China of great help to Africa in fighting global financial crisis: Zambian minister

Via Xinhua.

WASHINGTON, April 25 (Xinhua) — China is of great help to African countries in their efforts to deal with the current global financial crisis and the worst world economic downturn since the Great Depression in the 1930s, Zambian Minister of Finance Situmbeko Musokotwane told Xinhua here on Saturday.

Musokotwane, who is in Washington to attend the two-day annual spring sessions of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), said in an exclusive interview with Xinhua that the Chinese assistance includes efforts to save jobs for Zambians by the Chinese mining company, and offering the low-interest loans to African countries including his nation.

“The Chinese mining company in Zambia is not going to lay off any one,” he said. “They are not cutting jobs.”

Due to the current global financial crisis, the mining industry in Zambia is the hardest hit as African countries are feeling the effect of the financial crisis, which started some six months ago in the United States, said the minister.

“For us, the biggest pain is in the mining industry,” he said. “Our ability to ensure the financial stability also declined.”

The mining industry has been the economic and social backbone for Zambia since the 1930s. Since that time a wide spectrum of other metalliferous and non-metalliferous resources have been discovered in the East African country.

Zambia is internationally recognized as a major producer of copper and cobalt. It ranks as the world’s seventh largest producer of copper, generating 3.3 percent of the western world’s production, and world’s second largest producer of cobalt, which accounts for 19.7 percent of the world total.

Meanwhile, the minister said that after the November 2006 China-Africa Summit in the Chinese capital Beijing, China had offered low-interest loans to Africa, including Zambia.

“Obviously, China is providing low-interest loans to Zambia, (and) not just Zambia, but Africa,” the minister said.

The two-day Beijing Summit, highlighting “friendship, peace, cooperation and development,” drew 41 heads of state or government and senior officials of 48 African countries that have diplomatic ties with China, as well as representatives from regional and international organizations.

The Summit was held within the framework of the China-Africa Cooperation Forum (CACF), which was jointly proposed and established by China and some African countries in 2000, with the aim of “equal negotiation, enhancing understanding, increasing consensus, strengthening friendship and promoting cooperation.”

The CACF is a mechanism for China-Africa collective dialogue and cooperation to cope with new challenges and facilitate common development.

In the Saturday interview, the Zambian minister also said that he hopes to see more Chinese investment in Zambia and other African countries.

Nice picture of Hu and Chávez during the latter’s recent visit to China

China to offer 300,000 more jobs for disabled by 2010

Via Xinhua.

BEIJING, April 13 (Xinhua) — China will create 300,000 additional jobs for the disabled in cities and towns by 2010, said the National Human Rights Action Plan of China (2009-2010) released Monday by the Information Office of the State Council (Cabinet).

The plan said the state will guarantee the disabled people’s right to employment. The government will strengthen employment training for the disabled and the construction of an employment service network, standardize and develop business that offer jobs to a considerable number of disabled people at one go.

The government will promote compulsory hiring of disabled people in accordance with their proportion to the population at large, it said. The protective employment system for the disabled will be improved, which includes tax deduction and exemption, and the special production and marketing of certain products by the disabled.

Measures such as creating welfare work posts and providing social security subsidies will be implemented to ensure that by the year 2010 there will be 300,000 additional jobs for the disabled in cities and towns, it said.

The state will enhance support for poverty-stricken disabled people in rural areas, said the plan. Help will be provided to enable the 4 million disabled rural people who want for food and clothing to have adequate food and clothing, to enable the 400,000 disabled rural people with financial difficulties in the central and western regions to receive training in practical skills, and to enable 128,000 rural disabled people to rebuild their dilapidated houses.

There are more than 83 million people with various kinds of disabilities in China, accounting for 6.34 percent of the total population, according to the plan.

Average life expectancy of Chinese to reach 73 by 2010

Via Xinhua.

BEIJING, April 13 (Xinhua) — The average life expectancy of Chinese is expected to reach 73 years by 2010, according to the National Human Rights Action Plan of China (2009-2010) released Monday by the Information Office of the State Council, or Cabinet.

The basic framework for the basic health care system covering the entire nation will be established by 2010, to make China among the countries where the national basic health service is available, according to the plan.

The main goals expected to be reached in 2010 also includes: infant mortality rate, below 14.9 per thousand; mortality rate of children under five, below 17.7 per thousand; mortality rate of pregnant and lying-in women, below 40 per 100,000; and the free national immunity vaccination program for children, 95 percent in cities and 90 percent in the countryside.

