Research center depicts China utopia in 2050
(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2006-02-08 16:29

No poverty and child labor; a life expectancy of above 80; everyone entitled to medical insurance and unemployment benefits; and the lowest monthly salary surpassing US$1300...

A dream you say? Well, that's what a research paper is depicting what China will look like in 2050.

China will undergo two social transformations before that year. The transformation will lead to a complete change of Chinese people's conventions and lifestyle cultivated from 5000 year ago. Social interests and roles will be totally reversed, according to a research paper released by a Chinese modernization research center.

The paper said during the first stage of the 50-year span (2000-2050), China is to transform from an agricultural society to an industrial one, and from a rural society to an urban one. In the second stage, the country will go from an industrial society into an information-based one and from an urban society to a balanced urban-rural one with suburban characteristics.

But the paper didn't elaborate on how long the first and second periods would last.

The goal in 50 years is to raise the urban-rural ratio to 80:20 and the urban-suburban ratio to 50-50, the paper said.

The basic task during the first period is aimed at gathering enough resources to reach the 80-percent urban percentage and to hauling the amount of the information to hit 80% and to allow more than half of the Chinese people to go abroad for a visit. Other goals are to have 50 percent of Chinese households own autos and make education compulsory above the age of 17.

During the second period, the basic tasks will target reducing agricultural labor by 5 percent and production field labor by 2 percent, while raising information industry labor by 3 percent.