Li Xing

Rejig economy, reduce inequality

By Li Xing (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-06-18 06:38

Washington - Ding Xuan moved to Beijing 10 years ago, when she was six. Ding's mother, Zhang Dongcun, had been here since 1985. She moved to Beijing from a village in Wenzhou, Zhejiang province, and made a living as a cleaning woman, while her husband did odd jobs.

They paid 5,000 yuan to enroll Ding in school and later managed to get her into one of the best public schools in Beijing, after knocking on countless doors, paying more money, and producing seven certificates to prove they lived and worked here.

Almost immediately, Ding became a top student. She continued to excel after she entered middle school, winning competitions in mathematics and English. However, as she was finishing the ninth grade early last year, officials at her middle school tried to persuade her to quit school and return to Wenzhou to pursue her studies.

Under current rules, college applicants can only take national college entrance exams in the city or town where they hold permanent residency.

But Ding knew she would never get into college if she returned to Wenzhou. The curriculum there is different from the one she has followed in Beijing, and Ding does not speak the local dialect.

Undaunted, Zhang Dongcun redoubled her efforts to keep her daughter in Beijing. She visited countless schools and finally succeeded in enrolling her daughter as a tenth grader at the No 22 Middle School last September, and paid 14,000 yuan, some 68 percent of average annual household income in 2009.

Ding and her parents seem to have succeeded, at least for now, but their ordeal is still shocking.

Despite 25 years of hard work and Ding's excellent academic and extra-curricular record, they are unable to obtain permanent Beijing residency. As a result, they do not enjoy the basic rights of citizenship. Zhang still fears that her daughter will not be allowed to take the college entrance exam in 2012, unless there is a change in national education policy.

The cost and discrimination in education are two of the many factors that prevent migrant families from moving up the economic ladder. Ding Xuan's battle to get an education is just one example of the social and economic disparity between rich and poor, and between urban and rural people in China.

In a larger sense, Ding's saga is the key to some much larger issues. China must address the disparities brought on by unequal development if it is to boost domestic consumption and help rebalance the global economy.

Doing so should be considered the "second wave of reforms", Chi Fulin, president of the China Institute for Reform and Development, told me in an interview last Saturday.

The implications could not be greater. Despite the obvious culpability of Wall Street and other US lenders, China continues to be blamed for the world's economic problems. China's savings rate, trade surplus, foreign currency reserves, and monetary policy are said to be obstructing a global economic recovery.

Much of this criticism is unfair, and China is understandably defensive about it. Like most people, we don't like others to tell us what to do about our economy, our society, or our system of governance.

More importantly, this finger pointing misses the big picture. As Barry Bosworth, a senior fellow of Brookings Institution, told me on Tuesday, China has succeeded in securing sustained growth for the world's largest population and in bringing some 200 million people out of poverty over the past 30 years. China's growth has benefited not only its own people and its neighbors, but also the world.

Still, China can no longer depend on foreign consumers to keep its economy expanding; it must promote consumption at home. Rebalancing the economy and addressing the inequalities in our society is important not only to China, but to the world.

E-mail: lixing@chinadaily.com.cn