Peter Wilson

A guest blog, from Alex(andra) Needham, at our Consulate General in Chongqing

 

Yesterday I revisited Shuangxi village on the outskirts of urban Chongqing, where our Foreign Secretary David Miliband went in February 2008 to see a slice of rural China.  It is not rural any more. Eighteen months later, the old village was gone. On the hillside behind, a new district of high-rise modern apartment buildings had been built. Street lighting was provided by solar panels and fairly large numbers of old farmers sat around, watching the world go by.

Villagers told us the old village was to be redeveloped for tourism. They had been asked to rent their land to a co-operative for an annual income of 1700 RMB per household member (about £170). This process is an integral part of Chongqing's Balanced Urban-Rural Development pilot project: farmers are encouraged to rent their land use rights to large scale co-operatives to boost development in rural areas. The co-operatives often provide job opportunities as well as as an additional rental income.

We met with one farmer whom we had last seen in February 2008. From living in an old stone house with almost no modern conveniences 18 months before, he and his family now occupied a 120m2 brand new apartment in a high-rise block. The flat was furnished with newly-bought modern furniture and appliances (TV, electric fan, water cooler, telephone).  He said he was now too old (late 50s) to work as a migrant worker - no one would employ him. He spent his days walking around the compound and chatting with neighbours. He said his life was better now - it was easier as he had to do less physical labour. But he did worry about money, and that his economic power couldn't keep up with the new lifestyle he now found himself in. His wife and daughter both worked in urban Chongqing.  Previously food was free, but now with no land he had to pay for it.

Other villagers we spoke to thought their lives were getting better. One shopkeeper said the gap between urban and rural incomes was fair. All depended on the kind of lifestyle you chose. He and his wife had worked as migrant workers in Guangdong for 11 years, but migrant worker life was physically tough. They had decided to return home to their village for a quieter, easier life. Business was good with lots of construction work in the village. There was now little difference in wages between a migrant's salary in Guangdong and what they could earn in rural Chongqing. The government was also giving rural people more subsidies (pension, rural medical insurance).  This should help to achieve two key Government aims - reducing disparities, and boosting consumption.  It will also give more people a better life.

Posted at 13:43 29 September 2009 by Peter Wilson  |  Comments[0]

60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights

Today is the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights.  That is a cause for celebration everywhere, and there is widespread acceptance that these are universal values, not the values of one country or region.

In China there has been  impressive  progress on economic and social rights in the last thirty years.  Premier Wen and the Prime Minister reconfirmed their commitment to the Millennium Development Goals in New York this September, and China's progress on poverty reduction is remarkable.  But this progress is is not yet matched on political rights.   

We value the dialogue we have with the Chinese government on these issues, bilaterally and through the EU, and will continue to look for opportunities to work together on projects where we can make a difference. The debate about progress on human rights need not be a confrontational one between governments.   And greater transparency in particular usually leads to greater understanding.  In China, experiment and pilots are common.  There are quite a few in this field: when they work they  are often replicated by others, and sometimes on a national scale.

Our big hope is that China will ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights that it signed several years ago.  The ICCPR protects individual freedoms, including freedom of expression and freedom of belief.  These sorts of protections can strengthen rather than undermine social stablity.  

I've blogged before about death penalty reform.  There has been some movement in China, although more transparency would be welcome, and the EU continues to oppose the use of the death penalty, in particular for non-violent crimes (the ICCPR also calls for the death penalty to be limited to 'the most serious crimes').  There has been significant movement on this globally - very few countries now actually apply the death penalty, and the number is falling all the time.  Many leading judicial officials think this day will come in China - but not for some time.

Posted at 12:15 10 December 2008 by Peter Wilson  |  Comments[1]