Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Is wealth trickling down to the poor?

Yes, said the China Law Blog, quoting some figures from the China Daily.
According to China's National Tourism Administration, 60 percent of urban tourists, or 107 million, chose rural tourist destinations during the week long May Day holiday. And rural residents are cashing in.
In the Laoshan District of Qingdao in East China's Shandong Province, "252 rural households made a total income of 880,000 yuan ($114,338) in the seven days" while in the countryside areas of Sichuan, Guizhou, Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces, "nearly 10,000 yuan ($1,299) [was earned] per household.
While there will be of course a certain amount of money be trickling down, the figures indeed sound not realistic and the whole tone is in this "harmonious society" style that should make everybody very suspicious about this article.
In general, the golden rule for news from these propaganda media is that only bad news about China might be true.

Update: Just an additional thought. I just cannot imagine a lot of Shanghainese spending their holiday watching poor people. They think very badly about these country people and need their wealthy life in the city.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I gave an equivical yes, as I too think the statistics are way out of whack. Yet, some wealth has to trickle.