Social Stability - 105. page

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

China Youth Online published an article that a graduate of Beijing University wrote about the problems in his home town, the villages in Luling City, Jiangxi Province. These problems are typical throughout China’s farm lands.

The traditions in China have almost all been lost. Because farmers go to the cities to work, they rarely stay in the village any longer. People don’t celebrate the traditional holidays and they don’t follow the rituals anymore.

People will do anything to make money. The author’s cousin called him to ask him to cheat in exchange for 10,000 yuan (U.S. $1,540). His other cousin, earned over 1 million yuan by lending money at rates amounting to usury; yet others regard him very highly because of his ability to make money.

People are getting more violent. Several remote relatives almost beat his brother to death because of a conflict over a tiny piece of land. The police didn’t take the case and asked them to settle it themselves. The offenders gave 20,000 yuan as compensation and threatened to put poison in his family’s water well if his family didn’t settle.

The education the children receive in the villages is also getting worse.

Source: China Youth Online, February 19, 2016
http://zqb.cyol.com/html/2016-02/19/nw.D110000zgqnb_20160219_3-12.htm

Radio Free Asia carried an article that reported on the recent comments of an official from the Ministry of Civil Affairs regarding how peasant workers treat their children back home. He pointed out that, because many have not fulfilled their responsibility as parents, thereby causing serious mental and physical harm to their children, they should be subject to legal action. The article also stated that the troubled environment that these left-behind children are living in is a direct result of the “hukou” system or residential policy China has adopted which separates the rural from the urban regions.