Social Stability - 151. page

China is tightening the control of the printing and copying business in Lhasa, according to an article that Global Times republished from the Lhasa Evening newspaper. Anyone running a printing or copying business is required to register with the police first. The company owner must obtain upper level organization’s approval. Individual owners must have a local permanent or temporary residence permit. The shop owners are required to verify the customer’s information. For business jobs, they must record the company’s name and address and for individual jobs, the individual’s name, address, and identification number.

Source: Global Times, May 18, 2010
http://china.huanqiu.com/roll/2010-05/818703.html

China’s state news People’s Daily recently reported on the decision of the National Bureau for Letters and Calls (the government agency to receive and handle Chinese citizen’s petitions and appeals), that all municipal bureau directors will be trained in batches within two years. The municipal level of the Bureau is considered the key in the chain of work. The training focuses on four primary points: (1) enhancing bureau officers’ understanding of the mission and the political responsibility; (2) studying the new strategies by the Party Central Committee and the State Council; (3) improving the capabilities to handle social emergencies; (4) improving skills in guiding public opinion and dealing with the media.

Source: People’s Daily, May 13, 2010
http://cpc.people.com.cn/GB/64093/82429/83083/11583326.html

The State Bureau for Letters and Calls (SBLC), the government agency to receive and handle Chinese citizen’s petitions and appeals, has recently decided to intensively train city and county-level bureau chiefs. The first session was held from May 10 to 16 in Beijing. SBLC plans to train 600 officials in 2010. 

Asia Weekly (Yazhou Zhoukan) published an article on May 7, 2010, regarding the multiple murders of children in Mainland China’s preschools and elementary schools.

“Within just over a month, there were six consecutive killings targeting children, done by different perpetrators in different locations,” said the article. According to the article, the media across China received an order from China’s propaganda authorities, requiring that all media “report the news following the released sample news.” They are “not to send reporters to conduct interviews”; “not to give any comments”; “not to provide relevant news links”; and only major media are allowed to report the news. 
 
The article said that one killer was executed within a month (of the murders). No one had been allowed to approach him or his family members.

Source: Asia Weekly, May 7, 2010
http://www.yzzk.com/cfm/Content_Archive.cfm?Channel=br&Path=3494213932/19br3.cfm

Zhou Dongfei, a senior columnist published in the State’s International Herald Leader that the current Chinese society not only lacks credibility, but also that the very mechanism to maintain trust is losing credibility. In China people don’t trust milk powder because of the frequent reports of melamine problems; they do not trust vaccines due to adulterations in the production process; they would rather deliver water to those in draught areas and clothes to those in disasters than donate cash. “However, after a large number of incidents of dishonesty occurred and were not corrected as society expected, the mechanism to maintain trust has lost credibility. In the current Chinese society, people have lost trust because fundamentally the mechanism safeguarding that trust has broken down and suffers from a loss of public trust. If this situation continues to deteriorate, the result can only be the loss of public confidence.”

Source: International Herald Leader, May 4, 2010
http://news.xinhuanet.com/herald/2010-05/04/content_13466170.htm

On April 1, 2010, People’s Daily reported that China’s ratio of male to female births in 2009 was 119.45, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics of China. The recently released 2010 "Social Blue Book" by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences predicted that by 2020, the number of men at a marriageable age will be 24 million more than women of a marriageable age. There will be more “Inter-generational marriages” and “older woman and younger men marriages.”   

Source: People’s Daily, April, 2010
http://fashion.people.com.cn/GB/11276214.html

Yu Jianrong, a professor at the State’s Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, predicts that it will take another 30 years for China to move from the current pyramid pattern of income distribution to one that is olive-shaped. The pyramid pattern of income distribution is used to describe the great disparity of income, intense social conflicts, and the lack of a middle class as a buffer, while an olive-shaped pattern denotes the existence of a large middle class with relatively small groups of rich and poor. Hence it is more conducive to social stability. Yu holds that a middle class has not yet formed in China whatsoever. “For example, the popular ‘hatred of the rich’, ‘hatred of government’ and other social discontent and resentment are both the evidence and ‘combustion’ that has induced large-scale incidents of conflict by social groups to vent their anger.” “People at the bottom are growing in numbers, albeit economic development and improvement of living standard for the bottom society.” “Objectively, the white-collar workers are a little bit more capable of making money, but speaking of their social situation or political status, they are the same [as migrant workers],” says Yu.

Source: International Herald Leader, April 19, 2010
http://news.xinhuanet.com/herald/2010-04/19/content_13383024.htm

Xinhua reported that a timetable predicting China’s real estate collapse in 2011 has been published on the Internet. The timetable compares the Japanese real estate market trend between 1985 and 1991 to that of China between 2005 and 2008 and found China, with its serious real estate bubble, excessive dependency on exports, and pressure on RMB appreciation, is similar to Japan right before the Japanese economic bubble burst in the 1980s. The timetable author concluded that the Chinese economy is facing significant risks and its real estate market will collapse in 2011.

Source: Xinhua, April 6, 2010
http://news.xinhuanet.com/herald/2010-04/06/content_13307384.htm