"Rural people, though accounting for 70 percent of the total
population, are not fully guaranteed their basic rights. They are
in a unfavorable position relative to their urban counterparts,"
said Zhang Haoruo, consultant for the State Development and Reform
Commission at an international forum on government reform in the
transitional period which was held recently in Hainan Province.
Farmers have become the weakest link in China's human rights
guarantee. Their discriminated position and unguaranteed basic
rights have been viewed as an important reflection of the imbalance
in social development, according to Zhang.
In Zhang's eyes, China should give greater priority to land
rights, taxation burdens and social security issues to improve
rural people's rights and interests.
Farmers have the right to long-term land cultivation rights. But
they haven't the full rights of the land, such as the right to
land-use, the right to buying or selling the land or the right to
the income from that land. Zhang believes that China should change
farmers' cultivation right system to a property right disposal
system within a contractual period. Then farmers would have all the
above mentioned rights including the right to cultivate, the right
to use, the right to the land and the right to the income including
the incremental income by transferring the land-use right and the
right to inherit.
Relative to the income tax of urban middle and low incomes,
farmers usually have heavier tax burdens from the agricultural tax
and the agricultural specialty tax. To improve farmers' living
condition and increase their income, Zhang suggests relieving the
agricultural tax and revoking the agricultural specialty tax. After
some transitional period, the agricultural tax should also be
revoked in the end.
Farmers cannot enjoy the minimum guarantee of subsistence
allowances, the old-age and medicare insurances relative to urban
citizens. Those working in cities still have no guarantee of
permanent residence rights in cities, education access for their
offspring, medical care guarantees and unemployment benefits. They
are often discriminated against or even prosecuted. In Zhang's
mind, Chinese farmers, after having adequate food and clothing, are
marching on the road towards being well-off. Besides a guarantee
for the right to a paid existence, society should make more room to
respect and satisfy rural people's rights to overall development
such as medicare, education, culture and recreation and political
rights.
"Farmers have too weak a voice in society and within political
circles," Zhang said, "Government reform should center on citizens
and never ever overlook the farmers. This is a plea from the
farmers as well as a request of Chinese society as a whole."
(China.org.cn by Alex Xu and Daragh Moller, December 12,
2003)