Editorials

Op-Ed Contributors

Chinese Press

Columnists

LETTERS

Bias without basis

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-07-02 07:47

Everybody is created equal, but it is unrealistic, and even unreasonable, to expect that everybody should be equal in everything.

Yet that does not mean rural residents should be paid, by the government, lower amounts of compensation than their urban counterparts for death or injuries in traffic or workplace accidents.

In South China's Guangdong province, the relevant provision lays down that an urban resident will get at the most 760,000 yuan in compensation for his or her death in traffic accident, but his or her rural counterpart will get 250,000 yuan at the most. The difference, and the discrimination, appears staggering.

The stipulation adopted early this year touched off a heated discussion on the controversial issue. While discussing or criticizing the stipulation, it is necessary to bear in mind how the compensation criterion was set.

The Supreme People's Court's interpretation of the issue in 2004 is that such compensation should be based on the local urban residents' average disposable income in the previous year or that of rural residents, and such sum shall be paid over 20 years to the family of a victim.

This is obviously the principle on which Guangdong's compen-sation rule is based. We can hardly say that this stipulation is totally unreasonable. Behind it lies the cruel reality that the annual average disposable income of urban residents is indeed two or three times higher than that of their rural counterparts.

The compensation law adopted in 1994 stipulates that damages equal to 20 times the average income of residents in the previous year should be paid to anyone whose death is caused by traffic or workplace or other accidents.

In reality, victims in different regions are paid differently as the disposable income differs across regions. Such differences are not, of course, as great as that between rural and urban residents. The emphasis on industrial development over decades has resulted in the long-standing income disparity between rural and urban residents. This has made the issue even more sensitive.

Should the very identity of rural residents - in terms of their location -- be made a label that puts them at a disadvantage in everything, even in the matter of compensation for death? Of course, not, for death is said to be a great leveler.

That a ranking official of the National People's Congress is reported to have expressed support for a uniform system of compensation on Monday led to the assumption that the stipulation in national law may be revised to end the controversy once and for all.

It is the history of the country's development strategy that has placed rural residents in an unfavorable position against their urban counterparts in many ways. How to bridge this gap has been a matter of great concern for the central government. In fact, the future of this country will be determined by policies that address the issue in all its dimensions.

It is important that victims should not be discriminated against on grounds of being rural or urban residents, but treated as citizens equal in the eyes of the law. That is the fundamental issue.

(China Daily 07/02/2009 page8)