shanghai this would, for an ordinary person, be a whole year's average wage.

That would be around 14,000 yuan, says Dr Xizhe Peng, head of the Women's Studies Centre and the Institute of Population Research at Fudan University in Shanghai. He adds that considering that the entire population of Shanghai is officially 13 million and that only 200 extra babies are born each year on this `penalty', it does not add to much. But what is left unsaid is that all these 200 would be affordable only by the rich! Of course, in some rural areas, to check female infanticide — which was and continues to be a major concern — couples with a girl child are allowed another baby.

On a visit to China, especially your first, it is easy to get overwhelmed and overawed by the progress, especially compared with India. But more than a sense of awe, you feel a sense of frustration about India. If China can get there, why should we be so far behind? It is people you think. But again ou are baffled. For, the Chinese are an incredibly rude people. Most of them — whether it is the immigration officer at Shanghai's Pu Dong airport, the receptionist at your hotel, or the sales girl at a shop in Suzhou, a town about 100 km from Shanghai, whom you have refused to oblige by buying her fake CDs or other sub-standard stuff she is peddling — are so. At first you tend to think that this is only for an Indian. But when you see a group of European women, also attending the gender conference at the Fudan University, getting similar treatment, you know better; Indians, cannot, however hard they might try, match this degree of rudeness.

But reverting to the contradictions. At the recent all-important Communist Party Congress, the President, Mr Jiang Zemin, who stepped down as Party chief, renewed his call for radical economic reforms, and told the delegates that they must adopt "new ways of thinking to make the country richer". The message at the closed-door meeting was clear: It was time to drop the last pretences to the socialistic economic model. "We need to work harder, we need to adopt new thinking of ways to develop, make new breakthrough in reforms and bring about a new situation in open policy implementation," the official Xinhua news agency quoted him as saying.

Praising Shanghai's rapid modernisation, Mr Jiang pressed the city to "develop itself into one of the world's leading economic, financial, trade and shipping centres." It is well known in China that Mr Jiang has been a passionate votary of officially permitting capitalist businessmen to join the Communist Party.

So, for all the Communist ideology of equitable distribution of wealth and social justice, in a country which is no longer the closed society that it used to be, it is evident to anybody who cares to look that the divide between the rich and the poor is widening.

Maoist socialism guaranteed urban Chinese secure jobs and comprehensive welfare benefits. But modern China seems to have neither the place nor the patience for those not smart or competitive enough to retain their jobs in the reforms era. The ranks of the urban unemployed soared in recent years as sweeping reforms were brought in to stem the losses of the state-owned enterprises — the Chinese version of our PSUs.

On November 11, an AP report reported the Chinese Labour Minister, Mr Zhang Zuoyi, admitting, even if only in a roundabout way, that about 7 per cent of urban Chinese is unemployed, though officially the level is only 4 per cent! The Minister said that by end September, 3.9 per cent of urban Chinese workers — about 7.25 million — were unemployed; a status which makes the government responsible for their welfare.

But Mr Zhang admitted that another 6 million are literally `off post' — that is, they are neither working nor totally unemployed "because they are still receiving benefits from the former employers and negotiating for final severance packages."

Commenting on the government's differential accounting procedures to calculate such statistics, the AP report observed: "The dual figures are not unusual. As it infuses capital reforms into a once planning economy dominated by SOEs, China is caught between statistics and reality. It is trying to fight unemployment even as it put on an optimistic front to keep its people and foreign investors happy."

Commenting on the inherent contradictions in China, Mr Ian Perkin, chief Economist at the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce, told Business Line, "Oh yes, China is indeed a land of contradictions. It is a country which has opted for an open economy and while it projects this face to the outside world, the fact remains that 60 million people are members of the Communist Party, and you cannot walk on a road in mainland China without bumping into one of them." Cautioning you not to get too impressed by the Chinese economy growing by 7.8 per cent a year, far ahead of the rest of the world, he adds wryly that statistics from China should be taken with a pinch of salt. "The real figure might be closer to half that number. But, then, such things are common in China.

The government projects the growth rate at the beginning of the year, and then goes ahead to announce they've done even better!" Coming to welfare policies, as the Chinese state struggles to provide the most basic welfare to its unemployed population, rumblings can be heard. There is growing dissatisfaction with the deteriorating healthcare in the rural areas.

Expressing concern over the poor health status of women during pregnancy, childbirth and in the immediate aftermath, a social worker at the gender conference observed: "Globalisation and a free market economy is a double-edged sword. While a free economy has made the rich richer, it has also brought in a lot of social injustice. Many rural health clinics in China have been asked to find fund for themselves and as they have become independent profit centres, the health services have taken a beating. In the more backward areas, such clinics are finding it difficult to buy medicines or pay their doctors." In fact in one village, a woman told us that "we do not need doctors but midwives. A doctor would find our homes too dirty to visit. But a midwife would come and stay in our homes and deliver our children".

Reforms in the SOEs have meant that more women than men have been laid off as they constitute the less skilled component of the labour force. Even existing policies discriminate against women, despite all the rights being guaranteed to them by the laws, in that inmost industries, including the area of education, women have to retire at a much earlier age compared to men.

As Dr Xizhe pointed out in his paper on China's family planning policy, "while it has effectively slowed down China's population growth, it has to some extent strengthened the resolve to have a son".

While economic reforms brought more employment opportunities, the better jobs went to men and increasing numbers of women were getting into the informal sector where there were no job guarantees. So, for all the glitter in Shanghai and other special economic zones of China, the truth is that there are huge challenges in reaching the benefits of a free economy to the 1.3 billion people. China might boast of a free economy, but not a free media.

For all its economic reforms and impressive growth, it cannot prevent the poor, uneducated vendors on its roads, mostly women, from rudely accosting tourists with a loud "Hello, hello" and thrusting the wares under his/her nose with a savagery and doggedness that is scary. But, obviously, they have to do that to remain in business. To them it matters little that their country is emerging triumphant in international fora on the might of its economy and the speed of its reforms.

Response can be sent to rasheeda@thehindu.co.in

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail
Comment on this article to BLFeedback@thehindu.co.in

Stories in this Section
Needed plans that work

In the land of contradictions

Living beyond our means — Why fiscal belt-tightening is vital

Sethusamudram project — In troubled waters still

Healing touch

Petro imports

Interlinking of rivers

Tehelka enquiry