Recently Peking University issued a report
pointing out that the top 1 percent of Chinese households possess
over one-third of the nation's wealth.
But, 25 percent of the poorest
families own just 1 percent of the country's wealth. The report says that families' net
property of the Gini coefficient stood at 0.73. Experts say that the huge gap between rich
and poor shows Deng Xiaoping's reform and opening policy doesn't
work.
The state-run mouthpiece people.cn said
that Peking University's Institute of Social Science issued a report --
“Chinese Livelihood Development Report 2014” on July 25.
The report says that Chinese inequality in
property has increased rapidly. The net wealth of Gini coefficient
was 0.45 in 1995, 0.55 in 2002, and 0.73 in 2012. The top 1 percent of the families have
a third of the nation's wealth. However, 25 percent of the poorest families
possess just 1 percent of national wealth.
The Gini coefficient also known as Gini
index, is an international measure of statistical dispersion intended
to represent the income distribution of a nation's residents. The
higher the value, the more the inequality would be.
Jian Tianlun, US-based economist: “We knew
in the past that Chinese wealth distribution is seriously unequal. However,
the government's statistics have no credibility. We don't know the truth. This
time the Gini index is 0.73, it is definitely the top in the world. Around
the world only six countries whose Gini index is over 60 percent, and China is
on the top. The other five countries are all located in Africa, they are either very under developed
or exist serious racial differentiation.”
Jason Ma, NTD Television special economic
commentator: “This figure is shocking and strange. In the world, such
as in Latin America, society likely became unhealthy by differentiation
between rich and poor. China's Gini index reached 0.73, which proves
that Chinese society is completely abnormal.”
Radio France Internationale (RFI) reported
that although Chinese major websites had reproduced people.cn
report, the comment function had been disabled. There is no single
post to follow the article. Not even propaganda posts followed.
Writer Nanjinglong's blog pointed
out that the reason is simple, if they sent 50-cent Party to post lies, it
cannot prove the Chinese Communist Party's “Great, Glorious and
Correct”, on the contrary, it will result in even worse impact. Under
the propaganda department's arrangement, this news has been muted. Although
you know the figure is close to the fact, but there is no way to
communicate with readers. How serious is the problem? The real reason the
cause is unknown.
Jian Tianlun observes that the top Chinese
families often possess huge undisclosed properties. The figure
provided by Peking University is underestimated.
Jian Tianlun: “This certainly excluded cash that corrupt
officials had embezzled. Because embezzled money is illegal, is
impossible to be accounted in. For example, after Zhou Yongkang's arrest,
we know he possessed over 300 homes in Beijing. Officials similar to
Zhou have tens of homes, there are many, so, empty homes and ghost towns
exist everywhere in China. This is why less than 1 percent of people
seized so much assets.”
Jason Ma points out that Gini index is
0.73, indicating the wealth gap is seriously wide. This kind of society
doesn't have any stability.
RFI says that according to theory of Deng Xiaoping, former
Chairman of Central Military Committee, the reform is unsuccessful.
Jian Tianlun: “This actually was caused by
China's entire system, direction of reform and reform policy. It was
Deng Xiaoping that let part of the population get rich first, and letting the rest support the rich, so
the gap widened gradually.”
Jason Ma: “The more one gets close to the
people who have power, the quicker one gets rich. Once the people
with power got rich, they would have their social interest firmed. Actually
this is an economic development model of an extreme polarized
society. This society is totally unstable, they just diverted the
CCP's crisis onto the entire nation.”
Jason Ma says that since 2003, the
statistics bureau announced Gini index was 0.47 or 0.48. This time
allowed figure 0.73 being disclosed, showing that at least one faction at
high-level understood that they cannot cover their eyes to live.
What the final reaction of the high-level
would be? If the figure 0.73 caused a strong social response, would
the CCP come out to deny the rumor? We will see.