Guizhou tragedy a lesson on Urbanization

The discovery of five children's bodies in a dumpster in Bijie, Guizhou province, recently has added fuel to the debate on the country's wealth gap, especially because the victims had taken shelter in the garbage container to escape from the cold. The tragedy shows how complicated the situation in China is and the extent of challenges that lie ahead for the government.

Some netizens have blamed the local authorities and the five children's school as evil criminals for the tragedy. But this is not justified, for the school's teachers visited the children's homes several times to persuade them to return to classes after they had dropped out of school. The children had been accommodated by local civil affairs authorities but later chose to be vagrants again as "such a lifestyle was freer". Some other netizens have gone even further by totally denying China's achievements in social security over the past decades.

It is indeed the responsibility of governments at all levels to take care of vagrants, especially in winter when they are most vulnerable. But there is nothing to suggest that the Chinese government is any less responsible than its counterparts in developed countries. Even in an advanced country like Japan, more than 2,000 people starved to death last year as the economy stagnated. In Spain, some people have been forced to collect food from garbage as the country sinks deeper into the euro debt crisis.