Chinese Grassroots Living Situation in China Big Cities - Research Paper Example

Affiliation: Chinese Grassroots Living Situation in China Big Cities The Chinese Grassroots Culture is the one thatmainly focuses on studying the living situations of the people currently disadvantaged in China, comprising mainly of the peasant workers, the jobless outcasts, the low-paid white collars, the stay-at-home children, together with the inexperienced graduates of the universities who do not have interpersonal resources or any family background (Zhou 67). China being a country with an enormously large population in the entire world has been experiencing socio-political and economic organization over time, which is relative to the enormous number of citizens living in the cities. The country has a relatively large number of people that are extremely disadvantaged in the socio-political and socio-economic status, with their living condition being extremely poor. Despite the available social amenities and the improved social facilities through the urban cities, the grassroots population that comprises of mostly the peasant workers, have had little benefits to enjoy (Mars & Hornsby 129). The paper thus studies on the living conditions of these Chinese grassroots people, why they live in these situations, explaining the reason why China housing prices are much higher in big cities and measures the Chinese government is devising to change the situation. The Chinese grassroots is the groups are unfortunate individuals that live in the un-humanized society. The Chinese farmers are traditionally the most inferior in class, who are the ideal representatives of the Chinese grassroots. These grassroots groups live the hardest life and work the hardest in order to feed the other ‘brilliant’ people in the big cities (Wang & Murie 93). The Chinese farmers are the ones that cover the largest portion of the population in China and thus play a critical role towards promoting social development. The economic pressures force these grassroots people into moving to cities in search of better jobs, but instead end up working as peasant workers. These people end up living in destitute conditions, which even poses risks to their own health, in order to keep on surviving in cities (Nielsen & Smyth 65). The World Health governing bodies have able to raise concerns about the living conditions of these grassroots Chinese population, hence prompting the government to take some actions to solve the problem. It is apparent that a number of reasons contribute to the kind of living conditions that the Chinese grassroots have to live within these cities. The first challenge is the problems of housing, whereby the house prices have been increasing all round since many people started migrating to the cities (Glicksman & Lin 79). It thus prompts into asking why the house prices are much higher than it was before. The life for the Chinese grassroots remains to be a problem in these cities due to the profound divisions between the haves and the have-nots (Liang, 89). Individuals such as the poor farmers, unemployed youths, graduates, destitute children among other disadvantaged social groups struggle to find accommodation and other basic needs such as food and water (OBrien & Lianjiang, 133). Despite the fact that this group contributes to the development of the China’s economy, they have continuously been a victim of disgrace by the conditions of their economic and social life. The problems with rising housing costs in the cities arise from the land issues. Thirty years after some major revolutions were subject to undergo in rural areas, the communes became subject to break up with the Household Responsibility System reinstituted on family farming, instead of reinstituting on property rights. As many peasants are migrating to cities, the Cadres and the peasants start contending over land rights, with the growing income gaps existing between urban and rural areas ending up to fuel discontent, whereby the cities resist were extending municipal services to the rural migrants. Basing on the recent decision of the Third Plenum shows, the Chinese leaders are thus confronting the issue of a land problem with great cautiousness. The Plenum decision similarly gives the suggestion that socially contentious issues of land that have been boiling in many places will continue for many years to come (Fewsmith 3). Despite the rising issues of land and housing prices in Chinese cities, a number of possible measures exist of which the Chinese government may put in place to help solve some of these issues. The expansion of the scope of grassroots democracy remains to be an inevitable trend and serving as an important base of which improvement and development of the political democracy within China (Zhao 113). Coming alongside development and progress of China’s economy, the scope of the grassroots democracy in both urban and rural areas has been a matter of continuous expansion, with more channels emphasizing on the ever-increasing ways that aim at realizing democracy. As an initiative of solving issues that grassroots Chinese encounter, the government is building the Grassroots political democracy in rural areas, making on the political freedom in urban communities, and building on system of the conference of all workers and staff (Perry & Goldman 121). Bernstein and Lu (2000) also discuss on how China’s countryside has been undergoing tremendous changes through the past few decades. On the contrary, the benefits that came with these changes were not subject to even distribution. The rapid rural industrialization through the Easter, the coastal provinces operating under the aegis of the local developmental states were able to improve the lives of the villagers. On the contrary, the township and village enterprises and the incomes saw a slow growth through the Central belt of provinces; with more slow growth witnessed in the Western belt (Logan 173). Since agriculture served as the primary resource, the rural government had no option but to start relying on extraction of taxes and fees from the peasants so that it may help meet the expenses and be able to carry out developmental programs. Amid facing issues of global financial crisis together with its impacts on the Chinese economy, the Chinese Party leadership also embarked on land reform plans as ways of averting problems related to the Chinese grassroots living conditions (Wu 39). The reform plans gave the promise of giving farmers more rights and the market incentives that would thus encourage them into subcontracting and transferring land, thus providing incentives to the surplus rural laborers into moving to the urban areas. The impetus behind such reforms was to allow the government to acquire land that these immigrants left the rural areas, which the government would use in producing agricultural products and be able to ensure food security for its citizens (Hsing & Lee 219). The impetus of this incentive was able to reduce the income gap between urban and rural areas, as many people could utilize on these land resources to increase their agricultural output (Cheng 3). The negative consequence of this reform is that it only offers temporary solution to the Chine grassroots population, who would still go back to their poverty status upon spending all the finances they received from leasing or transferring their rural land to the government. China’s government has also instituted grassroots political reforms with the aim of forestalling democracy at the national level. The government is promoting basic-level reforms, such as engaging in the election of village heads and the village committees with the intention of reviving the party’s local authority (Xing & Weiqiang 381). All of this is in hope of prolonging the survival of the Communist party-state. Upon reviving the political state of the rural areas, the government had hoped that reliable solutions would be subject to achieve in that the rural economies may benefit from the national resources and hence allowing decentralization of resources (Perry & Goldman 119). As a result, the economic gap between the rural and the town dwellers would reduce, hence reducing the impact of rural to urban migration. In the end, this strategy would help in reducing the challenges resulting from the Chinese grassroots living conditions. Another significant political reform of which the government has been able to implement since 1989 as a solution to the Chinese grassroots problems is the introduction of competitive elections through the local villages. China’s efforts in bringing competitive elections to the country’s rural areas proved to be successful in some places more than in other areas. The elected village elders would aid the national government through reporting popular opinions and proposals directly to the federal government, helping in maintaining social order and meditating in the civil disputes (Thurston 43). The intention of such political reforms was to ensure that the informal institution were of maximum accountability, followed by enhancing decentralization of the local governmental performance through assessing on the public goods provisions (Tsai 59). In conclusion, the plight of which the Chinese grassroots face is real and still exists in the current state of the Chinese economy. Grassroots people live particularly in poor conditions. Rationally, an increase in population leads to a rise in social problems; thus, poor living conditions are not subject to exemption. Consequently, it is apparent that some of these problems have been subject to facilitate by the wrong government moves, some such as coarse land reforms and lack of control in the housing sector. There is little progress reported towards taking care of the housing needs of the grassroots who happens to form the largest portion of the Chinese citizens. Alternatively, the government could engage in more working solution such as building better houses for the residents and charge fewer fees. If these are subject to implement, the country’s largest social group of the grassroots shall enjoy good living conditions. Works Cited Bernstein, T P, and X Lu. "Taxation Without Representation: Peasants, the Central and the Local States in Reform China." China Quarterly London. (2000): 742-763. Print. 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