The Disintegration of Rural China

[atatwolf]

I didn't start the off topic. Chinese started attacking Turks for showing sympathy to Uighur suffering.

 

[Lure]

I'm not the one who highjack this thread, I just teach @atatwolf how to behave properly regarding China, when your kind shown hostile to China, doesn't seem you complain about it. And we chinese has never claim to superior, if you want to be @atatwolf #2 by fabricating a false illusion claim that we think to be superior..that's your problem.

This can't stop without economic development. Do you honestly believe that there is enough resource for everyone and some evil group of people hiding it from the rest? You should check your facts. China is not a rich country. period. No matter how equally distribute the current wealth there will be poor people in China.

China needs to go on it's economic development and reforms in order to form a high/developed society just like the west did in the past.

By the way we are not in a position to pity Chinese people. Their nominal GDP per capita is catching ours at the end of this decade.

Learn to read before making wild accusations will you?

And what the heck did you mean by "your kind"? I know and met many smart Chinese people in the past, top tier researchers in their fields. You are the balancing factor I guess.

 

[Kiss_of_the_Dragon]

Learn to read before making wild accusations will you?

And what the heck did you mean by "your kind"? I know and met many smart Chinese people in the past, top tier researchers in their fields. You are the balancing factor I guess.

I read your reply to @atatwolf, I tried to refrein myself from engaging this thread but what you said did not prevent him from continue insult China that's why I toke over. For me it's simple with intelligent and constructive people, i will reciprocate, with abusive people, I can only retaliate...and you can now judge who am I.

 

[esolve]

HONG KONG — On a trip home late last year to the rural Chinese village of my childhood, I found my brother tying a military knife under his belt as he was leaving the house. I asked why he needed a knife, and he replied, “It is not as safe here as before.”

The peaceful and idyllic village I grew up in, like many of China’s rural towns, has been brought to ruins by the breakdown of traditional social norms that followed decades of failed policies and neglect by the state. Many of my contemporary fellow villagers would prefer to go back to the old days.

Nostalgia in China may sound strange to people whose image of the country’s recent history is colored by memories of Mao’s disastrous policies, which in the years following the Communist revolution in 1949 brought economic disaster, starvation and mass death. But my generation, which came of age after the Great Famine and at the end of the Cultural Revolution in the mid-1970s, missed the worst of the misery. And in typical Chinese fashion, my elders preferred not to talk about the bad days.

My childhood came at a unique moment for China. We were still living traditional village lives, having left the horrors of Mao behind, but not yet in the thick of the capitalist frenzy. Families were strong, crime was unheard of and the landscape was pristine. We didn’t mind being poor — in my third and fourth years at primary school in the early-’70s, the whole school did not have textbooks — because we didn’t know what we were missing. We lived in peaceful, tight-knit communities.

But China’s traditional social fabric has become shredded — and the disintegration is most obvious in the countryside, where families are falling apart, crime is soaring and the environment is killing people. Many villagers who were happy to have the state retreat from their private lives in recent decades are now crying for government intervention. Something has to be done to rebuild China’s languishing village life.

Beginning in the late 1970s, the communes were split up into family farms, prompting a surge of productivity and more freedom for rural residents. Peasants suddenly had the power to decide what crops to grow, how to grow them and how to sell their harvests and other products. Many farmers decided to leave the land to work in factories in the boomtowns along the southeast coast, bringing home money as well as fresh knowledge from the outside world. Many brought back much-needed skills to build their own businesses. This golden era was celebrated as the triumph of Deng Xiaoping’s economic liberation.

The period of renaissance in the countryside ended in the mid-to-late 1990s. Reckless growth of bank credit powered by the central bank’s printing press caused years of double-digit inflation that quickly eroded the incomes in the countryside and helped widen gaps between rural villages and the cities. Average monthly wages in the cities surged from a few hundred yuan two decades ago to about 4,000 yuan ($650) today, while incomes in the countryside lagged far behind.

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More important, following the government’s privatization of state housing, urban housing prices grew exponentially, five-to-six-fold in many cases, while the value of rural homes rose little by comparison. Too many rural residents have missed out on China’s property boom, contributing to the wealth gap between the cities and the countryside.