The action plan says the government is going to expedite the establishment of the basic medical care system. By 2010, the allowances from the budgets of governments at all levels to urban residents covered by medical insurance and rural residents covered by new rural cooperative medical services will be raised to 120 yuan (nearly 20 U.S. dollars) per person annually.

Within three years, efforts will be made to support the construction of 2,000 county-level hospitals starting from 2009, so that every county will have at least one up-to-standard hospital, while 3,700 community health service centers and 11,000 community health service stations will be built or renovated in cities.

“In large and medium-sized cities, one community health service center will be built for every 30,000-100,000 residents or in every neighborhood”, the plan says.

By 2010, a new rural cooperative medical care system will cover virtually all the rural residents. Every township will have a government-run hospital, and every administrative village will have a clinic, it says.

The government will provide safe drinking water for another 60 million rural population in 2009, so as to realize the goal of “halving the proportion of the population unable to get sustainable safe drinking water by 2015″ set by the United Nations, ahead of schedule, according to the government action plan.

China unveils ambitious plan to overhaul health care sector

Via Xinhua

BEIJING, April 7 (Xinhua) — China unveiled a three-year plan on health care reform Tuesday, which it said would lay a solid foundation for equitable and universal access to essential health care for all in China by 2020.

Under the 850 billion yuan (124 billion U.S. dollars) plan for 2009 to 2011, the government promised universal access to basic health insurance, introduction of an essential drug system, improved primary health care facilities, equitable access to basic public health services and pilot reform of state-run hospitals.

The document from the State Council, or Cabinet, detailed tasks and goals for the 2009-2011 period as the government explained how it would implement its long-term health care reform plan, which it announced Monday.

The plan did not elaborate how the 850 billion yuan, including 331.8 billion yuan from the central budget, would be used.

But it is widely expected to be spent on subsidizing basic medical insurance programs, supporting grassroots-level health facilities and in underdeveloped western and rural regions.

TARGETING SCARCE, COSTLY CARE

After more than 20 years of transition from a socialist planned to a market economy, China’s cradle-to-grave social security network was gradually dismantled, leaving many vulnerable.

Efforts in the past decade to reform the health sector were also regarded as unsuccessful.

Between 1980 and 2005, annual disposable income per capita increased by almost 20 times in China, while annual health expenditure per capita increased by 133 times, according to figures from the Ministry of Health.

According to the 2007 World Health Statistics, available on the ministry website, government and private expenditures on the health sector in China were respectively 38 percent and 62 percent in 2004, compared with 54.1 percent and 45.9 percent in Brazil, 17.3 percent and 82.7 percent in India, 86.3 percent and 13.7 percent in Britain, and 44.7 percent and 55.3 percent in the United States.

In the same year, China’s total health expenditure accounted for 4.7 percent of its GDP, against 15.4 percent in the United States, 8.8 percent in Brazil, 8.1 percent in Britain, and 5 percent in India.

“The three-year reform mainly targets the pressing problem that medical care is too expensive and hard to get, which has drawn many complaints from the people,” said the document.

The current system had many problems, the government admitted.

“Some people are not covered by medical insurance, the public health sector has been weak for a long period, and state-run hospitals are too profit-obsessed,” said the document.

“These problems must be solved to lay a solid foundation for the long term and for overall health care reform,” it said.

China wants to have more than 90 percent of its population covered by some sort of basic medical insurance by 2011.

Three different insurance programs already exist for urban employees, unemployed urban residents and rural residents, into which governments, employers, and individuals contribute.

More than 200 million urban workers, 100 million urban residents and some 800 million rural residents have already joined the three programs respectively, according to the Development Research Center under the State Council.

The health insurance subsidy offered by the government for unemployed urban residents and farmers will rise from 80 yuan per person to 120 yuan per person as of next year, according to the action plan.

The level of reimbursement an inpatient or an outpatient can get from one of the three programs will be gradually raised.

The reformers also intend to have more vulnerable people covered by insurance, such as retirees from bankrupt or financially troubled companies that can no longer pay for insurance, migrant workers and the self-employed.

In some places where pilot work was carried out, progresses have been made in bringing more people under the shelter of medical insurance.

Li Liang, a farmer in Ejin Horo County, north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, said he only paid 10 yuan (1.46 dollars) a year to join the New Rural Cooperative Medical Care system, into which the central and local governments contribute 130 yuan.

