The 2005 second issue of the magazine "Human Rights" publishes an article titled "Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in China." Its full text is as follows:

In recent years, China has adopted a range of legislative, judicial and administrative measures to promote and protect the economic, social and cultural rights of the Chinese people, and its achievements in this regard have aroused worldwide attention. The country has by now developed a complete system of legislation that serves the purpose. This system takes the Constitution as the core and consists of a full range of laws including the Labor Law and Education Law.

Right to Work

China attaches great importance to the right of the citizen to work. Under protection in accordance with the law are the rights of the laborer to employment and selection of jobs on an equal basis, vocational and job skill training, enumeration for work, rest and vacationing, and labor safety and hygienic protection.

The government has always regarded employment as most essential to the people's livelihood. It takes promotion of employment as a strategic task for China's economic and social development.

Control over the rate of unemployment and increase of employment are major targets for the country's macro-economic regulation and,as such, are made a part of the state planning for national economic and social development. In recent years, the government has followed a string of proactive employment policies. These

include a macro-economic policy that calls for increasing employment in step with the growth of the national economy; a policy of assistance focused on helping workers laid off from state-owned enterprises get re-employed; a labor market policy aimed at making the supply of labor commensurate to the availability of jobs; a macro-regulation policy aimed at reducing unemployment and ensuring social stability; and a social security policy to ensure a basic living standard for the unemployment by promoting employment.

Significant progress has been made in employment-related work, thanks to implementation of these proactive employment policies.

The country's employment service system has undergone a constant improvement. At the end of 2003, some 26,000 job agencies were operating across the country, including 18,000 public agencies runby government organs of labor and social security. These had provided employment services to more than 20 million people every year, and had helped half of them find jobs. In the first 11 months of 2004, there was a year-on-year increase of nine million in the number of employed urban people, and 4.6 million laid-off workers got re-employed. By the end of November 2004, the number of laid-off workers had been reduced to 1.53 million. Included were one million registered at re-employment service centers, where they were entitled to subsistence pay and had had social insurance fees paid by their former employers. At the end of 2004, the nationwide registered urban unemployment rate was 4.2%, which was 0.1 percentage point lower than a year ago.

The state has adopted a variety of measures to develop job training, in a bid to help laborers enhance their ability for work. At the end of 2003, 3,167 vocational schools were operating across China, which had a combined enrollment of 1.93 million, 400,000 more than a year ago. They also provided job training to some 2.27 million people not enrolled as their students, a year-on-year increase of 8.8%. Government-run job training centers numbered 3, 465, and non-government job training agencies, 19,139, which together provided training to 11.66 million people, 8.8% more than in 2002. Altogether, 5.49 million laid-off and unemployed workers received job training in 2003, and preparatory labor training was provided to 1.26 million urban senior and junior high school graduates who had been unable to enter schools of the next higher levels. In 2004, the government launched a training program to produce 500,000 skilled workers in three years. Another program launched by the government in 2004 was meant to bring forth a contingent of badly needed high-caliber workers. The on-going Sunlight Program aims at preparing surplus rural laborers for non-rural, non-agricultural jobs.

"To each according to his work" and "equal pay for equal work" is the guiding principle for China's wage system, suggesting that this system is free from sexual, racial and ethnic discrimination of any form. Wages and salaries are paid in cash on a monthly basis and to the laborer in person, which must on no account be pocketed, or held in arrears without a proper reason. A set of government regulations on minimum wages has been strictly enforced,with a view to ensuring a basic living standard for laborers and their families. The government has intensified the effort to ensure full repayment of the wages for farmer-workers that have been pocketed or held in arrears by their employers. In early 2004, it published the Provisional Regulations on Payment of Wages for Farmer-Workers in the Construction Industry, which were put into effect without delay. Wages due in 2003 had largely been repaid by June and by December 3, 32.2 billion yuan in wages held in arrears over the years had been repaid, accounting for nearly 96% of the total.

The right of the laborer to rest and vacationing is effectively guaranteed. A fairly complete system of legislation is in place for the purpose, which consists of the Labor Law and State Council regulations on the number of work hours per day and the number of work days per week, home leaves and national and public holidays.

This system has undergone constant improvement in step with the country's economic and social development.

Under Chinese laws, a worker shall not work longer than eight hours per day and 40 hours per week on an average. The employer shall have to consult the union and the worker before deciding to extend the work hours. Normally, the extension shall not be longer than one hour per day, and under some exceptional circumstances, shall not be longer than three hours per day and 36 hours per month. Moreover, there must be extra pay for working extra hours.

