48-year-old Mr. Li living at the Dongqingshu residential block in Chengdu's Jinjiang District works in a bicycle repair and assembly plant in the city and subsists on a monthly income of merely 400-odd yuan (US$50). His bitter experience mirrors the fragility of China's middle class.
Li began to work in this plant after retiring from the army in 1975. In pursuit of a better life, he obtained an indefinite leave of absence from his work and started his own business. In the beginning, he did some general merchandising. Afterwards, he and his wife took on part-time jobs. The period from 1998 to 2001 was a golden season for their business when they made about 8,000 yuan every month. During this period, they purchased two apartments and saved nearly 300,000 yuan at the bank.
Unfortunately, Li's wife was diagnosed with cancer in 2001. Afterwards, the couple's wealth, which was accumulated through years of hard work, drained rapidly like water. Li said that from 2001, when his wife was diagnosed with cancer, till she passed away in 2003, they spent over 400,000 yuan on medical treatment. Besides spending every penny of their bank deposits, they had to sell one of their apartments.
Now too old to set up another business, Li had to return to the bicycle repair and assembly plant as a common worker on a low salary. To compensate the cost of living, he had to let his remaining apartment and live with his elder sister. He left that plant and spared no effort to make a fortune, but only ended up dramatically where he started.
Some sociologists pointed out that over twenty years of reform and opening up together with economic boom has cultivated in China a social group that belongs to the middle class in social affairs, whether in terms of economic strength or social status. Growth and stability of this class is a symbol of the establishment of a modern social structure. Li's story, however, serves as a vivid demonstration of the fragility of China's middle class.
As a result of rapid increase of unavoidable expenditures on education, health and housing, some people in the middle class show low ability to withstand risks and a high tendency towards downward mobility. The three major reforms in education, health and housing have largely transferred such costs to every member of society and led to the phenomenon that low-income groups cannot afford the heavy burden and the medium-income group finds it difficult to continue bearing such a burden.
(China News Service March 6, 2006)