Meanwhile, Li is entitled to have as much as 50,000 yuan reimbursed every year to pay his medical bill, if there is any.

“Now I feel quite relieved because 50,000 yuan can be a huge burden for me and my family,” said Li.

Fu Wei, an official with the health ministry, said the reimbursement level would be further raised to ease rural residents’ financial burden.

PROMISING GOOD MANAGEMENT

The broad principles contained in China’s new reform “are in line with what the World Health Organization (WHO) is promoting. For example, the principle of equity, the principle of having the poor (covered by) health policies,” WHO Director-General Margaret Chan told reporters in Beijing on Tuesday.

The government promised good management and supervision of funds for the insurance programs, and it said it would explore more rational and convenient methods for people to use the programs.

To lower prescription costs, which have drawn much criticism, the government will promote a system of essential medicines for state-run hospitals, clinics and pharmacies. A list of essential drugs will be published this year.

Due to longstanding low government funding for state-run hospitals, which in many places only covers 10 percent of operating costs, doctors often aggressively prescribe expensive, sometimes unnecessary medicines and treatment, in order to make profits for the hospital.

This situation has meant high medical bills and corruption in the medical profession.

The reformers want to designate essential drugs, at controlled prices, to cut the cost of hospital services, while promising to increase funding to non-profit state-run hospitals and clinics, which account for 80 percent of medical institutions in China.

This forms part of the arduous reform of state-run hospitals to improve efficiency and quality. The plan said pilot work would be carried out this year in chosen hospitals, without giving details.

IMPROVING PRIMARY CARE, TRAINING

To improve primary health care facilities, China will give priority to construction of about 2,000 county-level hospitals so each county would have at least one hospital that was essentially in compliance with national standards.

The central government will fund the construction of 29,000 township hospitals this year and the upgrading of 5,000 township hospitals, under the plan.

The central government will also finance the construction of village clinics in remote areas so that every village will have a clinic in the next three years.

It said 3,700 community health centers and 11,000 community health stations would be set up or upgraded in cities.

Liu Xinmin, an official with the health ministry, said the plan is aimed at improving the medical service network at grassroots level so that patients do not have to travel far to see a doctor.

He said the distribution of hospital resources was extremely unbalanced at present, with about 80 percent of hospital resources in cities.

Even in places where village or township clinics are available, many patients opt for big hospitals in the city just because they do not trust local medics, he said.

In the next three years, China will train 1.37 million village doctors and 160,000 community doctors. Also, city-level hospitals, which usually have better expertise and equipment, will each be required to help three county-level hospitals to improve the skills of medics.

Doctors at city hospitals and disease control agencies will be asked to serve in rural hospitals for at least one year before they can be promoted.

Other measures include setting up a universal medical records database, which will be strictly managed, regular exams for those older than 65 or younger than three, and pre-natal check-ups.

In addition to programs to prevent or control major diseases such as tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, China will launch new projects to help those below the age of 15 receive hepatitis B vaccines, eliminate risks from coal-burning fluorine poisoning and improve rural water and sanitation facilities.

It will also provide folic acid to rural women who intend to get pregnant or are in the early stages of pregnancy, to prevent birth defects.

China Central Television, the state broadcaster, has been ordered to open a TV channel for health education.

According to the plan, China will increase investment in the public health service at a standard of 15 yuan per person a year in 2009, and 20 yuan by 2011. This translates to a huge investment of between 19.5 billion yuan and 26 billion yuan each year.

“Such investment is very necessary for China because people must understand that disease prevention and control will eventually help save more money,” Liu Xinmin said. “In China, many people become ill just because they don’t know how to prevent.”

Book review: Jenny Clegg - China’s Global Strategy: Towards a Multipolar World

[Review by Thomas Fenton]

Jenny Clegg’s superbly analytical book arrives at a critical historic moment. The US-dominated post-cold war world order is finding itself increasingly challenged in the context of the imperialist economic collapse and the quagmire into which the US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have descended.

This year will also mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China on 1 October 1949, following the Chinese people’s victorious struggle against Japanese imperialist occupation and the subsequent struggle waged under the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC) against US imperialism and domestic reactionaries. This constituted the greatest revolutionary achievement of the 20th century, following the October Revolution. China today is not only the world’s most populous nation, with 1.3 billion people, but also a country committed to socialism and the leading developing country.