The laborer shall enjoy statutory holidays and annual, wedding and funeral leaves with pay. Those separated from their spouses or parents shall be entitled to home leaves with pay. After giving birth to a baby, women employees shall have a maternity leave with pay, which is not shorter than 90 days.

The Chinese government attaches great importance to occupational safety and health, for which stringent legal responsibilities are fixed in laws such as the Law on Safety in Production and the Law on Safety in Mining. Since 2001, nationwide campaigns have been launched to ensure safety in coal mining, safe handling of dangerous chemicals and fire prevention and control in overcrowded public places. Large numbers of small factories and mines, business outlets and transport vehicles have been ordered to cease to operate for being unable to ensure safety. These include 15,400 small coal mines and 23,700 non-coal mines where conditions of production were dangerous, as well as more than 20,000 chemical works without adequate resources for the disposal of dangerous chemicals. The country's production safety supervision and administration system was restructured in 2003, in such a way as to enable the National Bureau of Production Safety Supervision and Administration to take on the overall responsibility. Central government departments and local governments, on their part, improved their work in this regard. The move ushered in a production safety control system characterized by vertical leadership with the responsibility affixed to governments of each level. In the first nine months of 2004, 607,000 casualty accidents were reported across the country, 120,000 or 16.92% down from the same period of 2003. A total of 98,809 deaths were caused in the 2004 accidents, 245 or 0.25% less. Coal mining accidents numbered 2,796, resulting in 4,153 deaths. The number of accidents went down 8% and the number of deaths, 13.17% though the country's coal output increased to nearly 200 million tons.

Right to Social Security

The Amendment to the Constitution adopted in March 2004 obliges the state to "establish and improve the system of social security commensurate to the level of the economic development." Far back in the mid-1980s, the Chinese government began developing this system as the country started the market-oriented economic reforms.

Currently, the system covers social insurance, social welfare, favorable treatment and pensions for disabled service people and families of revolutionary martyrs, social relief and housing guarantee.

Social insurance is the core of the social security system, consisting of insurance against old age, insurance against unemployment, medical insurance, insurance against industrial injuries and maternity insurance. In 1997, the country instituted a unified system of insurance against old system under the principle of combining packaged insurance with individual accounts, which by November 2004 had come to cover 161.95 million retirees to become the largest of its kind in the world. Basic old-age pensions paid during the first 11 months of 2004 amounted to 274.3 billion yuan in total, meaning that such pensions had been paid on time and in full across the country. Some 33.5 million retirees from state-owned enterprises, or 91.7% of the total, have come to be insured against old age. In 1999, the State Council published the Regulations Concerning Insurance against Unemployment. By the end of November 2004, 104.5 million people had been insured against unemployment, among whom 7.42 million had received compensations. China began in 1998 reforming its medical insurance system. The system has by and large been restructured, in such a way as to take basic medical care for all as the core, supplemented by medical subsidies to public servants, subsidies to medical expenses in big sums and supplementary medical insurance by enterprises. By the end of November 2004, 121.93 million people had come to be insured for medical care. In September 2004, farmer-workers in Beijing officially became beneficiaries of the local basic medical insurance system under a decision of the Beijing Municipal People's Government.

The Chinese government has worked hard to develop a system of insurance against industrial injuries, which combines insurance for prevention of, compensation for and rehabilitation from such injuries. The Regulations Concerning Insurance against Industrial Injuries, which became effective for implementation in January 2004, oblige all enterprises, including individually-owned enterprises with hired laborers, to pay for getting all their employees and hired laborers insured against industrial injuries.

By the end of November 2004, 65.16 million people had been insured against industrial injuries, including 450,000 who had received compensations. In 1988, some regions were designated to pilot a reform in China's birth insurance system. By the end of November 2004, the system had come to cover 43.44 million people.

China is making positive efforts to institutionalize insurance against old age, cooperative medical services and social relief in the countryside, home to nearly 70% of the 1.3 billion Chinese. Since the 1990s, a system of insurance against old aged has been tried out in some rural areas with policy privileges given by the government, under which individuals contribute the bulk of the funding and rural collectives provide necessary subsidies. By the end of November 2004, funds for such insurance had exceeded 30 billion yuan and the number of people insured had grown to 52 million, including 2.3 million who were receiving old age pensions. Work began in 2002 to institute a cooperative system of medical insurance against serious diseases, which is now being experimented in 310 counties and county-level cities in 30 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions on the Chinese mainland. By June 2004, the system, supported by funds totaling 3.021 billion yuan, had come to cover 68.99 million rural residents and 1.394 billion yuan paid for medical services had been reimbursed.