Local governments have done little to help. As more and more farmers flocked to factories in coastal cities, layers of local government were neglected and decayed. Factories eventually emerged in towns near rural villages, sucking the lakes dry and poisoning the rivers and the air. Experts estimate China has more than 450 cancer villages, towns where cancer cases cluster at much higher than average rates. Villagers have paid a steep price. Some residents of my village have died of unknown ills in their 40s and 50s.

The state of my family’s home village of Jingmen, Hubei Province, is common across China. Its roads are no longer usable as they have not been maintained for over a decade. The community buildings have been torn down; the last time I was there I only saw dust and broken tiles all around.

Rural families are suffering. The suicide rate in the countryside is three times as high as in the cities, according to reports from 2011. My uncle, who had been living in a makeshift shack after his grown children kicked him out of their house, hanged himself four years ago, never having recovered from the death of his wife two years earlier.

It is common for both parents to leave their small children at home in the village while they go to work in factories elsewhere. Some 60 million children suffer this fate; most are left in the care of their grandparents, but more than 3 percent — millions of children — are left to live on their own. Children who stay behind often have to cope with loneliness (not many have siblings) and helplessness. Some reports say that sexual abuse of left-behind children is on the rise.

Meanwhile, increasing numbers of rural children are dropping out of school. One study suggests there are at least 20 million school dropouts in rural areas, or 1 in 10 young villagers. The primary school that I attended in the 1970s was dismembered a decade ago, due to dwindling numbers of students. As a result, young kids in the village have to travel along more than five miles of mud roads each day to go to school.

In many cases, men go to jobs in the cities while their wives stay behind with the children in the village. They get to see each other only a few days a year. Distance, emotional stress and financial frustration tear families apart.

According to the journal Learning Weekly, China’s rural divorce rate surged fourfold between 1979 and 2009. Lianhe Zaobao, a Singapore-based newspaper, and numerous government publications have reported that many parts of rural China have become anarchic, with rising crime rates and election fraud.

Beijing’s effort to decentralize the country’s governance over the past few decades has played a major role in this social decay. The elections of village heads are often rigged and corruption is rampant. The retreat of the state has left a dangerous power vacuum, and many villagers have been left to fend for themselves. There is a lot of talk of mafia-like groups wielding power behind the scenes.

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Crime, rare in the Communist era, is increasing. Statistics are hard to come by — even the police do not publish them. In the countryside, only the most extreme crimes get reported, but even some horrific cases are ignored. Several years ago, my cousin was almost beaten to death by a fellow villager and his relatives in a conflict over an extramarital affair. My sister reported the brutality to the police but they never followed up.

In the old days, officials at the village and townships had the mandate and resources to mediate disputes, including domestic violence. The police would patrol even the most remote villages. Today the police seem to stay in cities, and village heads don’t have the resources to intervene in social issues. The abolition of an “agriculture tax” about a decade ago has added to the budget constraints of local governments.

While the government is still obsessed with economic growth rates, the country’s inequality and a damaged environment — especially in the villages — are much bigger challenges. Whatever libertarians say about the undesirable consequences of the state, many rural Chinese, particularly the poor like my relatives and fellow villagers, want more government intervention. Farmers are forming petition groups in various places, demanding the government intervene in land disputes, pollution and election fraud.

The misery in the Chinese countryside is severe but fixable. The government and the public must come out from the shadows and prioritize the rebuilding of village life. The state has the financial resources and expertise to do something. It just needs the will.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/29/opinion/the-disintegration-of-rural-china.html?_r=0

Seems like the writing is on the wall...

there are too many exaggerations and rumors in this article
especially, the "case of carrying a knife" is just so ridiculous...

 

[Lure]

I read your reply to @atatwolf, I tried to refrein myself from engaging this thread but what you said did not prevent him from continue insult China that's why I toke over. For me it's simple with intelligent and constructive people, i will reciprocate, with abusive people, I can only retaliate...and you can now judge who am I.

I don't judge my friend. Let's end this nonsense discussion and call it a misunderstanding. Sorry, if I said anything offensive. It's just that our current political climate very tense because of this radical islamist terrorists in our southern neighbours. I know you have some tense issues as well in Xinjiang. And as a person living in a country that is also a victim of seperatist terrorism for over 30 years, I don't have any sympathy seperatism.

We are the border with the civilized world and the middle east. There is a hyperinflation of "terrorist organizations" in there. So I can make the empathy with you.

