u***r
发帖数: 4825 | 1 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020373530457716665
BEIJING—China has announced that people living in its towns and cities now
outnumber those in the countryside, making it a predominantly urban nation
for the first time in Chinese civilization.
Migrant workers and others line up for trains ahead of the Lunar New Year
holiday in Chengdu on Tuesday.
The milestone spotlights a trend that China's government says will be a key
driver of economic growth over the next two decades as hundreds of millions
more people move into urban areas in search of higher-paying jobs.
But it also points to the challenges facing Chinese leaders as mass
migration places an increasing strain on urban housing, transport and
welfare, while fueling pollution, social unrest and demands for political
reform.
Urban dwellers account for 51.27% of China's entire population of nearly 1.
35 billion—or a total of 690.8 million people—the National Bureau of
Statistics (NBS) announced at a news conference in Beijing on Tuesday.
City dwellers represented just 10.6% of China's population in 1949, when the
Communist Party took power, and just under 19% in 1979, when it launched
the market reforms, according to official Chinese statistics.
That means that in the economic boom of the past three decades, China has
roughly matched what economic historians say took about 200 years in Britain
, 100 years in the U.S. and 50 years in Japan.
Many experts expect the trend to continue at a similar pace in China, with
McKinsey, the consulting firm, forecasting last year that the country would
have one billion urban residents by 2030—its urban population growing by
more than that of the entire U.S. in just two decades.
The social cost of urbanization is becoming increasingly evident, however,
with 253 million rural migrants now living in Chinese cities with little or
no access to public services, which they can only access in the villages
where they are registered under the "hukou" or household-registration system.
The demand for urban property has also led to rampant seizures of farmland
near towns and cities by local officials, who typically pay farmers a
nominal fee before selling at market rates to developers who often build
luxury housing and shopping malls.
Wen Jiabao, the Chinese Premier who is entering his last year in power this
year, called for greater efforts to tackle such illegal land seizures in an
essay published this week in an official Communist Party magazine called
Qiushi, or Seeking Truth.
China had "lowered the costs of industrialization and urbanization by
sacrificing farmers' rights to land," he wrote. "No one is empowered to take
away such rights."
Mr. Wen also criticized a widespread policy of moving villagers into
apartment blocks so their land can be merged into larger blocs or used for
property development.
Growing public anger at land grabs came into focus last month when residents
of the fishing village of Wukan in the southern province of Guangdong
staged an open revolt against local officials they accused of illegally
selling their land to property developers.
Such land disputes account for 65% of "mass incidents"—the government's
euphemism for large protests—in rural areas according to Yu Jianrong, a
professor and expert on rural issues at the state-run Chinese Academy of
Social Sciences.
China's Land Ministry has also warned that misappropriation of farmland has
brought the country dangerously close to the so-called red line of 120
million hectares of arable land that the government believes it needs to
feed China's people.
Mr. Wen said in his essay that China needed to modernize its agricultural
technology in order to meet the demand for food from its expanding
population despite the shortage of land and water resources.
However, the central government's efforts to curb land abuses have so far
met fierce resistance from local authorities who rely on land sales to
maintain growth, service debt and top up their budgets.
Job seekers waited to enter a job fair in Yantai, Shandong province, in
February 2011.
Finding a balance between GDP growth, urbanization, farmers' rights and food
security is one of the main challenges facing a new generation of party
leaders who are expected to take charge later this year in a once-a-decade
leadership change.
Vice Premier Li Keqiang—the favorite to replace Mr. Wen as Premier—told a
high-level party meeting on the economy last month that urbanization was key
to stimulating domestic demand so China can move away from its export-
driven growth model.
He also called for increased efforts to build and distribute fairly the 36
million units of affordable "social housing" that the government has pledged
to construct over the next five years to help meet demand from migrants and
ease property prices.
"The construction of affordable homes will help curb excessive price rises
and fuel urbanization, which will in turn unleash consumption and investment
potentials and push development of related industries," Mr. Li said.
Urban migration is also prompting some local governments to provide better
services to newcomers, as well as extending city services into satellite
towns.
In Shanghai, for instance, Mayor Han Zheng this week said that nonlocals
would be permitted to rent subsidized units in certain public-housing
projects in the city's outer reaches, whereas in the past eligibility hinged
on their employment.
"Coverage is extended to all migrant workers in Shanghai," Mr. Han told a
press briefing.
Speaking days earlier, Mr. Han also pledged to "encourage and guide the
migrant population's involvement in community affairs, enrich their cultural
life and show our genuine care to them."
Chinese officials and experts say the country will accelerate the
urbanization process over the next two decades in order to avoid the "middle
-income trap," a term coined by the World Bank to describe stagnation in a
country when per capita GDP reaches $3,000.
The per capita income of China's urban residents was 21,810 yuan ($3,434) in
2011, while that of rural residents was 6,977 yuan, according to the NBS.
Still, many Chinese and Western economists and demographers say that
urbanization can be a double-edged sword.
When rural residents move to urban areas, they tend to do more economically
productive work, learn more skills, earn more money, and buy more goods.
They also boost demand for urban infrastructure and housing, which can boost
economic growth.
Comparing the growth of 18th century England with modern China, Standard
Chartered economist Stephen Green recently concluded that "urbanization went
hand in hand with economic growth."
But urbanization, by itself, is hardly enough. Latin America is filled with
megacities teeming with shanty towns housing unemployed and underemployed
workers from the countryside, whose move didn't stop those nations from
stalling economically. According to Mr. Green, China would need to learn
some of the lessons from a rapidly urbanizing and industrializing England,
especially the creation of "power-restricting, adequate, market-friendly
institutions."
That's not necessarily a given in China where the Party claims a monopoly on
power and blocks the creations of independent institutions.
Moreover, urbanization is hardly the only demographic trend sweeping over
China. At the same time as more workers are moving into the cities, the size
of the Chinese work force—those aged 15 to 64—is peaking as the work
force ages.
More than 30% of the population is expected to be older than 60 by 2050,
producing an increasingly heavy economic burden on those in the work force.
The NBS said Tuesday that the number of people aged 15 to 64 stood at about
1 billion 2011—representing an increase of about 3% over 2010. But China's
overall population grew faster—by about 4.8%—between 2010 and 2011.
Write to Jeremy Page at j*********[email protected], Bob Davis at b*******[email protected]
and James T. Areddy at j**********[email protected] | p******u
发帖数: 14642 | 2 说这是土鳖文明第一次就扯蛋了吧，现在的城镇标准跟几千年前可没得比
now
key
millions
【在 u***r 的大作中提到】
: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020373530457716665
: BEIJING—China has announced that people living in its towns and cities now
: outnumber those in the countryside, making it a predominantly urban nation
: for the first time in Chinese civilization.
: Migrant workers and others line up for trains ahead of the Lunar New Year
: holiday in Chengdu on Tuesday.
: The milestone spotlights a trend that China's government says will be a key
: driver of economic growth over the next two decades as hundreds of millions
: more people move into urban areas in search of higher-paying jobs.
: But it also points to the challenges facing Chinese leaders as mass
|
|
