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June 19, 2005

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China's income gap

China's economic miracle inevitable leads to a continually growing income gap between rich and poor:

China's income gap widened in the first quarter of the year, with 10 percent of the nation's richest people enjoying 45 percent of the country's wealth, state press reports said.

China's poorest 10 percent had only 1.4 percent of the nation's wealth, the Xinhua news agency reported...The income gap has become increasingly worrisome for the government of once-egalitarian China, especially as low- and middle-income earners are increasingly quick to accuse officials of pilfering state assets in the country's dash toward market capitalism.

"There are two gaps that need to be addressed," Li Xiaoxi, head of the economic and resource management institute of Beijing Normal University, was quoted as saying. "The first is the very wide gap between different social groups. The other is the astonishing economic development gap between regions."

China's ruling party is a misnomer. Dealing with the tensions that arise from this growing gap is and will remain the Chinese leadership's greatest task. So long as even the poorest feel their living standards are rising (albeit not as quickly as their richer coastal cousins), the tensions are bearable. Whenever the CCP feels pressured, they are quick to whip out the nationalism card as a distraction, the most obvious examples being Taiwan and Japan. But the undercurrent of ethnic and class tensions remain.

It ain't easy being a Commie.

 posted by Simon on 06.19.05 at 02:55 PM in the




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The China New Leftists Debate: The Point Isn't Income Gap - It's Opportunity
Excerpt:
Weblog: Imagethief
Tracked: June 23, 2005 10:27 AM


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