While it is a growing problem, local governments have not been judged by their ability to provide social security, so it has been low on their list of priorities, he added. In addition, the budget for social security is not regulated by law at either the central or local government levels, so its provision relies on the generosity of decision-makers.

Another issue facing China's social security system is its imbalance. Statistics show that 80 percent of the country's 120 million migrant workers are not covered by social security, and that 138 million township enterprise employees are covered by neither an urban nor a rural social security system.

There is an imbalance between economic development and social security improvement, said Li. China's 900 million farmers, the biggest group of people who are at the lower level of the rapidly developing society, seldom enjoy social security benefits.

Different opinions have emerged on the fairness of social security. Some local officials have argued that in attempting to achieve complete fairness China's social welfare system could become almost unworkable, or too expensive to run.

Breaking with equalitarianism and allowing some Chinese to get rich first have contributed towards China's economic development, according to Chen Yangdong, a social security expert in Dalian City, Liaoning Province. But a free-market concept cannot be transplanted into the social security issue, which is meant to guarantee a basic living standard for the poor. Currently social security fails to cover the people who need to be covered and this has something to do with wrong concepts about what social security is for and how it should operate, he believes.

Security for all?

There is currently a debate in China about the future of the country's social security system, and whether it can expand to cover the wider population. Opponents of expansion say that based on the level of China's economy, the country is incapable of constructing a social security network that will cover everyone. This is especially true of rural areas, they say, which are generally in more need of social welfare than urban ones.

But experts like Li are optimistic about the future. Analysis has proved that it is not impossible to have a cover-all social security system, he said. Social fairness is crucial to economic development, according to Li. It is estimated that every year it costs 160 billion yuan to cover medical security for the whole population and 100 billion yuan to cover old age pensions. With these figures a cover-all social security network in China is not a pipe dream, said Li.

According to Ding Ningning, a researcher with the Development Research Center of the State Council, China's present economic strength is capable of putting the whole country under a social security shelter, as its GDP has exceeded 20 trillion yuan and fiscal revenue reached 3 trillion yuan. But he also remarked that such a cover-all security system could only guarantee a low- level standard of living.

The Chinese Government is working on a system to bring more of the country's citizens under the social security network. In October last year, it announced that it will build a social security system which will cover more than 1 billion citizens by 2020 in the Sixth Plenum of the 16th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, which is the first the Party has held focusing on social development matters.

China also accumulated 606.6 billion yuan in social insurance funds in 2005, and the national social security fund added more than 200 billion yuan, according to Tian.

The fast and healthy growth of China's economy and social development and the increasing awareness of the public of social security issues require China's social security system be improved, he said.