Will China shake the world? by LIU YUFAN

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Will China shake the world? 
 
LIU YUFAN concludes his analysis of the state and civil society
in 
contemporary China (see IV 338 for part one) 
 
Social services under  
 
the impact of  
 
market reform 
 
THE lack of opportunities for education has always been an important
fact 
or 
in understanding poverty. Among the rural poor in China, illiterate
or 
semi-illiterate peoples account for an exceptionally high proportion.

Unfortunately the Chinese government has withdrawn from providing
univers 
al 
educational opportunities to its citizens. Although the Chinese
economy h 
as 
grown over 600 per cent since 1979, the share of expenditure
on education 
 
relative to GDP has grown little. Between l979 and l992, the
average annu 
al 
expenditure on education accounted for 2.88 per cent, which is
far lower 
than the 4 per cent average of many developing countries. The
figure has 
further been lowered to 2.49 per cent in l997.  
 
What money there is for education is syphoned off into urban
areas at the 
 
expense of rural, and post-secondary education eats up a disproportionate

ly 
large part of the fund. Rural education expenses are largely
met by local 
 
towns and villages. However, many of them are simply too poor
to build an 
d 
maintain school buildings and pay teachers adequate salaries.
Currently, 
there are 50,000 village and township governments in debt to
the tune of 
RMB 200 billion. And although official enrolment rates for primary
school 
s 
are as high as 98.9 per cent, the drop out rate is also high.
 
 
A report by the World Bank in l999 stated that 30 million children
were n 
ot 
enrolled at all, of which two thirds were girls. A survey indicated
that, 
 
among 125 villages and towns, the wages for over 60 per cent
of teachers 
were not paid on time. Many schools survive by forcing pupils
to work wit 
h 
little or no pay. In March 2001, an explosion in a Jiangxi primary
school 
 
killed 50 students as they were assembling firecrackers. 
In urban areas the situation is also deteriorating. College students
now 
have to pay large sums of money to enrol, a far cry from the
situation 15 
 
years ago. Free elementary education has evaporated in many cities.
Due t 
o 
a lack of funding, and also an eagerness to get rich, many schools
now 
engage in commercial activities ranging from renting out office
space to 
direct involvement in business themselves. These conditions have
given ri 
se 
to a new type of school; so called 'sparrow schools', thus named
for thei 
r 
size.  
 
In a primary school in Guangzhou, one of China's wealthiest cities,
820 
students crowd into a small school with a total usable area of
1,700 squa 
re 
metres. The school can only afford one small basketball court
in which th 
e 
children can play. This is a luxury compared to several other
schools 
nearby, which possess no play area and allow their students to
do exercis 
es 
on the footpath. According to the law, property developers should
build o 
ne 
primary and one secondary school for every 100,000 people housed.
However 
, 
in the course of redeveloping old areas, it is common for developers
to 
simply ignore these laws. Hence the 'sparrow schools'. 
As to the children of rural migrant workers, their right to education
is 
simply denied. Urban officials do this on the grounds that they
are rural 
 
residents under the hukou system (or household registration system).
This 
 
means that rural migrants are not officially regarded as urban
residents 
even though they may have worked and lived in a city for years.
When Li 
Sumei, a migrant to Beijing from Henan province, founded the
Xingzhi 
Migrant School in l994, there were nine pupils. It has since
grown to 
accommodate 2,000. Yet the city government still refuses to grant
any 
school educating migrant children an official school permit,
therefore 
leaving them at the mercy of officials. In this environment Xingzhi
Schoo 
l 
has been forced to relocate five times in seven years. The flip
side to 
this coin is that entrepreneurs and high-ranking officials are
able to se 
nd 
their children to elite private schools or send them abroad.

In the health sector, while the rural population continues to
be excluded 
 
from free health care, the free or at least partially free health
care 
system which the urban working population once enjoyed is now
largely gon 
e 
or being privatized. During the past 10 years, 'user pay' has
become the 
guiding principle, mainly on the grounds that the old health
care system 
was thought to encourage wastage of valuable medicine and resources.
Now 
employees have to contribute 2 per cent of their wages - which
are alread 
y 
very low - and employers 6 per cent to workers' personal medical
accounts 
.. 
Most medical expenses are to be funded by this account. In the
past there 
 
was no ceiling for an employee's medical expenses, but under
the new syst 
em 
a limit equal to an average wage for four years now applies.