The Chinese government spares no effort to promote social welfare undertakings to the benefit of senior citizens, orphans and the disabled. Under laws on protection of the aged, disabled and juveniles, welfare homes shall be set up in cities to house senior citizens, disabled people and orphans who are unable to make a living by themselves and without relatives to depend on. In the countryside, such people shall be cared for either at welfare homes or by individual families with allowances provided by local governments. Currently, China has 38,000 homes for the aged. With a total of 1.129 million beds, averaging one for every 1,000 aged 60 or older. In 2001, the Starlight Program was kicked off to develop community-based homes for the aged, which involved a total investment of 13.49 billion yuan. More than 54,000 orphans and abandoned children are being cared for at welfare institutes, and many times more are given help at rehabilitation centers and centers for education of mentally retarded children. At the end of 2003, 2.59 million disabled people rated as living below the poverty line had come to be ensured of a minimum living standard, 442,000 were cared for at welfare institutes, and 2.46 million had received relief money.

The government policy is one of ensuring a minimum living standard for urban people living below the poverty line, providing relief to people in disaster-afflicted areas, and giving help to vagrants and beggars. At the end of 2003, 22.47 million city people were receiving subsistence allowances, which amounted to 15.6 billion yuan. Also in 2003, governments at various levels earmarked 5.31 billion yuan for disaster relief. In 2004, the central government earmarked 3.2 billion yuan to supplement the disaster relief money earmarked by local governments. On August 1, 2003, a set of government regulations on helping vagrants and beggars in cities became effective for implementation. By the end of 2003, 210,000 people had received help from 909 centers specially set up for the purpose.

Right to an Appropriate Living Standard

In China's official terminology, an "adequate living standard" refers to access to adequate food, clothing and housing.

Incomes have grown constantly for China's urban and rural residents along with a rapid development of the national economy. In 2004, disposable incomes averaged 9,422 yuan for each member of the urban population, a year-on-year increase of 7.7% in real terms. Net incomes averaged 2,936 yuan per capita for the rural population. The figure represented a year-on-year increase of 6.8%.

Also in 2004, the country's total retail sales were computed at 5.395 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10.2% in real terms. The Chinese people's diet structure and nutrition have improved significantly, resulting in a constant decrease in the incidence of malnutrition and undernourishment. Spending of families on food, clothing and other essentials are accounting for an ever smaller proportion to their total consumption, while the proportion is rising constantly for cars, homes, medical care and cultural and recreational activities. The Engel Coefficient, the proportion of the spending by families on food to their total consumer spending, dropped by 0.6 percentage points from 2002 for both the urban and rural population. It was computed at 37.1% for the urban population, down from 54.2% in 1990; for the rural population, it went down from 58.8% to 45.6% during the same 1990-2003 period. At the end of 2003, China had 4.89 million private cars, 140,000 more than a year ago. Subscribers to fixed and mobile telephone services numbered 532 million, a year-on-year increase of 112 million -- the fastest-ever growth the world had witnessed in terms of both the number of subscribers and business volume of telephone services. By January 19, 2005, China's Internet population had grown to 94 million, the second largest in the world.

Conditions of housing and living environment have improved remarkably for both urban and rural residents, thanks to the ongoing reform to commercialize housing distribution. Back in 1994, work began to push the system of public accumulation funding for housing construction. By the end of 2003, the system had involved 60.45 million employees in cities and the funding had snowballed to 556.3 billion yuan by now, from which 174.3 billion yuan had been drawn for purchase of housing by its contributors or upon their retirement. Besides, banks had lent 234.3 billion yuan to 3.27 million home buyers. In 1998, the government decided to encourage the building of housing affordable to the average wage earner while affording sufficient comfort and convenience. By 2003, construction had been completed on 477 million square meters of what is known as "housing inexpensive while good for practical use.

" Also in 1998, work began to promote a low-rent housing system in Chinese cities to the benefit of poor families with overcrowded space to live in, and right now, the system has been instituted in 35 large and medium-sized cities. Living space now averages 23.7 square meters for city dwellers and 27.2 square meters for rural residents. A vast majority of China's rural residents are now using natural gas or liquefied gas for cooking, and people's spending on furniture, home furnishing and domestic appliances has multiplied over the years.

