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本帖最后由 青蛙小王子 于 2010-3-5 14:38 编辑
The rare show of defiance came a few days before the annual meeting of the National People's Congress, China's rubber-stamp parliament, and was intended to put pressure on politicians.
Currently, a strict household registration system, called the hukou, means that each Chinese family can only claim social benefits, such as healthcare and education, in their home town.
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The system was introduced in 1958 by the Communist Party in order to prevent mass migration from the countryside to China's cities and make sure that there were always enough workers for the country's collectivised farms and state-owned businesses.
However, since China's economic opening-up in the late 1970s, some 200 million people have migrated from the inland to work in the country's coastal cities, helping to create the country's economic miracle.
These migrants have been forced to live a precarious existence at the margins of society.
"China's people have been suffering from the hukou system for a long time," said the editorial. "We believe people are born to freedom and the right to migrate. We jointly release this editorial, asking all representatives of the NPC and the Chinese People's Political Consulative Conference to make good use of your political power and urge the authorities to launch a reform to abolish the ossified hukou system," it added.
Although several cities, in particular Shanghai, are pressing through reforms that will give migrants and local residents equal-footing, a more drastic reform of the hukou is seen as an enormous challenge.
While 75 per cent of China's population is likely to be urban in the next 30 years, China is wary of allowing a sudden flood of workers to move to its cities unless there are jobs for them.
Han Jun, the head of the Rural Economy department of the research arm of China's State Council, said the government would "never follow" countries like India and Brazil, which have allowed millions to move to the cities without an economy to support them. "That way leads to shanty towns like in Rio de Janeiro," he said.
Mr Han said the government's "number one policy" this year was to "substantially reform the hukou system. The migrant population will enjoy equal rights and benefits in terms of schooling, social security and renting houses. This goal is very very clear." The editorial appeared in a range of urban and rural newspapers, with some of China's biggest titles leading the way, including The Economic Observer in Beijing and the Southern Metropolis Daily in Guangzhou.
An article about the joint-effort, published on the Chinese website Sina, but credited to the Economic Observer, said: "This is a rare and major event in domestic media. There is no doubt that what the media can do is 'advocate and urge'. The big men who hold power are the final decision-makers." It added: "We are not just witnesses, we are participants!"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/7349604/Chinese-newspapers-unite-to-call-for-reform.html |
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