 

[esolve]

I'm not pro ISIS but I'm anti-China. I can't stay behind a country who commits numerous crimes against Uyghur and Tibetians. Last week 300 Uighur with their families fled to Turkey because they were threatened to be executed for being Muslim and Uighur.

@Lure

@atatwolf is not Turkish, he pretends to be Turkish

 

[Kiss_of_the_Dragon]

I don't judge my friend. Let's end this nonsense discussion and call it a misunderstanding. Sorry, if I said anything offensive. It's just that our current political climate very tense because of this radical islamist terrorists in our southern neighbours. I know you have some tense issues as well in Xinjiang. And as a person living in a country that is also a victim of seperatist terrorism for over 30 years, I don't have any sympathy seperatism.

We are the border with the civilized world and the middle east. There is a hyperinflation of "terrorist organizations" in there. So I can make the empathy with you.

With moderated people like you, I dont have any problem with, only this @atatwolf is tick me off, he bulsh1t China like taking as for granted and that invite me to retaliate to his none-sense.

And I advise you not to read my reply to him, just ignore it, it's only between him and me.

 

[opruh]

atawolf is like Boq77, both are trolls.

 

[bolo]

This coming from a turkey who hasn't been to China, doesn't have one friend or relative in China nor speaks or reads Chinese.

But he is expert Sinologist from University of Turkey breast.

 

[Götterdämmerung]

Even if they did, how would we know



Cable reference id: #06BEIJING13025

Why do we only know of these two minorities and not the others? Is there a bias in favour of these two minorities? There are more foreign tourists traveling through China per year than in 10 years traveling to India.

The case you just posted about the Hui is not different to the one all other ethnics have problems with or are you telling me that the majority Han don't encounter this problem?

Come with better examples!

 

[Götterdämmerung]

History of the Uyghur people - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

East Turkestan independence movement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Xiongnu - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tiele people - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Please refer to those articles about Turkic history. Why are you constantly trying to make silly polemics? "There were no Turks 2000 years ago", "Uighurs were migrants to Xinjiang". Hell. Do you think do I care who migrated where? I only care about one thing, only a simply minded person can tie an ethnicity to religious extremism and you are trying to do that.

If you know my post history, you will see that I don't have any problems with Chinese people and do not provide any support for Xinjiang seperatist movements. Altough I might have done that and that's not a taboo. But I don't since I also think that the world needs a developed China. That's why I don't support them.

I've told some Chinese member here to not to stereotype Turkish people with ISIS membership since there are many not religious people living in Turkey and this is offending for them. For us, basically. I don't want to be announced with some fundementalist terrorist organization because of my national identity ok?

And you came from nowhere saying that Erdogan is supporting ISIS implying that we all should support ISIS. IF you do not imply that please do not go further into this discussion.

The Uighurs are not direct descendants of the Xiongnu. The Mongols have more claim to it.

 

[Sanchez]

We could take in Kurds to China as exchange for Uyghurs to Turkey...

 

[dray]

I read your reply to @atatwolf, I tried to refrein myself from engaging this thread but what you said did not prevent him from continue insult China that's why I toke over. For me it's simple with intelligent and constructive people, i will reciprocate, with abusive people, I can only retaliate...and you can now judge who am I.

Right, only chinese like you have all the right to insult every other country.

This type threads should be there to look through the rot behind the facade of oh-so-rich china.

 

[Kiss_of_the_Dragon]

Right, only chinese like you have all the right to insult every other country.

This type threads should be there to look through the rot behind the facade of oh-so-rich china.

Since when we Chinese declare the exclusive right to insult others, you Indians like to claim insulting other is indian's patent and copy right, and no wonder that virtually you guys got offended with other's comments regarding India and need to find a better way to comfort yourself with alot of none-sense bragging..

 

[atatwolf]

Right, only chinese like you have all the right to insult every other country.

This type threads should be there to look through the rot behind the facade of oh-so-rich china.

China is a paper tiger. They want to pretend to be like a normal country but 90% of their country lives off couple of dollars per day. The rich Chinese are sending their children abroad to study while the 90% of China is suffering in sweatshops so they can afford a banana for dinner. Their whole country is based on exports and slave labor. Exports are deminishing since the west is buying from other third world countries. It is only matter of time that *** will come crashing down. Minorities should get independence and Chinese areas should be divided amongst their neighbors for spheres of influence.