While working hard to improve the life of the Chinese people in general, the government attaches paramount importance to helping those in dire poverty earn enough to feed and clothe themselves.

Its poverty alleviation effort has been acclaimed as a brilliant success. From 1978 to the end of 2004, China reduced the number of poverty-stricken rural people from 250 million to 26 million, an exploit described by James Morris, executive secretary of the WFP, as a "miracle in human history."

Right to Health

China has, over the decades, developed a network of medical and health work that covers both town and countryside, which testifies to the importance attached by the government to citizens' physical and mental health. At the end of 2003, there were 305,000 hospitals and clinics across the country, which together had 2.9 million beds and 4.24 million doctors and nurses. Besides, there were 3,600 sanitation and anti-epidemic centers with a combined technical staff of 159,000, and 755 quarantine inspection stations with a combined technical staff of 15,000. In the countryside, 45,000 clinics were operating at the township level, which together had 668,000 beds and a medical staff of 907,000. At present, the country has 2,868 hospitals of traditional Chinese medicine, with a total of 280,000 beds and 270,000 licensed practitioners. Most general hospitals operate subdivisions of traditional Chinese

medicine and traditional medical and health services are available at nearly 90% of the community-based health centers. The life expectancy of the Chinese people now averages 72 years, against 35 years before the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.

The number of maternity and child-care centers increased from nine in 1949 to 3,067 in 2002. In the countryside, 97.2% of the babies were delivered at hospitals or with help of trained midwives. Thanks to these, the country's maternity death rate dropped from 1,500 per 100,000 to 43.2 per 100,000 during the 1949-2002 period. There were 37 children's hospitals in the country in 2001, in contrast to only five in 1949. The number of beds in children's hospitals increased from 139 to 9,907 during the same period, and the number of doctors specializing pediatrics, from just a few to nearly 66,000. An immunology vaccination program has been going on since the mid-1980s, along with work to promote prevention and treatment of child TB, diarrhea, rickets and iron-deficiency anemia, along with work to encourage breastfeeding, monitoring of children's growth, screening of children's diseases and early education of children. In 2001, 98.2% of the Chinese children were vaccinated against diphtheria, whooping cough and tetanus; 97.72%, against measles; and 98.32%, against polio.

Moreover, 97.59% of the Chinese children received BCG vaccines. In 2002, the infantile mortality rate was 28.4 per thousand, down from 200 per thousand before 1949. In 2004, boys and girls aged between three and 18 were 3.3 centimeters taller than those of the same age group in 1992.

In 1990, China set up a national system for monitoring diseases. Of the 668 cities on the Chinese mainland, more than 400 had, by the end of 2003, set up systems for monitoring air quality. Altogether, 145 diseases monitoring stations had been set up in the 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, which placed more than 10 million people under regular surveillance. Air quality and diseases monitoring stations had been done simultaneously in 28 cities. There have also been programs to ensure the supply of potable water in the countryside. More than

30,000 experts specialize in prevention and treatment of occupational diseases, testifying to the progress China has made in setting up a nationwide system for the purpose.

Before the 1950s, acute epidemic and endemic diseases were main threats to the health of the Chinese people. By the late 1960s, the country had effectively brought under control killer diseases such as smallpox, cholera, the plague, relapsing fever, typhus and black fever, and had by and large wiped out polio, diphtheria, whooping cough and measles. By 2000, it had attained the target of wiping out the iodine deficiency disease. Also worth mentioning is the fact that areas affected by the Kaschin-Beck disease, Keshan disease and fluorine poisoning had kept dwindling in size. Of the 413 counties and county-level cities and rural districts where snail fever used to be rampant, 234 had, by the end of 2000, wiped out the disease completely or basically.

In response to a SARS (serious acute respiratory syndrome) attack on China in the first half of 2003, the government issued the Regulations Concerning the Handling of Public Health Emergencies and the Methods of Administering the Prevention and Treatment of SARS. A total of 10 billion yuan was earmarked for the purchase of medical equipment, drugs and protective articles that were needed in the fight against SARS and also for renovation of hospitals to facilitate the treatment of SARS. SARS patients were allowed free treatment if they were rural residents or urban residents rated as living below the poverty line. Thanks to these and other measures, the SARS death rate was brought down to 6.5%, well below the world's average that stood at 9%.

