Society

Poll: Corruption, public discontent most worrisome

By Xie Yu (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-07-09 07:13

BEIJING - A majority of Chinese polled in a recent survey believe widespread corruption and public discontent are to blame for social uncertainties in the country.

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Even though China's economy has maintained a steady growth, people are worried the country would fall into a "middle-income trap" and suffer from economic stagnation and various social problems, according to a poll launched by a magazine affiliated with People's Daily.

China's GDP per capita reached $3,600 in 2009, pushing the country in the list of middle-income nations.

The magazine interviewed 6,575 ordinary Chinese citizens and 50 scholars.

More than 60 percent of the ordinary people said it was "highly probable" that China would be caught in the middle-income trap. However, more than 90 percent of the scholars disagreed.

Corruption and the widening gap between the rich and poor are most likely to influence the nation's development, the respondents said.

Despite the tremendous GDP growth, the people can barely feel an improvement in their lives, many of them said.

"Is China wealthy? It might be. But after the financial crisis, the rich people in China are even richer, while the poor are poorer. Only the rich live a happy life, not the poor," a netizen, who goes by the pseudo name "Luntianxia", commented while answering the opinion poll.

More than half of the ordinary people who participated in the poll said "wide-spread corruption and public discontent" were the main reasons the country could get caught in the middle-income trap.

Among them, 44 percent believe the "widening income gap and social classes division" require the most attention.

Ordinary citizens believe public faith in the government is declining due to corruption, vested interest groups will obstruct reforms, and social security and income distribution will always remain a problem, the poll found.

But the scholars were more optimistic about the future.

Hu Angang, director of the center for China studies, a top policy-making think tank under the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Tsinghua University, said China currently faces challenges from several aspects including economy, society, politics, and international relations.

"China, especially in some developed regions, has already started transforming the economic growth mode, which is significant to avoid a bottleneck," Hu said, adding that political and social stability is crucially important during this period.

"We should cautiously choose the path for social reforms to guarantee modernized development and reduce social unrest," he said.