The “Surprises” of Public Opinion Surveys
Public opinion surveys have had profound influence on the study of regime resilience in China. Sometimes these surveys challenge long-existing beliefs about political and social realities. Below I will mention five controversial and provocative findings in Chinese public opinion surveys.
(1) The Tiananmen protest was not a pro-democracy movement. While analyzing the esric data, I found something very interesting and unexpected. Public dissatisfaction with inflation, unemployment, social morale, and government inefficiency skyrocketed during the peak of the urban protests in spring 1989, but the majority of urban residents in October 1988 (54 percent) thought that market reform was going “too fast,” and such “anti-reform” attitudes closely echoed the rise of inflation during the same time. In the meantime, public demand for liberal democratic ideas such as freedom of speech and freedom of the press never surpassed 33 percent, even in May 1989.
Putting these findings together, what the esric surveys reveal is that the Tiananmen Square protest was by nature an anti-reform movement when urban residents panicked about the negative consequences of marketization. In a miracle of miracles, if there were free elections, the conservative anti-reform candidates probably would have won, and China would have returned to the centrally planned system where urban residents enjoyed a cradle-to-grave social safety net.
This paints a very different picture from the Western media’s coverage of the Tiananmen protest. According to the Western media, the Tiananmen protest was a pro-democratic movement where the majority of Chinese urban residents demanded liberal democratic reform. Discussing the findings of the esric surveys was very unpopular in the early 1990s, when Communist governments in the Soviet Bloc were collapsing.6 Yet the regime resilience in China later proved that the findings of the esric surveys were a realistic reflection of public sentiment in urban China. Today, the esric surveys stand out as the best and only available scientific evidence about what really happened in the spring of 1989 in Tiananmen Square. I would rather trust the results of the esric data, which are based on probability samples, than media reports based on anecdotal stories.
(2) Regime support is high. One of the most consistent findings in the Chinese public opinion surveys is the high level of regime support. Chinese survey respondents have shown strong positive feelings toward their government no matter how survey questions are worded, such as “support for the central government,” “trust in the Communist Party,” “trust in the central government leaders,” “confidence in the key political institutions,” “approval of China’s political system,” “satisfaction with central government performance,” or “identity with the Chinese nation.” Such strong regime support is found in different Chinese surveys conducted by different organizations and different investigators, including the World Values Surveys, the Asian Barometer Surveys, the Pew Surveys, the Chinese General Social Surveys, and the Chinese Urban Surveys, among others.
For example, in the fourth wave of the World Values Surveys conducted around 2000, when respondents in different countries were asked how much confidence they had in their country’s political institutions, China stood out by showing the highest levels of institutional trust among the selected countries, including both new and established democracies.
The most common challenge to the findings of strong regime support in China is the “political sensitivity” argument. According to this argument, China is an authoritarian police state and Chinese survey respondents hide their unhappiness with the regime due to fear of retribution. This view could be true of the Mao era, but it is a little out of date in today’s China. Analyzing online comments, researchers including Gary King, Jennifer Pan, and Molly Roberts found Chinese internet users were willing to be politically active and highly critical of the government, as long as they did not advocate organized political actions. Survey tools such as the list experiment have been used in the United States to detect, for example, when respondents hide racial biases. When the same list experiment was used in Chinese surveys, only 8 – 10 percent of the respondents were found to hide their unhappiness with the central government. Even after discounting for the political sensitivity effect, regime support in China is still among the highest in the world, higher than in many democracies.
Some people think that authoritarian regime trust is unhealthy and democratic regime distrust is healthy. This may be true, since critical democratic citizens can play the role of assuring government accountability. Yet it seems equally true that decision-making is more efficient and less wasteful of time and resources if there is less tension and greater harmony between the government and the public, particularly in societies with a lot of people and limited resources to spare.
(3) Interpersonal trust. The third “surprise” in the Chinese public opinion surveys is the high level of interpersonal trust. Many Chinese survey respondents in the past twenty years have consistently agreed that “most people can be trusted.” For example, 60 percent of the Chinese respondents in the sixth wave of the World Values Survey in 2012 agreed that most people could be trusted, ranking the second highest in the world only next to the Netherlands (62 percent) and much higher than many democracies such as the United States, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea, in which only some 30 percent of citizens expressed trust in each other. This finding is counterintuitive because it conflicts with the traditional theory of democracy, which tends to make interpersonal trust and social capital a precondition for the successful functioning of democracy.
