When Image Doesn't Count

Heavily stricken by drought earlier this year, the government of the Urad Front Banner in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region initiated a water-saving irrigation project, enthusiastically embraced by local residents. Unfortunately, when officials from a higher level paid a visit to the banner, they expressed satisfaction with such aboveground projects as house building, road building and tree planting, but showed little interest in the underground irrigation project.

Since there is serious shortage of water, the water-saving project is undoubtedly the most important livelihood-oriented project. However, some officials believe that only the aboveground projects are laudable, because they can be easily seen. This is a ridiculous logic, but it is often seen in relation to a variety of vanity projects that waste both money and manpower.

Actually, the people know best whether a project is in their interests or not, but they are excluded from expressing their views. Unless the official performance assessment mechanism is directly connected with the public's interests and the people are granted the power to evaluate officials' performance and achievements, vanity projects will continue to plague China's social progress.

Shanghai Securities News

What Are Commuters' Options?

While a large fleet of cars is a symbol of wealth, it also incurs many problems, such as congested traffic and environmental pollution. Big cities like Tokyo, New York and London have more cars than Beijing, but thanks to the well-developed road network, their traffic flows are much better than it is China's capital city.

In developed countries, low-income manual workers, traditionally people without cars, live downtown and the high-income car owners live in suburbs.

However, the situation in China, where it is more of a status symbol to live close to the city center, is totally different. So the rich who have cars live downtown, while those who cannot afford cars live on the outskirts of cities. As a result, middle- and low-income residents spend several hours on the way to work, choking up public transport in a chaotic mass of humanity. Beijing has added many buses to its routes, but it only makes the traffic even more congested. Many put their faith in rail and subway options. However the costs of this operation is set to dent commuters' wallets because if the railways are extended to the suburbs, apart from the rush hours, they will mostly run empty. So if the railway network is developed, either the government should prepare to offer subsidies, or the residents have to pay for the expected loss.

If the overall design of a city's layout is problematic, it's hard to then play catch up.

China Business Times

Price Cut Today, Gone Tomorrow?

Since 1997, the Chinese Government has initiated 22 drug price cuts, covering 1,600 varieties. However, the public still finds drugs very expensive. The reasons are multiple.

First, as hospitals and doctors depend largely on medicine sales for their incomes, when the price of a certain drug can no longer bring them profits, they will take it out of the prescription drug list. Second, every pharmaceutical factory has several drug agents. When drug prices are reduced, the agents will lose profits, so they will lobby the factories to produce more expensive and more lucrative drugs. Third, when drug manufacturers find the profit share is shrinking, they tend to relaunch their products under new names, in new packages and at higher prices.

As a result, the public are prevented from getting their hands on cheap drugs.

Further reforms on drug pricing are very necessary, but it seems that the key is to shorten the process from manufacturers to end users, apart from the overall improvement of the public health system.

People's Daily

Housing, a Basic Right

Wang Guangtao, Minister of Construction, pledged at an international forum on metropolitan development in mid-May that in the future, China would ensure that "everyone enjoys a suitable house."

Although the minister did not explain what measures would be taken to achieve this goal, his remarks are still encouraging.

Since the onus of responsibility for housing in China was shifted to the individual in the late 1990s, it has become far more difficult for people, middle- and low-income earners in particular, to find suitable homes, quite simply because they cannot afford them. Before the reform, in most cases, the state offered houses to urban residents. Although the government continues to shoulder some responsibilities in this regard, the aid mainly targets limited numbers of impoverished families.

While Minister Wang's words show that the government has realized that housing, like education, is a citizen's basic right, the people have full reason to demand institutional guarantees of that right. The state should also take up the basic responsibility in ensuring housing security. This is not supposed to be limited aid to certain groups only, but basic housing security for all.

More importantly, "housing is a citizen' s basic right" should become the consensus of officials at all levels.

Guangzhou Daily