Social Stability - 107. page

Radio Free Asia (RFA) carried an article which stated that, after Wang Yu, a rights lawyer in Beijing was detained on July 9, the authorities threatened close to 100 rights lawyer and human rights activists. One rights lawyer told RFA that the police said that if they don’t stop spreading the news about the Wang’s arrest the police will go after and harm their family members. China’s official media also carried an article on July 11 attacking the rights lawyers for “stirring up” sensitive cases and openly “confronting the court.” Based on an analysis from the human rights experts, contradicting the official media reports, lately the rights lawyers have frequently being cut off during their speeches in court. Their right to defend [their clients] and their legal licenses have been threatened as well. The article said that this situation has forced them to speak up outside of the court.  

Source:
Radio Free Asia, July 12, 2015
http://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/renquanfazhi/yf2-07122015112404.html
People’s Daily, July 12, 2015
http://politics.people.com.cn/n/2015/0712/c1001-27290030.html

People’s Daily reported that the Ministry of Civil Affairs released statistics showing that 3.6 million couples in China filed for divorce in 2014. The statistics indicated that the growth had been continuous since 2003. Beijing and Shanghai continued to have the highest number of divorces. The article said that the divorce rate jumped in 2011 after the Supreme Court introduced a new marriage law that simplified the divorce process and made it easier to divide the assets. Due to the revision in the tax law on sale of the real estate property, the year 2013 also saw an increase in the divorce rate. The article attributed the increase in the divorce rate in 2014 to the fast pace of life, the change in social values, as well as to social media. The statistics showed that over 50 percent of divorces were the result of extramarital affairs.

Source: People’s Daily, July 5, 2015
http://tc.people.com.cn/n/2015/0705/c183008-27255460.html

In 2014, the Guangdong Medical Doctor’s Association conducted a survey of its members. According to the survey 71.65 percent of the doctors who responded would not want their children to become doctors. They were also asked if, given another chance, whether they themselves would still want to be doctors. The answer for 57.52 percent of them was that, given the choice, they would not want to be a doctor again. The article said that doctors and patients in China have had intense disputes and conflicts. In addition, a doctor’s workload is very heavy. The survey results showed that more than 50 percent of the doctors had to stay late at work, 44 percent of them needed to work on weekends and holidays, and 14 percent were required to participate in various academic activities during weekends and on holidays. Moreover 65 percent of the doctors did not feel that they were compensated adequately for their efforts. The survey showed that 16.5 percent of the doctor’s received an annual salary of less than 30,000 yuan per year (US$4,830) while 22.9 percent made 30,000 to 50,000 yuan (US$4,830 to $8050) each year.

Source: Guangming Daily, June 27, 2015
http://health.gmw.cn/2015-06/27/content_16103548.htm

On June 24, 2015, at a press conference, the State Council’s Information Office released the first-ever report on the effects of drug abuse in China in 2014. Liu Yuejin, Assistant Minister of Public Security and Deputy Director of China National Narcotics Control Commission, said that drug abuse in China for that year resulted in annual economic losses of 500 billion yuan (approximately $80.54 billion) and, in addition, as many as 49,000 deaths of registered users. He estimated that China has more than 14 million drug users, including about three million registered users. 

From June 21 to June 23, 2015, hundreds to thousands of Shanghai residents from the Jinshan District of Shanghai City marched on the streets to protest a paraxylene (PX) petrochemical project to be relocated in the Jinshan District of Shanghai. They feared the pollution. Wu Lihong, an environmental campaigner, said, "PX plants are not welcome anywhere in China." He pointed out, "Movements opposing PX plants have formed in Xiamen, Dalian, Ningbo, and other cities." After local residents protested for three consecutive days, the district government announced through an Internet post that no PX project would be relocated to Jinshan district. The protest still continued, even after the Internet posting, as the local residents do not trust the government’s word.

On June 22, the demonstrators asked the Jinshan district top leader to step forward and to express his opinion on the PX project openly. The district leader did not show up. On the other hand, a lot of Internet discussions were posted on the PX project topic or on the Jinshan district. The local government dispatched a large number of police guards to the scene. Some people were beaten and a 16-year-old boy was arrested.

Sources: Radio Free Asia, June 22 & 24, 2015
http://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/huanjing/hc-06222015121332.html
http://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/huanjing/yf1-06242015101717.html
 

A White Book discussed a survey on the "Mental State of the ‘Left Behind’ Children" whose parents have gone to the city to work. If the ratio from the survey is used and applied to 61 million left behind children in the nation, only 17 million get to see their parents once or twice a year. Close to 9.21 million children don’t even get a chance to see their parents for the entire year. The results also indicated that those whose mothers are not around suffer more mentally than those whose fathers are not around. The article also mentioned that other than the 61 million left behind children, there are also 35 million migrant children who are 17 years and younger. They stay with their parents who have found work in the city. Therefore the total number of children between these two groups is over 100 million based on the national census in 2010. This survey was conducted from October to December in 2014. It covered six provinces and districts with 2,131 out of 2,218 surveys returned. The questions in the survey covered subjects from communication to school work, after school activities, and the children’s mental state.

Source: Xinhua, June 20, 2015
http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2015-06/20/c_127935653.htm

CanKao XiaoXi reported on Jun 17 that those who were born in the 1980’s (“Post 80”) are becoming the main group that is experiencing divorce in mainland China. The reasons for their divorces vary a lot and some are quite strange. There are many reasons why those “Post 80” are becoming the main driving force in divorce cases. Those “post 60” and “post 70” have passed the peak time for divorce and those “post 90” have not yet gotten married. Their divorce triggers include “who should wash the dishes,” and “who should own Transformers models." One couple had a record short marriage – from getting married to divorce, it took them only 25 minutes. Taiwan’s Central News Agency quoted a Chinese news article about a Shanghai court staff member saying that, between 2011 and 2012, the divorce cases they handled showed that the marriage time for “post 80” was much shorter than their predecessors. Twenty-six percent of the cases they handled in these two years filed for divorce after two years of marriage; more than 40 percent filed for divorce after three years of marriage; only 9 percent filed  for divorce after seven years’ marriage. 

It is a common practice for officials in China to use their power to extort money. Now even elementary school students have learned to do so.

According to an article that People’s Daily recently republished, a Deputy Class Leader who is a sixth grade student was found to have been extorting money from his classmates since the year he was in the second grade. This student leader was assigned the "power" to check other students’ homework. If a student didn’t give him money, he would tear up that student’s homework and report bad things about that student to teacher. He also forced some students who didn’t give him money to drink urine or eat excrement.

Source: People’s Daily Online, May 8, 2015
http://finance.people.com.cn/n/2015/0508/c66323-26966945.html