New Year : China's leaders show themselves among the nation's farmers
The gesture is seen as a promise of greater attention for rural problems. China's farmers suffer increasing poverty, often unable to send their children to school and victims of rising pollution and local authority corruption.
Beijing (AsiaNews/Scmp) President Hu Jintao and premier Wen Jiabao celebrated New Year's among China's small farmers. Rural life in the past years has worsened dramatically; poverty, lack of education, bad harvests, industrial pollution and local authority corruption have all led to widespread discontent and the resulting explosion in popular protests.
The leaders ate with the families of poor small farmers. Experts underline the will of the government to better country life, where an average 800 million of China's 1.3 billion live.
Poverty impedes education, millions of children never finish school because of a lack of money and because they are needed to work on the land. Last week, Wang Xuming spokesperson from the Ministry for Education reported that "In the poor villages of the western regions over 2% of children abandon primary school, will over 7% drop out of secondary school". In 2004 2,3 million children were forced to leave school out of a total of 180 million.
The growth of farmer's income is slower compared to that of the rest of the country. According to the National Statistic's Office it increased by only 6.2% in 2005 with an average annual income of 3.255 yuan per , about a third of the amount earned by a city worker. Agricultural production increased by 5.2%, compared to a general growth of Gross National Product of 12%. The lack of infrastructure and the insustainable consumption of natural resources (also pollution) are - according to office director Li Deshui unresolved problems.
Another major factor- explains Song Guoqing, Economics Professor at Beijing University is the de-population of rural areas in favour of the cities, and the industrial wage. The price of cereals, agricultures main crop - adds Song also depends on the international situation and increased production does not necessarily mean increased earnings, because there is no demand. "Leaving to work in the city - he concludes - is, for many farmers, the last resort in an attempt to better their lives".
"I earned about 3 thousand yuan in one year dice Wei Yan, a small farmer from Rizhao village, in Shandong and there are 5 of us in my family. More or less I earned the same in 2004. I have three children and their education in the city costs an average 10 thousand yuan a year. A good education is the only way to escape the poverty of our village".
Add to this the expropriation of land without compensation, pollution caused by heavy industries and local authority corruption, all factors which built up to the 87 thousand protests staged during 2005. Often the farmers protest against the factories which poison the water and air and cause serious illness, or maybe against the expropriation of their lands and homes in exchange for a few hundred yuan.
Often the government answers their protests in the form of police intervention, arrests and serious criminal charges, without ever addressing the cause of the protests. Only on a few, very rare occasions, have the courts charged corrupt officials or ordered companies to pay compensation to the aggrieved inhabitants. (PB)
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19/07/2005