Such a finding is equally controversial. Some people do not want to believe it because it does not match their impressions when they travel to China and talk to Chinese people. Unfortunately, personal impressions cannot serve to discredit survey findings, especially when surveys are based on representative samples. The disbelievers need better evidence to challenge the survey findings.
Others tend to argue that interpersonal trust has different meanings in different societies. China is a Confucian society, so interpersonal trust must mean trusting one’s own family members, while in democratic societies interpersonal trust means trusting strangers. Such a depiction is only partially true. While family trust is very high in China, it is not the most important reason for the high level of general trust. Instead, community-based trust turned out to be most closely related to general trust in China, and it has a positive effect on regime support in multivariate regression analysis when other factors are controlled. The abundance of social capital despite the lack of democracy seems to make China a significant outlier in the existing theory of civic culture and democracy.
Chinese Economics Thread
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Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
Traditionally Confucian society cherish children and education It can be observed in China, Japan, Korea and Vientam where tiger mom is the norm. Here is the report by "Save Children" via LKJ 86
China ranked best developing country in Asia for children to grow up - Xinhua
Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-31 20:55:40|Editor: Li Xia
BEIJING, May 31 (Xinhua) -- China has ranked as the best developing country in Asia for children to grow up in for the second year in a row as it continues to make progress in child well-being, according to a new report by Save the Children.
Released ahead of International Children's Day on June 1, the global charity's report examines 175 countries on a range of indicators related to childhood like child marriage, teenage pregnancy and child mortality.
In the charity's End of Childhood Index, which ranks countries according to where childhood is most and least threatened, China improved one spot to 40th, marginally behind the United States (36th) and Russia (37th).
"Children in China experience the safest childhoods of all developing nations in Asia. China has made tremendous progress both in the economy and in improving the well-being of children across the country in recent years," said Wang Chao, Save the Children country director in China.
China made the greatest gains in education enrollment for disabled children and nutrition. Wang said that while this was promising, there was still room for improvement.
"Children with disabilities in China by and large are still being left behind. Far greater investment needs to be made in inclusive education to enable all children -- regardless of their ability -- to attend and learn at mainstream schools," Wang said.
In May 2017, the revised regulation on improving education for the disabled came into force. It is the first time that inclusive education was written in Chinese regulations.
While the revised regulations will benefit a large number of children, there is still a long way to go until they are fully implemented, and until children stop suffering from negative stigmas associated with disabilities, Wang said.
According to the charity, the situation for children has improved in 95 of 175 countries surveyed, but worsened in about 40 nations since last year.
The report also reveals that globally more than 1.2 billion children are at risk of poverty, conflict and gender discrimination, and these children are excluded from learning, and denied basics like healthcare and even food.
Source:
A moving account of teacher in Tibet a less developed part of China. It is good that China fulfill the promise , made decades ago to the minority as they passed thru their area in long , that someday they will make life better for them
China ranked best developing country in Asia for children to grow up - Xinhua
Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-31 20:55:40|Editor: Li Xia
BEIJING, May 31 (Xinhua) -- China has ranked as the best developing country in Asia for children to grow up in for the second year in a row as it continues to make progress in child well-being, according to a new report by Save the Children.
Released ahead of International Children's Day on June 1, the global charity's report examines 175 countries on a range of indicators related to childhood like child marriage, teenage pregnancy and child mortality.
In the charity's End of Childhood Index, which ranks countries according to where childhood is most and least threatened, China improved one spot to 40th, marginally behind the United States (36th) and Russia (37th).
"Children in China experience the safest childhoods of all developing nations in Asia. China has made tremendous progress both in the economy and in improving the well-being of children across the country in recent years," said Wang Chao, Save the Children country director in China.
China made the greatest gains in education enrollment for disabled children and nutrition. Wang said that while this was promising, there was still room for improvement.
"Children with disabilities in China by and large are still being left behind. Far greater investment needs to be made in inclusive education to enable all children -- regardless of their ability -- to attend and learn at mainstream schools," Wang said.
In May 2017, the revised regulation on improving education for the disabled came into force. It is the first time that inclusive education was written in Chinese regulations.
While the revised regulations will benefit a large number of children, there is still a long way to go until they are fully implemented, and until children stop suffering from negative stigmas associated with disabilities, Wang said.
According to the charity, the situation for children has improved in 95 of 175 countries surveyed, but worsened in about 40 nations since last year.
The report also reveals that globally more than 1.2 billion children are at risk of poverty, conflict and gender discrimination, and these children are excluded from learning, and denied basics like healthcare and even food.
