What’s Under Discussion at One of China’s Biggest Political Gatherings

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/world/asia/china-congress-policy.html

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BEIJING — It’s that time again, when more than 5,000 delegates to China’s National People’s Congress and its advisory body, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, meet in Beijing to endorse legislation and discuss government plans for the coming year. They talk about their policy ideas with the local media too, and coverage of their proposals and the online comments they attract provide glimpses into some of the issues on the minds of Chinese today.

In 2015, China announced it was ending its decades-long “one-child” policy, allowing all couples to have two children. But Huang Xihua, a National People’s Congress delegate from Guangdong Province, said China should lift all controls on births and lower the legal marriage age to 18, from 22 for men and 20 for women.

“You can’t turn people’s willingness to have babies on and off like a water tap,” Ms. Huang told Southern Metropolis. “Once having fewer children becomes a trend, it’s hard to reverse.”

As for marriage, she added: “Females reach sexual maturity at around 14 years old, and males at 16. That means Chinese people are sexually mature for six years before being allowed to marry. Lowering the legal marriage age is a way to protect civil rights and preserve social harmony.”

English is a compulsory subject on the gaokao, the university entrance examination. According to Li Guangyu, a National People’s Congress delegate from Hunan Province and chairman of the Yuhua Education Group, this has caused students to devote too much time to English at the expense of other subjects. “English imposes too much pressure on Chinese students,” Mr. Li said on sohu.com.

A group of 13 delegates to the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference have proposed that parents whose negligence results in their child’s injury or death should be prosecuted. According to one delegate, Li You, quoted in Chengdu Business Daily, every year, 10 million children in China are injured in accidents, 100,000 fatally, often caused by parents’ negligence. In February, two children slipped and fell five floors to their deaths in a Tianjin shopping mall when their father held them over a railing. In January, a 4-year-old boy drowned in a bath as his mother, who was beside him, remained engrossed in her cellphone.

The Chinese Lunar New Year holiday, known as Spring Festival, is often called the biggest human migration in the world, as millions return to their hometowns for family reunions. Lai Xiaomin, a delegate to the National People’s Congress from Hunan Province and chairman of China Huarong Asset Management, wants the seven-day holiday most workers are granted to be extended to 15 days, sina.com reported. With the long distances they must travel, he said, many people are unable to spend much time with their relatives on this most important of Chinese holidays.

In many urban areas, the price of a burial plot is soaring — costing more, by square meter, than an apartment, said Song Xinfang, a National People’s delegate from Shandong Province. He proposes that China build tower-style cemeteries to save land and money.

“If we build two floors underground, and five to seven floors above, lots of people’s ash boxes can be stored on a small plot,” Mr. Song told Legal Evening News. “Perhaps a family could buy a tower or different families could share the same tower. It would save a lot of land.”

In the 1950s, a household registration system was instituted to curb rural migration to cities and it continues to determine where citizens can live and still enjoy full social welfare rights. Cai Jiming, an economics professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing and a delegate to the National People’s Congress, said it’s time to do away with maximum population targets for cities and to treat all citizens equally. He says the traffic congestion, air pollution and high housing costs that afflict big cities result from poor management rather than overpopulation.

“People tend to move to big cities, not just in China, but everywhere in the world,” he told Caixin. “This is driven by market forces, and we should respect market forces.”