The emphasis on profit and the discipline of the market has had
a profoun 
d 
impact on medical institutions. It is now common for hospitals
to charge 
patients who are covered by the social medical fund higher fees.
Logic 
suggests that those who are not covered by the fund enjoy lower
fees, but 
 
the reality is that many who are not covered simply cannot afford
to visi 
t 
hospital. 
The government devotes around 2.4 per cent of its budget to national
heal 
th 
care, which is by any standard far too little. Dealing with the
spread of 
 
AIDS alone will consume a large proportion of that amount. According
to 
official figures, there are now 600,000 HIV carriers, but some
scholars p 
ut 
the figure at one million or more. A recent story which emerged
from Xinc 
ai 
County in Henan vividly demonstrates the scale of the problem.
In what ca 
n 
only be described as a man-made disaster, some villages in Xincai
County 
have registered HIV infection rates as high as 60 per cent. Almost
all HI 
V 
carriers in the region contracted the virus by supplying blood
for money  
to 
local blood banks.  
 
Local authorities had collaborated with the 'heads of blood businesses'
t 
o 
purchase blood from peasants, but in the process had used unclean
needles 
 
repeatedly. Under these conditions the virus spread out of control.

Impoverished peasants repeatedly sold blood, seeing it as a quick
and eas 
y 
way to earn money. Some journalists now put the figure for HIV
carriers i 
n 
Henan alone at around 700,000. The figure is speculative, but
it seems 
clear that the central government is incapable of grasping the
seriousnes 
s 
of the issue. As with the coal mining tragedy, local authorities
tried by 
 
all means to cover up reports of contaminated needles thus exacerbating
t 
he 
problem. 
China's accession to the WTO may further negatively affect the
health of 
Chinese people. For years, 97 per cent of domestic medicine production
wa 
s 
based on copying foreign pharmaceutical companies without paying
royaltie 
s. 
This practice will be prohibited after the accession to the WTO,
which wi 
ll 
drive up prices for medicine substantially, making them unaffordable
to 
many poor people. In addition, traditional Chinese herbs and
medicine wil 
l 
also be in jeopardy in the face of increased imports of foreign-made

Chinese traditional medicine. Although the cultural legacy of
Chinese 
people, Chinese-made traditional medicine is not competitive
if compared  
to 
Japanese and Korean products. The latter countries hold the lion's
share  
of 
the global Chinese traditional medicine market, while China accounts
for 
less than 7 per cent. After China's accession to the WTO it is
probable 
that some domestic pharmaceutical companies will go bankrupt,
and in the 
long run put Chinese patients at the mercy of TNCs. 
The right to medical care should come before the profits of TNCs.
As such 
 
it is the duty of public authorities to regulate the health care
market i 
n 
favour of the most vulnerable sectors in society. 
 
Environmental  
 
destruction and the drive for modernization 
 
China is huge in terms of its territory and population, and this
fact alo 
ne 
implies the importance of it fighting against global environmental

destruction. China is now the greatest coal burning country in
the world, 
 
and as a result accounts for 15.1 per cent of the world's total
sulphur 
dioxide and 9.6 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions. China's
awareness o 
f 
environmental protection is growing, and it has endorsed many
internation 
al 
conventions. The ban on logging and the summer ban on fishing
in the Sout 
h 
China Sea are recent efforts by the government in promoting sustainable

development. 
On the other hand, the drive for modernization through the implementation

 
of a self-regulating market poses new challenges to the environment.
The 
elite appears to have uncritically accepted as a model for development
th 
e 
consumerism of the West. The decision to promote the increase
in ownershi 
p 
of private cars is one of the manifestations of such a mentality.
Again,  
it 
is impossible for China to copy the Western model in this aspect.
If 
China's auto industry could deliver one car to every household,
a level o 
f 
ownership still lower than the US, it would lead to an environmental

disaster.  
 
One may argue that this prospect is remote, but one must not
lose sight o 
f 
the fact that China's development has led to widespread and massive

consumerism over a relatively short period, and the damage to
the 
environment is reaching the point of no repair. Between the l920s
to l970 
s 
the Changjiang (Yangtze River) flooded every six years. From
the l980s 
onward it flooded every two or three years and on a much larger
scale. Th 
e 
l998 flood led to 3,656 deaths and Rmb300 billion in damage.
Premier Zhu 
admitted the main reason for flooding was over-logging along
the big rive 
r. 
Between l949-l979, forest coverage was already decreasing. Since
the 
reforms, however, the situation has worsened. Experts reported
that China 
 
requires at least 35 to 40 per cent forest coverage in order
to retain 
water in the soil. China's current forest coverage has declined
to a mere 
 
14 per cent. In 40 years, the upper reaches of the Changjiang
have 
witnessed an increase of soil erosion from 1.3 billion tons of
soil 
annually to 1.57 billion.  
 