This book’s chief contribution is to situate China’s internal development within the context of the rising developing world. The internal development issues that Clegg addresses include the economic and political, specifically, the recent transition from a strategy of “rapid growth at any cost” toward a “people first” and sustainable approach, which, she argues, must tackle such problems as social inequality, the consequences of mass rural migration into the cities, and environmental degradation.

Clegg also expresses support for China’s sovereignty in both Taiwan and Tibet, although she claims, without further elaboration or explanation, that in the latter case – a favourite issue for the ‘anti-China’ lobby in the UK and elsewhere – the government should nevertheless “modify” what she describes as “its top-down approach” as far as is realistically possible.

Relating China’s internal development to world developments, Clegg states that, since 1949, the country has maintained the view that “the primary conflict in the world is between imperialism and anti-imperialism, rather than capitalism and socialism”.

The end of the cold war “unleashed a new age of imperialism”, with the United States “emerging as the world’s sole superpower”, and China’s strategy in response to these historical developments constitutes a “Leninism for the twenty-first century”, according to Clegg.

Chinese foreign policy has, in fact, consistently allowed for cooperation between developing countries with differing social and political systems, as spelled out by Premier Zhou Enlai at the Afro-Asian Conference in Bandung, Indonesia in 1955, which Clegg sees as intrinsic to China’s current development of a “political strategy of counter-hegemonism”.

Clegg believes that the new ‘Chinese Leninism’, places the “Third World struggle for development” at the centre of world transformation, within which China pursues a new international political and economic order (NIPEO), envisioning nuclear disarmament/demilitarisation, and an increased regional level of multi-polar organisation. Such an order, argues Clegg, would further comprise an “equitable sharing of world markets”, finance oriented towards development, sustainable development, and a stabilised international monetary system.

Jenny Clegg is a distinguished academic and a lifelong friend of China and anti-imperialist, anti-war activist. There is a serious dearth of contemporary western scholarship that adopts a sympathetic but rigorous perspective towards the Chinese revolution and its domestic and external strategies. Whilst one may not necessarily agree with all her conclusions, Clegg’s book represents a serious and timely attempt to grapple with vital issues and therefore constitutes an important contribution to a much-needed debate.

If this book helps bring about a more advanced understanding of the contemporary features of imperialism, and the paramount importance to the communist and progressive movement of supporting China’s socialist construction and its foreign policy of independence and peace, then it will have served a valuable purpose.

Meeting report: Celebration of the 1959 defeat of the serf owners in Tibet

In March 1959 the victorious socialist forces proclaimed the end of serfdom in Tibet, bringing to an end a long history of feudal backwardness and imperialist meddling in this autonomous region of China. To commemorate this red letter day of the revolutionary calendar, members of the Hands Off China campaign held a meeting on 5th April in Bristol’s Malcolm X Centre.

The speaker reminded his audience of the 1904 invasion of Tibet by Britain and the subsequent transformation of Tibet’s serf army into a fifth column for meddling in China’s affairs. Despite the training and weaponry provided by Britain, this army proved no match for the patriotic forces of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). However, as the speaker went on to explain, it was the ability of the PLA to win the illiterate and downtrodden Tibetan masses over to the path of liberation which laid the foundations for the victory for the revolution in 1959. When the Dalai Lama tore up the agreement on peaceful reform to which he had earlier signed his name, inspiring the doomed military coup which precipitated the final rout of the serf-owners, feudalism signed its own death warrant. Released from centuries of slavery and serfdom, the labouring people of Tibet set off on the road to socialism, shoulder to shoulder with the other fifty five nationalities which together form the People’s Republic of China.

In response to some critical comments made in the ensuing frank and lively discussion, Hands Off China campaign activists explained why it was important for British people to support China. One explained that, by showing solidarity with socialist China when she was under attack by false propaganda, workers in Britain would strengthen their own struggles against imperialism at home. Another explained the importance of unifying many nationalities in a common struggle for progress by reference to his own homeland, Iran. A third, a Chinese student who wore his Young Communist League badge to the occasion, was able to supply much useful information about the efforts being made to transfer prosperity from the developed east of China to the less developed West, and helped dispel many of the myths about the pretended “national oppression” suffered by the Tibetan minority within China.

The chair concluded the meeting by thanking everyone for their participation and suggesting that a useful follow-up meeting could focus on the twentieth anniversary of the failed provocation against Chinese socialism in 1989, falsely branded the “Tienanmen Square Massacre” by those same forces of reaction which egged it on in the first place. These “big lies” put about by our own ruling class need to be challenged by workers in Britain.