Spring Onion
PDF VETERAN
- Joined
- Feb 1, 2006
- Messages
- 41,403
- Reaction score
- 19
- Country
- Location
Rare outspoken reform call from China state media
By CARA ANNA (AP) 1 hour ago
BEIJING More than a dozen Chinese newspapers took a rare stand this week against a Mao Zedong-era system blamed for the wide gap between the country's rich and poor. Within hours, their jointly signed editorial had largely disappeared online.
Monday's editorial published in 13 newspapers across the country gave a glimpse of the tensions that exist behind the scenes ahead of China's largest political event, the National People's Congress, which begins Friday. The annual meeting tends to project a glossy surface of unity, but it's also a chance to lobby for change.
"China has been tasting the bitterness of the household registration system for a long time!" Monday's editorial began. "Freedom of movement is a human right," it added. It was "signed" with the logos of the 13 newspapers.
Household registration, or hukou, essentially identifies each Chinese citizen as urban or rural. It dates back to the time when the Chinese revolutionary Mao wanted to control migration to cities.
The system's limits became increasingly clear in recent years as millions of migrant workers left their rural homes to find work in China's booming cities. Their residence status, however, remains with their hometowns, and not having the proper classification restricts access to government services like education. Changing a hukou can be difficult.
Even children born to migrant workers in the cities are registered back home, keeping them outside the cities' normal education system. Many end up in sometimes makeshift migrant schools that fend for themselves for resources.
Premier Wen Jiabao responded to the rising public opposition to the hukou system during a rare online chat with citizens Saturday, saying the government would speed up its reform.
The editorial noted Wen's comments as a sign of hope.
Speaking with a coordinated voice isn't unusual for China's state-run media, but it is when that voice challenges the central government itself.
By Tuesday, several of the editorials, plus links to them, had disappeared from Web sites, likely falling victim to belated self-censorship.
The editor of the Yunnan Information Paper, Tan Zhiliang, said they published the editorial as a matter of routine because it came from the newspaper's owner paper, the relatively feisty Southern Metropolis News.
But then editors considered that the national congress starts this week, "assessed the risk" and took it down, Tan said.
"We'd better play it safe," Tan said.
The editor in charge of online articles for another participating newspaper, the Beijing Economic Observer, said the paper would not give interviews on why the editorial disappeared from the paper's Web site. She gave only her surname, Lin.
But some reporters were determined not to let the issue fade away.
On Tuesday, a reporter for a Hong Kong-based media outlet stood up during a news conference for a related national meeting, held up one of the newspapers with the editorial and asked officials if they had seen it.
Zhao Qizheng, spokesman for the China People's Political Consultative Conference, didn't answer.
Also Tuesday, the Communist Party's official newspaper reported that 700,000 police officers, security guards and volunteers will create a human "moat" across Beijing for security during the national congress.
The People's Daily said extra security forces will patrol streets and neighborhoods to protect "harmony and security." Officials worry that protests might disrupt the meetings.
Associated Press researcher Zhao Liang contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
By CARA ANNA (AP) 1 hour ago
BEIJING More than a dozen Chinese newspapers took a rare stand this week against a Mao Zedong-era system blamed for the wide gap between the country's rich and poor. Within hours, their jointly signed editorial had largely disappeared online.
Monday's editorial published in 13 newspapers across the country gave a glimpse of the tensions that exist behind the scenes ahead of China's largest political event, the National People's Congress, which begins Friday. The annual meeting tends to project a glossy surface of unity, but it's also a chance to lobby for change.
"China has been tasting the bitterness of the household registration system for a long time!" Monday's editorial began. "Freedom of movement is a human right," it added. It was "signed" with the logos of the 13 newspapers.
Household registration, or hukou, essentially identifies each Chinese citizen as urban or rural. It dates back to the time when the Chinese revolutionary Mao wanted to control migration to cities.
The system's limits became increasingly clear in recent years as millions of migrant workers left their rural homes to find work in China's booming cities. Their residence status, however, remains with their hometowns, and not having the proper classification restricts access to government services like education. Changing a hukou can be difficult.
Even children born to migrant workers in the cities are registered back home, keeping them outside the cities' normal education system. Many end up in sometimes makeshift migrant schools that fend for themselves for resources.
Premier Wen Jiabao responded to the rising public opposition to the hukou system during a rare online chat with citizens Saturday, saying the government would speed up its reform.
The editorial noted Wen's comments as a sign of hope.
Speaking with a coordinated voice isn't unusual for China's state-run media, but it is when that voice challenges the central government itself.
By Tuesday, several of the editorials, plus links to them, had disappeared from Web sites, likely falling victim to belated self-censorship.
The editor of the Yunnan Information Paper, Tan Zhiliang, said they published the editorial as a matter of routine because it came from the newspaper's owner paper, the relatively feisty Southern Metropolis News.
But then editors considered that the national congress starts this week, "assessed the risk" and took it down, Tan said.
"We'd better play it safe," Tan said.
The editor in charge of online articles for another participating newspaper, the Beijing Economic Observer, said the paper would not give interviews on why the editorial disappeared from the paper's Web site. She gave only her surname, Lin.
But some reporters were determined not to let the issue fade away.
On Tuesday, a reporter for a Hong Kong-based media outlet stood up during a news conference for a related national meeting, held up one of the newspapers with the editorial and asked officials if they had seen it.
Zhao Qizheng, spokesman for the China People's Political Consultative Conference, didn't answer.
Also Tuesday, the Communist Party's official newspaper reported that 700,000 police officers, security guards and volunteers will create a human "moat" across Beijing for security during the national congress.
The People's Daily said extra security forces will patrol streets and neighborhoods to protect "harmony and security." Officials worry that protests might disrupt the meetings.
Associated Press researcher Zhao Liang contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
wake up.