China attaches great importance to prevention and treatment of AIDS. Testifying to this are the State Council's regular meetings that coordinate work nationwide for prevention and treatment of AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases (STD). To be precise, the meetings are charged with the task of overseeing the implementation of a long and medium-term program (1998-2010) and a short-term program (2001-2005) for prevention and treatment of AIDS. Currently, the country has 840,000 HIV carriers, including 80,000 AIDS patients. In the four years beginning 2003, the government is investing 1.75 billion yuan in the programs. Anti-HIV drugs are distributed free of charge among rural residents and also among city people living below the poverty line. In areas with a high incidence, anonymous AIDS testing is being done free of charge, along with free screening of pregnant women for pre-birth obstruction of AIDS, and children orphaned by AIDS patients enjoy exemption of tuition to ensure their schooling. Henan Province, central China, is a typical case in point. In 2004, a total of 120 million yuan was earmarked from the central and provincial government budgets for prevention and treatment of AIDS.

In the 38 "SARS villages" in the province, health files have been set up for all residents, and all the 3,723 SARS patients are receiving free treatment and all the 6,705 people with HIV tested positive have been given free opportune infectious treatment. Moreover, 93 pregnant women have undergone pre-birth obstruction of AIDS.

Right to Education

The state spares no effort to ensure that all citizens shall enjoy the right to education. Since 1998, there has been an increase of one percentage point each year over the previous year in the proportion assumed by education to the total expenditures under the central government budget. That increase alone means a total of 48.9 billion yuan in extra central government spending on education. In 2002, educational spending covered by both the central and local government budgets accounted for 3.4% of the country's gross domestic product (GDP), which exceeded the corresponding figure for any of the previous years.

China practices the nine-year compulsory education to make primary and junior high schooling available to all children. At the end of 1998, administrative areas that had achieved the targets of making nine-year compulsory education universally available and the target of basically wiping out illiteracy among adults covered 91.8% of the Chinese population. To be precise, 2,659 counties and cities had made nine-year compulsory education universally available, and the rate of illiteracy had been brought down to 5% for adult Chinese. In 2003, 98.65% of the school-age children were in school. Some 92.7% of the primary school graduates were able to continue their study at junior middle schools. There were 31,900 schools for senior high education, including senior middle schools and vocational schools for either junior middle school graduates or adults. Some 43.8% of the junior middle school graduates were able to continue their study at senior middle schools. The country had 14,800 vocational schools, which had a combined enrollment of 12.54 million.

In 2003, China had 1,552 schools of higher learning, including universities and colleges. Higher learning institutions of all types were able to accommodate a student population of 19 million.

Schools of higher learning enrolled 3.822 million students for undergraduate courses, 617,000 more than in the previous year, and 269,000 students were enrolled for graduate courses, an increase of 66,000 over 2002. These figures suggest that higher education is becoming universal in China, and that the country has to its credit the largest higher education system in the world. There were 70,000 private schools across the country, with a combined enrollment of 14.16 million. Moreover, 74.36 million people had, by 2003, completed their training at adult schools.

The state does its best to ensure schooling for children in poverty-stricken families. Since 2001, the state has earmarked 200 million yuan a year for distribution of free textbooks among children from such families in underdeveloped areas. A total of 2.45 million primary school children and junior middle school students have already benefited from the program, even though it is still in the experimental stage. The Spring Bud Program has been going on for 15 years under the auspices of the Chinese Children's Fund, in the course of which 600 million yuan in donations has been collected and some 300 "Spring Bud" schools have been set up with the money. Thanks to the program, 1.5 million school dropouts have returned to school.

Some 2.4 million college students are from poverty-stricken families, accounting for one fifth of the student population. The government allows them a string of policy privileges to help them tide over their financial difficulties, including those for scholarships, student loans, work-study programs, reduction and exemption of tuition and temporary or regular relief for students in extremely difficult conditions. Since 2002, state scholarships have been provided to students who excel morally and intellectually, for which the central government earmarks 200 million yuan every year. In September 2004, the General Affairs Office of the State Council issued a circular, obliging the authorities of education and schools at all levels to carry these policies to the letter while improving the collection of school fees to reduce the financial burden on students and their families.

The right of farmer-workers' children to education is effectively protected in accordance with law. In a circular issued in 2003, the State Council set a whole range of regulations to this effect. Local governments have since then formulated methods for implementation of these regulations in light of local conditions. In Beijing, the Chinese capital, the authorities had, by October 2004, approved the establishment of 23 schools for farmer-workers' children, and 214,000 such children had been admitted into government-run schools. (More>>>)