Source:
A moving account of teacher in Tibet a less developed part of China. It is good that China fulfill the promise , made decades ago to the minority as they passed thru their area in long , that someday they will make life better for them
supercat
Major
Note that China achieved the following with a per capita GDP of only 1/4 of America's.
Jura The idiot
General
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
It is the same system as in Singapore no surprise here since many Chinese official intern in Singapore and it is a forced saving to finance down payment
In Singapore they call it CPF When you work they deducted automatically say 12% out of your salary then the your employer match that contribution say another 12% so for every dollar that you work you already save 25%. It will accumulate over time But the money can only be used to buy house or renovate old home Lately they allow it to fund your children education or medical expenses. If unused you can collect if you retire or leave the country.
It is self financed retirement account.
British colonial authorities in Singapore created the Central Provident Fund in 1955 as a compulsory savings scheme to assist workers to provide for their retirement without needing to introduce a more extensive and costly old age pension. Money contributed to the Central Provident Fund earned a rate of return. The Central Provident Fund was expanded in 1968 to provide for housing expenses under the Public Housing Scheme. In 1984 the Central Provident Fund was again expanded to cover medical care expenses. In 1986 an investment option was added to give members the opportunity to manage their own risk and returns.
In 1987, the Minimum Retirement Sum Scheme annuity was introduced. In 1990, MediShield health insurance funded by Central Provident Fund savings, was launched to provide universal healthcare to all Singaporeans. Later programs includes interest rate top up of 1% for the first $60,000 of retirement savings, the Workfare Income Supplement which supplements retirement savings for low-income older workers, and the Pioneer Generation Package which provides additional support for the medical expenses of older workers.
When the CPF was started in 1955, both employees and employers contributed 5% of an employee's pay to the scheme. The rate of contribution was progressively increased to 25% for both employers and employees in 1985. The employer contribution was cut to 10% during a recession in 1986. The employer contribution rate was reverted to match the employee rate until the , and thereafter lowered to 10% for workers 55 years or younger. Since then, the employer contribution rate has been gradually increased.Employers currently contribute 3 fewer percentage points of salaries over S$750 for employees up to 55 years old.
Jura The idiot
General
haven't heard of it either, thanks Hendrik...
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
Good that you are willing to learn and maybe shed some of the preconception that European has over Asia There are other country beside Japan you know and they can be as good as Japan
Another thing is HDB(Housing Develpment Board) it goes hand in hand with CPF
A government effort to provide low cost housing for citizen. This is the one that China should emulate. It government developer that sell good and low cost housing for citizen regardless of income but you have to be married . I think China has this one too but only for low income people
Today more than 80% of Singaporean live in HDB unit and there is no slum
Shortly after achieving self-governance in 1959, faced a serious problem of housing shortages; low construction rates and massive damage from further exacerbated the prewar housing shortage. In 1947, the British Housing Committee Report noted Singapore had "one of the world’s worst -- 'a disgrace to a civilised community'", and the average person-per-building density was 18.2 by 1947. were also rare. In 1959, the shortage problem remained. An HDB paper estimated that in 1966, 300,000 people lived in squatter settlements in the suburbs and 250,000 lived in squalid shophouses in the . In its election campaign in 1959, the (PAP) recognized that housing required urgent attention and pledged to provide low-cost housing for the poor if it was elected. When it won the elections and formed the newly elected government, it took immediate action to solve the housing shortage. The government passed the Housing & Development Act of 1960, which replaced the existing with the Housing & Development Board.
Led by , the HDB made first priority during formation to build as many low-cost housing units as possible, and introduced the Five-Year Plan. The housing that was initially built was mostly meant for rental by the low-income group. The Home Ownership for the People Scheme was also introduced to help this group of people to buy instead of rent their flats. While the new scheme acted as a hedge against inflation, it provided financial security to homeowners. Later, the people were allowed to use their money for down payments. These efforts were, however, not successful enough in convincing the people living in the squatter settlements to move into these flats. It was only later, after the in 1961, that the HDB's efficiency and earnestness won the people over.
Jura The idiot
General
actually there's something I wanted to ask about here: did you see that new thread
Annoyed at the constant stream of news articles https://www.sinodefenceforum.com/annoyed-at-the-constant-stream-of-news-articles.t8288/
?
what kind of hogwash is this
#1 solarz, Wednesday at 9:18 PM
#3 Zool, Thursday at 1:09 AM
individuals criticized somebody without saying who that is
I LOL now, but for me it looked like total cowardice (I don't read posts there anymore)