China’s Society
Society
China is located in Eastern Asia sharing land borders with Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar (Burma), India, Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Mongolia and North Korea.
China, a land of beauty and fascination, tempts adventurous travelers all over the world. China is a massive country, covering 6,000,000 square miles and spanning 60 longitudinal degrees and has such an infinite variety of people, enchanting natural landscape, brilliant history, a culture that is among the most ancient in the world and fascinating destinations that a visitor can be almost as bewildered as he is bewitched.
China is a land rich in cultural heritage and tradition. With 22 provinces, four municipalities, and four autonomous regions directly under the central
government. With a population of over 1 billion people, China is the most populous country in the world with 22 percent of the world total population.
China, representing one of the earliest civilizations in the world, has a recorded history of about 3,600 years. It possesses rich historical documents as well as ancient relics.
Full country name: People’s Republic of China
Area: 9.59 million sq km
Population: 1.28 billion
Capital City: Beijing
People: Han Chinese (93%), plus 55 ethnic minorities
Language: Cantonese, Mandarin
Religion: Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism (no stats available); Islam (14 million), Christianity (7 million)
Education
In 1985, about 96 percent of primary-school-age children attended school as compared with about 20 percent before 1949. About 136 million students enrolled in more than 832,000 primary schools. Secondary-level middle schools divided into junior and senior stages; majority of schools at lower level. About 48.6 million students attended some 104,800 secondary-level institutions. Technical education emphasized. Intense competition for admission to more than 1,000 colleges and universities; about 1.7 million students in various higher educational institutions. Beijing and Qinghua universities and more than 100 other key universities most sought after by college entrants.
Health
Level of health and medical care improving. System of national, provincial-level, and local facilities in urban and rural areas plus network of industrial and state-enterprise hospitals. Traditional and Western medicine both practiced. Average life expectancy of sixty-nine years in 1985. Many once-widespread epidemic diseases now under control or eradicated.
Human Rights
The 2009 US Human Rights Report on China states:
The People’s Republic of China (PRC), with a population of approximately 1.3 billion, is an authoritarian state in which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) constitutionally is the paramount source of power. Party members hold almost all top government, police, and military positions. Ultimate authority rests with the 25-member political bureau (Politburo) of the CCP and its nine-member standing committee. Hu Jintao holds the three most powerful positions as CCP general secretary, president, and chairman of the Central Military Commission. Civilian authorities generally maintained effective control of the security forces.
The government’s human rights record remained poor and worsened in some areas. During the year the government increased the severe cultural and religious repression of ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR).Tibetan areas remained under tight government controls. The detention and harassment of human rights activists increased, and public interest lawyers and law firms that took on cases deemed sensitive by the government faced harassment, disbarment and closure. The government limited freedom of speech and controlled the Internet and Internet access. Abuses peaked around high-profile events, such as the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square uprising, the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan uprising, and the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.
As in previous years, citizens did not have the right to change their government. Other serious human rights abuses included extrajudicial killings, executions without due process, torture and coerced confessions of prisoners, and the use of forced labor, including prison labor. The government continued to monitor, harass, detain, arrest, and imprison journalists, writers, dissidents, activists, petitioners, and defense lawyers and their families, many of whom sought to exercise their rights under the law. A lack of due process and restrictions on lawyers, particularly human rights and public interest lawyers, had serious consequences for defendants who were imprisoned or executed following proceedings that fell short of international standards. The party and state exercised strict political control of courts and judges, conducted closed trials, and continued the use of administrative detention. Prolonged illegal detentions at unofficial holding facilities, known as black jails, were widespread.
Individuals and groups, especially those deemed politically sensitive by the government, continued to face tight restrictions on their freedom to assemble, practice religion, and travel. The government failed to protect refugees and asylum-seekers adequately, and the detention and forced repatriation of North Koreans continued. The government increased pressure on other countries to repatriate citizens back to China, including citizens who were being processed by UNHCR as political refugees. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), both local and international, continued to face intense scrutiny and restrictions. The government failed to address serious social conditions that affected human rights, including endemic corruption, trafficking in persons, and discrimination against women, minorities, and persons with disabilities. The government continued its coercive birth limitation policy, in some cases resulting in forced abortion or forced sterilization. Workers cannot choose an independent union to represent them in the workplace, and the law does not protect workers’ right to strike.
In April the government unveiled its first National Human Rights Action Plan. The 54-page document outlined human rights goals to be achieved over the next two years and addressed issues such as prisoners’ rights and the role of religion in society. However, the plan has not yet been implemented.
On July 5, riots broke out in Urumqi, the provincial capital of Xinjiang, after police used force to break up a demonstration reportedly composed mostly of Uighur university students who protested the killing of Uighur migrant workers by Han co-workers in Guangdong Province. Violence erupted leaving approximately 200 people dead and 1,700 injured. According to official sources, most of the dead were Han Chinese. On July 7 and September 4, groups of Han Chinese engaged in retaliatory violence, resulting in more deaths. At year’s end Urumqi remained under a heavy police presence and most Internet and international phone communication remained cut off.
