10 June 2005

Citizen status for peasants

Zhao Junchen

"Citizen status for peasants: key issue that a harmonious society cannot avoid"
赵俊臣: 农民享受国民待遇是和谐社会不能回避的关键问题 Source

Presently, social discord in China is mainly seen in two major areas: the struggle for a living of the urban unemployed, and the lack of citizen treatment for rural peasants. In relative terms, the urban unemployed, being a relatively advantaged group, have trade unions etc. arg­uing for their rights; the Party and Government have issued “baseline guarantee” pol­icies whose city coverage is fairly wide, etc., and the problems of which are finding or have found suitable resolution; but the peasants’ lack of citizen status affects a broader domain: there are no peasant organisations at the national, provincial, city (prefect­ure), county, or township levels to organize arguments for for their rights, many rights best­owed on peasants by the Central Committee and State Council through regulations and by the National People's Congress through laws still await implementation. This has become a crucial key point, a dilemma and a hot topic for social harmony in China.

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