Need Of The Hour In China

Valentin Popescu*

Xi Jinping’s China in its exuberance for a global role appears to be ignoring social issues at home. The birth rates are not looking up. Women trafficking and women buying are widespread. Gender disparity and discrimination against women has become deep-rooted.

Birth rate registered a fall for the sixth year in a row in the year gone by (2021). The controversial one-child policy, which contributed to the drop in net population increase, was scrapped six years ago. Yet the scenario has not changed, according to the Chinese National Statistics Bureau.

Rising child care costs, ballooning school expenditure and an aging population are pushing down new births, besides, of course, the changes that have come in the Chinese society under long years of Communist rule.

Beijing is not unaware of the flip-side of the population story. Also, the criticism that it is a self-inflicted wound with no guaranteed treatment in sight.

TWO CHILD NORM - THREE CHILD POLICY

Following the implementation of the two-child norm in 2016, the regime lifted the cap on the number of children a family can have. Five years later, in May 2021 came the three-child policy. It has fared no better.

“Like two-child policy, this three - child norm has been less effective in reversing China’s declining net population growth,” the authorities admitted frankly, while squirming with unease under attack from Netizens and social media warriors.

The Communist Party machinery must bear the cross for these twin failures. Though it is in the drivers’ seat everywhere in the country, it has not paid attention to the nitty-gritty issues like supportive measures to assist families in raising children.

Three other factors also largely contributed to the millennials’ aversion to parenthood. These are long working hours for professionals, rising cost of living and the need to take care of aged parents in the face of poor social security system.

FINANCIAL STRESS - A MAJOR BARRIER

Financial stress arising out of limited incomes, which in essence is the growing poverty levels, has become a major barrier to young Chinese considering even marriage. Most people are concerned about the costs of having children. Many millennials are the result of the one-child policy. So, it leaves them exposed to challenges with little aid from their families.

Gender inequality and discrimination against women contribute no less to China’s birth rate decline by persuading women that having children is simply too expensive. Surrogacy and egg freezing for single women remain forbidden compounding the problem.

China’s development cycle puts a premium on youth. This is a direct fall-out of increasing number of aged persons.

“Despite the government’s attempts to persuade people to work for longer hours with no big age barrier, companies appear to prefer youthful labour”, says a market watcher with roots in the Yen economy.

Result: Discrimination against job candidates begins at the age of 30, and worsens beyond the age of 35.

MILLENNIALS DILEMMA

Evidence in public domain shows that relaxation of birth limits did not spare the Chinese from other restrictive regimes like household registration programme. Major cities such as Beijing and Shanghai continue to enforce a cap on number of arrivals (inflow population).

This is placing the millennials on the horns of dilemma.

They have two choices.

One: take a pay cut to return to their rural hometowns – where they may not have lived in years, if not decades.

Two: continue to live apart from their parents and face discrimination in accessing medical services, school registration, and other essential social services.

Either choice is difficult to make for the youth on the move. But the authorities appear nonchalant. In fact, family issues are no more than a minor topic in Chinese government working papers and significant official publications.

LI’s THREE POINT PANACEA

Premier Li Keqiang made a passing reference to child care and low birth rates in his 2022 government annual report, delivered at the fifth meeting of the 13th National People’s Congress. His 17,002-character-long address allocated just 66 characters to these twin issues.

Li offered a tax deduction credit for day care expenses for children under the age of three. And, promised that auxiliary measures supporting the three-child policy would be improved. As if on afterthought, Li also vowed to look into a variety of options for developing inexpensive child-care and facilities and relieving family responsibilities associated with child birth.

This three-point panacea has had few takers at the week-long “Lianghui’ (Two Sessions), the back-to-back meetings of China’s major political bodies - Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and the National People’s Congress, (NPC). Held in early March, the two sessions served as a valuable window into China’s politics, and its priorities for the coming year.

The delegates/participants, who came from all over the country, made several suggestions to revive the birth rate. These ranged from common sense initiatives like extending maternity leave and assisting young families in finding accommodation to outlandish demands like giving a family’s third child additional points on university admission examinations.

Yet, little progress was made on giving concrete shape to any of these initiatives. Because, the Xi regime is reluctant to look beyond GDP and job data. Falling birth rates demand a paradigm shift in economic planning, and focus on family welfare. It is nowhere in sight.

China has a considerable disparity in terms of family support when compared to developed countries. Canada, for instance, has been offering tax advantages to assist with the costs of raising children since 1993.

The Canada Child Benefit programme has already helped raise hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty and will continue to increase to keep up with the cost of living, official reports show.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has pledged to provide $10-per-day day care nation-wide. It was with this promise that he had won his new mandate in the general election held last year (2021).

IMPORTANT ASSET OVERLOOKED

China professes to put the interests of its population first. But it actually continues to overlook the country’s most important asset: its people. No surprise, the Xi Jinping regime has failed to come to grips with rampant gender disparity and discrimination.

The latest human trafficking case from Xuzhou (in Fengxian county, Jiangsu Province, East China) is no more than a wake-up call. For the authorities and the couples interested in becoming parents alike.

The victim was allegedly trafficked since June 1998. And the man with whom she has been found living, has chained and abused her every time she had a seizure.

Her plight, which has gone viral on the social media, has put in focus the trafficking issue, according to the Global Times, which said, two persons have since been arrested on suspicion of abducting and trafficking women.

The case revealed problems and loopholes at the grass-roots level in terms of protecting women’s and children’s rights, and helping and caring for special groups.

NOT PEOPLE FIRST

It also highlighted a ground reality that local Party members and officials do not put people first, and have serious problems of formalism and bureaucratism.

Both Lou Hai, Party chief of Fengxian, and Zheng Chunwei, head of the county government, said they had ‘no knowledge of the issue (trafficking, and buying women) previously’, the Xinhua News Agency quoted them as saying.

Strangely, this episode came to light a couple of days after the Chinese central government issued its annual “No.1 Document” of the year with focus on issues concerning “safeguarding stability in China’s vast villages, including cracking down on all violations of women’s and children’s personal rights.”

The Chinese at home and abroad want not tough stance and harsh penalties to curb human trafficking, which, Premier Li has promised, but action. To usher in a strong social security net. To herald social reform, which is the need of the hour.

Hope Beijing has its ears to the ground!