Social Stability - 102. page

On April 2, which was the 9th World Autism Day, Xinhua published an article which stated that there are 1.6 million autistic children in China. According to the article China still doesn’t have an effective autism treatment system and each of the existing treatment centers uses different approaches to treat its patients. The article said that the burden of treating autistic children is still carried by the parents and China has an urgent need to regulate the treatment of autism to better serve these autistic children.

Source: Xinhua, April 2, 2016
http://news.xinhuanet.com/2016-04/02/c_1118518857.htm

China.com carried an article which China Youth Daily had originally published. According to the article, by June 2015, the number of registered drug users in China had reached 3.2 million. Of these, 1.8 million or 58.4 percent were under the age of 35. The article pointed out that, in addition to the traditional drugs, many new types of psychoactive substances are on the rise while preventive education is lacking among China’s youth.

Source: China.com, March 20, 2016
http://guoqing.china.com.cn/2016-03/20/content_38068570.htm

Radio Free Asia recently published an article on registering cell phones. According to the article, six months ago, Guangdong Province instituted requirements for all cell phone users to register their cell phones using thier real names. Since then, people still have not completed the real name registration process. Recently three telecommunication companies in Guangdong Province issued a last notice warning its customers, giving them a deadline of March 30. Those who haven’t registered their cell phones using their real names before that date will have their cell phone numbers disabled.

RFA quoted interviews with citizens inside China. Some stated that the cell number registration is really meant to limit freedom of speech online. One person told RFA that he received many random sales calls on his cell phone because the telecommunication companies sell their database for money. Another person told RFA that the authorities use public security as the excuse but their real intent is to control and monitor different opinions. According to the article, cell phone real name registration was launched in Xinjiang and Tibet several years ago. “This is an indication that China’s Human Rights has taken a step backwards. One rights activist in Inner Mongolia told RFA, "We are calling on the international community to pay attention to this matter.” 

Source: Radio Free Asia, March 12, 2016
http://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/meiti/ql2-03122016092151.html

VOA published an article that reported about a Xinhua journalist who recently published an open letter on his microblog account on Sina criticizing Chinese Internet management agencies because they violated citizens’ basic rights of freedom of speech when they deleted online posts or shut down microblog accounts. The open letter stated, "They have violated the basic rights of freedom of speech and press that the Constitution protects. According to VOA, even though the open letter has been deleted from the Internet sites in China, the news media overseas have already picked it up. The article said that this is the second instance in which the people inside the Chinese media system stood up to express dissatisfaction with the Chinese authorities’ suppression of freedom of speech and of the press. The last open letter was published in Caixin after the Internet surveillance department deleted one of its articles. The open letter also demanded a full investigation of media attacks against Ren Zhiqiang, a Chinese businessman for his concerns about why the media should be loyal to the Party.

According to VOA, the handling of Ren Zhiqiang’s case and the open letter suggest that major differences and a power struggle exist inside the top leadership, especially between the Publicity Department and the Central Discipline Inspection Commission.

Source: VOA, March 11, 2016
http://www.voachinese.com/content/xinhua-journalist-internet-regulators-20160311/3232956.html

Xinhua recently reported on the willingness of Chinese people to have a second child. Although China abandoned its one child policy and, as of  January 1 of this year, began allowing a second child, many people do not want to have a econd child.

"According to a survey that was conducted, 70 to 80 percent of people said that they were willing to have a second child, but in reality only 30 percent actually did."

The obstacles for people to have a second child include companies’ unwillingness to hire women who have two children, the high financial cost, and the limited public resources for raising a child.

Source: Xinhua, March 7, 2016
http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2016lh/2016-03/07/c_128777923.htm

Guangming Daily carried an article stating that, based on the statistics that the China Pharmaceutical Industry Association released, out of 6,000 pharmaceutical manufacturers in China, only 10 companies produce pediatric medicine. Over 90 percent of the adult medicine in China lacks a pediatric version. The delegates during the Lianghui (the annual plenary sessions of the national or local People’s Congress and the national or local committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference) that is current being held in Beijing raised this issue. The statistics that the Center for Adverse Drug Reaction Monitoring released show that 10.5 percent of the reported cases in 2014 were related to children 14 years or younger. Parents often complaint that there is a severe shortage of the pediatric version of the medicine on the market and it has forced the parents to use adult medicine and estimate the dosage to give their children. The article quoted statements that a few delegates made. They attributed the cause of the shortage to higher research costs, a lack of economic return and parents being unwilling to put their children through clinical trials. The article said that the delegates feel that it has become an urgent matter to resolve the pediatric medicine shortage issue for the 200 million children in China. They proposed that the State institute special drug and tax incentive policies on pediatric medicine in order to motivate the Pharmaceutical companies to produce more pediatric medicine.

Source: Guangming Daily, March 7, 2016
http://health.gmw.cn/2016-03/07/content_19183780.htm