The Changjiang is rapidly becoming the second Huanghe (Yellow
River). In 
many parts of the river, dikes are now as high as 13 metres so
as to 
accommodate the ever-rising riverbed. In the past, the scene
of the 
so-called 'hanging river' only appeared along the Huanghe, but
now it is 
spreading along the Changjiang. Due to corruption, the dikes
are of bad 
quality and often collapse in flooding, thus compounding the
seriousness  
of 
any flooding. Premier Zhu refers to these dikes as 'doufu dregs
projects' 
..1 
A logging ban was implemented in l999, and a major portion of
the one 
million woodcutters was reassigned to tree planting instead.
In theory th 
is 
was a good idea, but in reality local governments had little
incentive to 
 
implement the ban. A rise in wood prices resulted in even less
incentive, 
 
and in fact encouraged local authorities to unite with private
business t 
o 
engage in illegal but profitable logging.  
 
Lacking an independent media and systems of accountability rooted
in 
democratic principles, the central government simply does not
know if and 
 
how its policies are implemented at the grass roots level. Moreover,
simp 
ly 
banning logging in the context of an essentially normative model
of 
modernization does not address fundamental issues relating to
sustainable 
 
development. For example, demand for wood is still growing, partly
becaus 
e 
China now consumes at levels approaching consumption in developed

countries. The use of disposable chopsticks, for instance, is
a clear 
example. 
As for the Huanghe, soil erosion now leads to the interruption
of water 
flow for longer and longer distances. The phenomenon began in
the l970s, 
and by the l990s the stretch of the river through which water
does not fl 
ow 
extended from 100-200 km to 300-600 km. In the 1970s it occurred
in April 
 
or May, but now happens as early as January or February. 
Rapid modernization has created impressive material wealth, but
at the 
expense of the environment. In l995, Chinese emissions of greenhouse
gase 
s 
came second only to the US, and in l999 topped the list. The
government 
decided, beginning from 2000, to ban the production of leaded
gasoline. 
This is a step forward, but still too small compared to the needs
of 
protecting the environment. For the same unit of output, China
expends 3 
to10 times more energy than developed countries. The more China
produces, 
 
the more critical its impact on global warming. In China, as
elsewhere, 
cost cutting firms in a competitive market have few incentives
to install 
 
environmentally protective devices. Instead they attempt to shift
the cos 
ts 
of such technology to society and the biosphere. It is at this
point that 
 
public authorities often intervene, with new laws, monitoring,
and hefty 
fines for despoliation and its after effects.  
 
However, this is an up-hill struggle even for the most committed

governments. In China, because of widespread corruption and the

semi-paralysis of many local authorities which has resulted,
many 
environmental laws are simply ignored and all kinds of industrial
polluti 
on 
continues to wreak havoc on the environment.  
 
 
The new dimension of gender inequality 
 
Compared to many developing countries, China's women enjoy higher
status  
in 
certain respects. While the ratio for illiteracy among women
between 15-2 
4 
is as high as 21-50 per cent in many developing countries, in
China the 
figure is 13 per cent. Rates of labour participation among women
between 
15-64 are as high as 80 per cent. The Chinese government has
also endorse 
d 
a series of international conventions aimed at protecting women's
rights, 
 
like the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against
Women an 
d 
the Convention on Equal Pay for Equal Work and so on.  
 
However women remain the second sex in many regards, and market
reforms 
have further marginalized women in certain areas. Between l990-l995,
wome 
n 
accounted for 70 per cent of the illiterate population, but only

constituted 35 per cent of those who had senior college or above
educatio 
n. 
Urban working women's wages were 77 per cent of men and rural
women's 
income was 81 per cent of males. The difference in income owes
less to 
unequal pay for equal work, and more to segregation of jobs between

genders. For instance, women account for only 45 per cent of
doctors, 30 
per cent of college and secondary schools teachers, but make
up 96 per ce 
nt 
of nurses. 
Rural women continue to suffer from a lack of medical care which
poses a 
threat to their own lives and that of their children's. In l995,
60 per 
cent of rural women gave birth at home, and thus the death of
women in 
childbirth was several times higher than in cities. In an impoverished

province like Guangxi, the mortality rate of women giving birth
is 10 tim 
es 
higher than Beijing.  
 
