China Editorials Assail Government System

Newspaper: The New York Times

Headline: China Editorials Assail Government System

Date of Publication: Tuesday, March 2. 2010

SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE:

In China where the press is tightly managed by the state, identical editorials in more than a dozen publications called for reform of China’s onerous household registration system on Monday, which had largely vanished from the Internet a few hours later. The hukou system which ties people to their parents’ hometown has made China suffer for long. Under the system people have to register their birth in the hometown, and many government services such as schooling and police protection are tied to people’s hukou. This caused problems when hundreds of millions of the rural poor have migrated to cities but do not have the same rights as local residents. Those people’s children have difficulty gaining education and medical care if they do have a hukou of the place where they study. A reform of the hukou system is requested but it is still with difficulty to change the system under the present situation.

WHAT I LEARNED THAT I DID NOT KNOW BEFORE READING THIS ARTICLE.

After reading this article I learned several facts:

1. Mao established the hukou system to prevent famine-stricken peasants from flooding the wealthier cities.

2. Hundreds of millions of the rural poor have migrated to cities to build the highways and office towers that have transformed China.

3. It is estimated by experts that as many as 250,000 children born in the capital in recent years have no legal right to a public education.

4. Children who do not have a hukou of the