China 'must reduce rich-poor gap' - Premier Wen

[pampango]

Source: BBC

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has said China must reverse its widening income gap between rich and poor. He said benefits of a growing economy - expected to expand by 8% this year - should be distributed more fairly.

In a major speech at the start of China's annual parliamentary session, the premier also said the economy needed restructuring. He wants Chinese firms to improve their ability to innovate, producing high-tech and high-quality products.

Last year China was desperate to keep the economy growing following a global downturn that left many Chinese people without jobs. But now, having weathered the worst of that crisis, Premier Wen said China needed to concentrate on restructuring the economy.

"This is a crucial year for… accelerating the transformation of the pattern of economic development," he said. China should also expand consumer demand by getting people to spend on such things as tourism, fitness and other services.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8550930.stm

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Whether Wen means what he says about reversing the widening gap between the rich and poor or not, do any American leaders even say this anymore?

For a couple of decades now the the Communist party has survived on the assumption that the people will accept continued party rule in exchange for rising prosperity. (That and the right amount of repression.) Perhaps he figures that at least pretending to address that growing disparity in income will buy the party some more time in power.

[Warpy]

1. He's right. Friends there teaching school have tales to tell

of riots that are rarely reported inside the country, let alone outside it, of peasants who have shared in none of the prosperity while having their children leave for the cities and farmers watching their land poisoned by western factories with no pollution standards, of factory workers who have been forced to work 18 hour days and then been stiffed on pay, of families whose centuries old homes are bulldozed to make way for glitzy high rise apartments they can never afford, with no compensation.

If China doesn't discard the western model leading to wealth concentration among the few, it's going to go the way of this country and in record time.

Their socialist revolution is still fresh in too many minds. People know this isn't the way it's supposed to work. Everybody who works deserves to share in the rewards.

[saigon68]

2. Its now a Fascist country

Hitler would be proud

[Jkid]

8. Probally laughing in his grave.

[SnakeEyes]

7. Yep, enough people still remember...

hopefully they can educate the youth that industrialized capitalism isn't the way things have always been and that a return to a socialist China is the solution.

[Demeter]

3. Nobody EVER said this in the US

A chicken in every pot, yes--but those who had 7 or 8 were not expected to share, not even through taxes....and now, they get federally subsidized chickens, while the rest of us haven't even a pot to piss in, let alone cook.

[AllentownJake]

4. That little housing bubble in Shanghai is scaring the shit out of you

Isn't it....shouldn't play with the western bankers too much Wen...if they do it to their own people, imagine what they'll do to you.

[Vidar]

5. Something few US politicians have the courage to say.

[On the Road]

6. Because of the Cultural Revolution

and the whole Maoist period, I suspect the Chinese are suspicious of anything that reeks of collectivism or redistribution of wealth. A progressive income tax would probably lead to widespread evasion. Yet it's hard to level the playing field without one of those two things.

I think one reason the leadership is hesitant is that so much of the population has benefited from the last last three decades. It is true that not as many people in remote areas have benefitted. That is why it will take some doing to reverse it.