Rural women also remain marginalized in education. When households
cannot 
 
afford to send all children to school, it is usually boys who
go at the 
expense of girls. Hence, 84 per cent of illiterate women live
in rural 
areas. Women's opportunities for development are also significantly
less 
than men. While some rural men can leave agriculture via entering

universities or serving in the army, these routes are not so
accessible t 
o 
rural women. When husbands migrate to urban areas seeking jobs,
it is the 
 
women who are left behind to till the land and look after the
elders and 
youngsters. Since such work generates much less cash than working
in 
cities, women continue to be viewed as economically less important.
It is 
 
true that young rural women also migrate in great numbers to
the cities, 
but it seems that women migrants are lower in proportion to their
male 
counterparts.  
 
Between l985 and l990, among the 35.3 million rural migrants,
56 per cent 
 
were men. Female migrants are substantially better educated than

non-migrants, as is also the case for male migrants, implying
a rural 
brain-drain to cities. However, even in the cities women migrants
are mor 
e 
restricted in relation to attaining residence. Under the hukou
system, 
children will inherit their rural identity from their mother
rather than 
their father. It follows that while a rural male migrant may
be able to 
attain an urban residence permit through marrying an urban women,
a rural 
 
women migrant will find it difficult to do likewise. This is
largely due  
to 
urban men resisting marriage to a women to whom his children
would receiv 
e 
the status of rural hukou. Thus even when millions of women migrate
to 
cities to work, their chances of remaining permanently in cities
is 
significantly lower, so returning to the countryside for marriage
is the 
only option. 
Another aspect of female migration is those from poor villages
migrating  
to 
more prosperous rural regions through marriage. For many poor
and 
under-educated women, this remains the only viable route to improve
their 
 
livelihood. 85 per cent of females who migrate due to marriage
work in 
agriculture, which implies that they occupy an inferior position
if 
compared to the first type of female migrant. Very often they
have to be 
content with marrying rural men who are much older and poorer
than their 
fellow villagers. In many cases such unions are arranged simply
for money 
, 
which in turn reinforces the commodification of women and subjects
them t 
o 
all kinds of maltreatment. 
Urban women workers have seen their welfare provisions disappear
largely  
as 
a result of the restructuring of the economy. In l996, women
accounted fo 
r 
37 per cent of urban workers but accounted for 60 per cent of
xiagang, 
implying that when downsizing occurs it is women who are the
chief victim 
s. 
In the past, women workers in SOEs enjoyed paid leave during
menstruation 
, 
maternity and menopause. These benefits have in the main evaporated
in th 
e 
face of SOEs maximizing profit in ways similar to private companies.

Women's ability to bear children becomes a burden to these competitive

enterprises. In l997, the All China Federation of Trade Unions
conducted  
a 
survey of 660 SOEs, in which 90 per cent of managers did not
want to hire 
 
women due to the cost of paid leave for them. Even government
departments 
 
openly discriminate against women by refusing to hire women or
putting a 
limit on numbers hired. It is no wonder that the re-employment
rate for 
unemployed women workers is 35.7 per cent lower than men. 
 
Civil society, the market and the state 
 
It is a widely accepted thesis that the marketization of a former
command 
 
economy will bring about the growth of civil society. In China's
case the 
 
situation proved to be much more complex and contradictory. It
depends, o 
f 
course, how one defines civil society. If we define civil society
merely 
within the context of a state-market dichotomy, then one may
say that civ 
il 
society exists in China. The once all-powerful state is now giving
up muc 
h 
of its economic power over resources and factors of production
to domesti 
c 
and foreign firms.  
 
The command economy was dismantled to give way to a self-regulating
marke 
t. 
It is true that there still exist numerous governmental interventions,

sometimes totally unjustified, in this national market. Nevertheless,
the 
 
prices of the absolute majority of products and consumers goods
fluctuate 
 
according to supply and demand. Furthermore, a new class of entrepreneurs

 
enjoys political, economic and social privileges which were once
the 
privilege of high officials only.  
 
However, if we regard the growth of the so called 'third sector'
(i.e., 
organizations which are neither subordinate to the state nor
are private 
firms) as something essential to our concept of civil society,
then our 
view of civil society will be markedly different. For instance,
can we 
really say that civil society exists in China if no truly non-government

organizations (NGOs) exist? Since the l990s China has opened
its markets  
at 
an ever-increasing rate, but in the wake of such action have
followed mor 
e 
restrictive laws against NGOs.  
 
