poor peasants

Via the Gweilo Diaries: Policies, corruption widening rich-poor divide

One of the core problems, says [Wenran] Jiang, [professor of political science at the University of Alberta], is the two-class system that favours urbanites and urban development.

'The rural population is being exploited to subsidise the urban population,' he said.

Whereas most industrialised countries give big state subsidies to the agricultural sector, in China the reverse is true.

Farmers have four times the tax burden of city dwellers and none of the benefits available to many in the cities, such as subsidised education and health care and unemployment benefits.

And it is almost impossible for them to become official urban residents, though millions have migrated to cities for low-paying jobs with little legal protections.

'The Chinese government has made policy choices . . . that made the majority of Chinese people worse off, or relatively worse,' said Jiang. 'The consequences of such a policy choice, making most people poorer to let them subsidise urban development, are a potential time bomb for social instability.'