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Letters and Blogs
(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-11-02 07:37
A broader base of national economy The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) of China recently announced that the private sector would be taken into account for its annual survey of average wages. An official release from the NBS stated that private enterprises' employees get only 58.4 percent of average pay of those working in the public sector. Nevertheless, inclusion of private enterprises doesn't necessarily make the data convincing. On one hand, the sample pool has to cover the entire private sector. Any half-way sampling would definitely undermine the survey's creditability. On the other hand, local governments' performances are largely evaluated with statistics. As a result, the data collected by local officials might be questionable. In order to rebuild the credibility of official data, three steps need to be taken. First, in order to root out false reports, it is necessary to evaluate officials' performance on various aspects. Second, it will remove people's doubts if statistics departments make public all the enterprises included in the survey. Third, besides wages, a reliable data of per capita income should include workers' benefits and bonuses, too. Wang Chuantao http://topper008.blog.sohu.com Value of life, virtue of students On Oct 24, three students from Yangtze University in Jingzhou, Hubei province sacrificed their lives to save two boys. They reportedly jumped into the water and joined hands with eleven other students to form a human chain in order to pull the two kids out of the turbulent currents. But they never came back. When the tragic news came, many people paid their respects to the three heroes through Internet. Some, however, raised the controversial argument that the price was too much. A similar instance occurred in the 1980s. It had sparked a huge controversy at that time when Zhang Hua, a student of the Fourth Military Medical University, laid down his life to save a peasant. The debate over worthy or unworthy will never come to a conclusion. The only thing certain is the principle that life is the highest good. But let me approach the question on a deeper level. The value of one's life can also be escalated to higher moral value by cherishing others' lives. After all, the past is gone, and the future is not likely to follow the same track. What we should do is stop quarrelling and care for the heroes' families. Zhang Lei http://blog.lnd.com.cn Readers' comments are welcome. Please send mail to Letters to the Editor, China Daily, 15 Huixin Dongjie, Chaoyang District, Beijing, 100029 China. Send faxes to (86-10) 6491-8377. Send e-mail to opinion@chinadaily.com.cn or letters@chinadaily.com.cn or to the individual columnists. China Daily reserves the right to edit all letters. Thank you. (China Daily 11/02/2009 page4) |