After the crackdown in l989, the state council approved a new
regulation  
on 
registration and management of social organizations, which required
every 
 
social organization to affiliate with a supervisory unit. In
l998, a new 
regulation was implemented with more restrictive details. For
example, on 
ly 
one organization in any particular sphere of activity may register
at eac 
h 
administrative level. Moreover, initial capital of Rmb100,000
for nationa 
l 
organizations and Rmb30,000 for lower level organizations are
required. T 
he 
notion that an opening of the market will inherently bring about
the 
development of civil society, and along with it the liberty to
associate 
and express itself, simply does not hold water. Rather, the fact
is that 
the opening of a capitalist market brings about the development
of an 
entrepreneurs' civil society at the expense of a civil society
of the gra 
ss 
roots. Without democratically reforming the state, it is hard
to imagine 
that political liberty will arise automatically. 
The right to be heard is a necessary condition for any balanced
growth of 
 
civil society. However, the Chinese government is particularly
restrictiv 
e 
towards the right to free association. All 'mass organizations'
are 
required to accept the 'leadership of the party', from trade
unions to 
religious organizations.  
 
The suppression over Falungong (a religious sect - ed.), for
example, 
reveals the degree of government intolerance. Peasants are particularly

discriminated in this respect. For instance, there are national
and local 
 
organizations - legal and officially endorsed - for students,
workers, 
youth, women, writers and so forth. However, there is not a single

officially sanctioned organization for peasants. Although the
CCP declare 
s 
itself to be representing peasants and workers, and that the
CCP came to 
power thanks mainly to a peasant army, since l949 peasants have
been 
sacrificed at the altar of urban development. Therefore, even
though ther 
e 
was an association for poor and middle-income peasants before
the Cultura 
l 
Revolution, it was never able to acquire the status which the
national 
trade union, for instance, enjoys. During the Cultural Revolution
this 
association was disbanded along with many others. Afterwards
all official 
 
'mass organizations' were allowed to function again except the
peasant 
association. Without official representation, albeit paternalistically

dominated, it is no wonder that peasants are still regarded as
second-cla 
ss 
citizens. 
Still, it is probably true that the eagerness to be heard only
grows 
stronger following profound economic restructuring and redistribution
of 
national income. Both the new rich and the new poor demand a
hearing. 
Therefore, despite the repression of the state, legal or semi-legal
NGOs 
have mushroomed over the past 10 years. One way to set up an
NGO is to 
create a second-level organization and then attach oneself to
a registere 
d 
social organization or university. Another way is to register
as a busine 
ss 
organization. These methods are of course not always accessible
to common 
 
people, so a third way has been developed. That is, people form
informal 
groups like networks, salons and clubs. These legal or semi-legal
ways to 
 
form NGOs have many defects, and in no way could they substitute
the need 
 
to enjoy full right of association. But nevertheless, for the
moment they 
 
help to promote a limited development of the third sector. 
Among the rural population, there are already l00,000 local farming
group 
s 
organized by produce farmers, such as the orchid-grower's association
of 
Shaoxing in Zhejiang province, and the grape-growers association
in 
Shandong province. Some of these have linked up to lobby for
changes to 
existing policy. China's entry to the WTO may further fuel the
desire 
amongst peasants to form organizations to protect themselves
from foreign 
 
competition. Another incentive for organizing is to protect members
from 
corruption. However, sometimes such efforts are met with state
violence. 
For instance, the Three Gorges project will displace two million
peasants 
 
in the region. For years, ever since the project started, hundreds
of 
thousands of peasant households have been forced to migrate,
while billio 
ns 
of dollars which were supposed to compensate them has been pocketed
by 
officials, provoking widespread discontent and efforts in organizing
to 
have a voice. However, when villagers from Yunyang County sent
five 
representatives to the authority to voice their grievances they
were sent 
 
to jail and tortured.  
 
Workers' informal organizations are also growing. In l999, it
was reporte 
d 
that there were 30 informal workers' organizations in Beijing
alone, a 23 
 
per cent increase compared to l998. In the south, there has been
a rise i 
n 
informal migrant workers' organizations. One of the favourite
forms is 
organizing along tongxiang (referring to fellow villagers or
those 
heralding from the same provinces), where members speak the same
dialects 
 
and share familiar cultural forms. There have been efforts to
organize 
independent trade unions, but they have met with serious repression
once 
exposed or detected 
Serious efforts have been made by people from all walks of lives
to devel 
op 
many kinds of NGOs, from simple mutual help societies to organizing
calls 
 
for reform. These efforts can no longer be stamped out by force.
If the 
government maintains its policy of intolerance towards the growth
of 
organizing initiatives from below, it may only encourage co 
nfrontation and violence, thus upsetting the very stability which
they 
value so highly. 
 
China and the world 
 
For some, China is developing into a major power and is expected
during t 
he 
next twenty years to pose a threat to US hegemony. For others,
China will 
 
disintegrate in a decade. No matter which forecast comes true,
China will 
 
still shake the world, given its huge population and vast territory.
If t 
he 
first forecast is true, then it may sharpen contradictions between
China, 
 
the US, Taiwan, and Japan, reinforcing the arms race and the
possibility  
of 
war. If, however, the second forecast comes true, then it will
spell 
disaster to the whole of Asia if not the world. The number of
illegal 
migrants fleeing from a disintegrating China will be enough to
make one 
aware of the seriousness of the problem. 
There is, of course, a third possibility; namely, that China
continues to 
 
remain more or less the same, and that dramatic events will not
occur in 
the foreseeable future. Even in this case there is no reason
to be 
indifferent to the course which China is undertaking. We must
continue ou 
r 
effort in monitoring the course of reform, because what characterizes

China's specificity is not only its volatility, but also the
crisis 
resulting from reforms. Even at the current pace, the environmental

destruction, the number of people living in poverty, the crisis
in health 
, 
the spread of corruption and so on will reach intolerable dimensions
in t 
he 
short term and is surely capable of rupturing the social fabric.
 
 
In foreign relations, China's accession to the WTO implies a
more fierce 
competition between Asian countries to lure FDI and to fight
for increase 
d 
market share. Indeed, when China conceded to drop its agricultural
suppor 
t 
from the 10 per cent (a level which developing countries legally
enjoy 
according to WTO clauses) to 8.5 per cent, it raised serious
concerns 
within many developing countries. They feared in the main that
such a 
policy may give rise to a new round of cut-throat competition
between 
developing countries. India indirectly expressed its discontent
over 
China's concessions to the USA. Many Asian countries still remember
how 
China's decision of depreciating the Renminbi in l995 led to
a race to th 
e 
bottom among Asian countries, which to some extent contributed
to the Asi 
an 
crisis in l997.  
 
To conclude, the rejoining of the global market on the part of
China may 
imply new opportunities for some countries and some sections
of the 
population, but it remains true that it also implies a race to
the bottom 
 
among many developing countries, which in return may someday
negatively 
affect China herself. Thus it is essential for us to maintain
our effort  
to 
understand the impact of China's reforms and its harmonization
with globa 
l 
markets so that an early alarm can be sounded before disasters
occur. H 
1 Zhu used the term 'Doufu dregs project' to refer to the similarity

between the dikes and doufu dregs; superficially both look good,
but clos 
er 
inspection reveals the poor quality of the product in relation
to the 
superior original.  
 
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2000, 
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of Racial 
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3.Strength in Diversity, Human Rights Forum, Summer 2001, New
York. 
4.Migration and Gender in China, C. Cindy Fan, China Review 2000,
Chinese 
 
University Press, HK. 
5.The Politics of Poverty Eradication in Rural China, Luk Tak-Chuen,
Chin 
a 
Review 2000, Chinese University Press, HK. 
6.Education and National Development in China since 1949: Oscillating

policies and enduring Dilemmas, Mun C. Tsang, China Review 2000,
Chinese 
University Press, HK. 
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(draft), 
Apo Leong and Stephen Frost. 
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9.A Plot for the Farmers, Bruce Gilley, Far East Economic Review
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2001. 
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Shui On, Apr 
il 
2000(paper). 
11.Oxfam Programme in China (paper), Oxfam Hong Kong. 
12.Challenges Facing China at the Turn of the Century, Joseph
Y.S. Cheng, 
 
China Research Project, City University of HK (paper). 
13. Richard Edmonds (ed.) The People's Republic of China After
50 Years, 
Cambridge 1999. 
14. Economist, various issues. 
15. Anita Chan, Chinese Workers Under Assault, ME Sharpe 2001.

16. Asian Wall Street Journal, various issues. 
17. Various books, journals, papers in Chinese (available upon
request). 
 
The author wishes to thank Mr. Steven Frost, research coordinator
of the 
Asia Monitor Resource Center, Hong Kong, for proofreading this
article. T 
he 
author can be contacted at: aly@pacific.net.hk 
 
f 
 
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