Young, single and what about it?

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

IN HER tiny flat, which she shares with two cats and a flock of porcelain owls, Chi Yingying describes her parents as wanting to be the controlling shareholders in her life. Even when she was in her early 20s, her mother raged at her for being unmarried. At 28 Ms Chi took “the most courageous decision of my life” and moved into her own home. Now 33, she relishes the privacy—at a price: her monthly rent of 4,000 yuan ($625) swallows nearly half her salary. 

In many countries leaving the family home well before marriage is a rite of passage. But in China choosing to live alone and unmarried as Ms Chi has done is eccentric verging on taboo. Chinese culture attaches a particularly high value to the idea that families should live together. Yet ever more people are living alone.

In the decade to 2010 the number of single-person households doubled. Today over 58m Chinese live by themselves, according to census data, a bigger number of one-person homes than in America, Britain and France combined. Solo dwellers make up 14% of all households. That is still low compared with rates found in Japan or Taiwan (see chart), but the proportion will...Continue reading

The kin and I

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

LIU CAIPING is a former maths teacher, now 71, who has lived alone in the western city of Xi’an since her husband died last year. The radio is her steadfast companion. Her eyesight is failing and she rarely goes out. Like many city residents, her former neighbours have scattered, and her two daughters are far away. When she can no longer cope on her own she will go to a nursing home, she says. That option remains extremely rare for old Chinese. And that highlights the problem: China is struggling to cope with a rapidly ageing society and a rising number of elderly people living by themselves.

For most of the past two millennia the family has been central to how Chinese have seen themselves—and the state has been seen as a family writ large. Filial piety was somewhere near the heart of a Confucian order regulating society, and the family was an extended, stable unit of several generations under one roof. A very common saying encapsulated it all: yang er fang lao—“raise children for your old age”.

Today multi-generation families are still the norm. Almost three-fifths of people over 65 live with their...Continue reading

The stockmarket's collapse kicks up political fallout for Xi Jinping

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

THE stockmarket rout, together with the devaluation of the currency and a mishandled disaster in Tianjin, comes at a time when the government of Xi Jinping was already under pressure for other reasons. China’s economic woes will increase the political strains upon the president.

On August 19th the website of CCTV, the state-run television system, carried an article signed by “Guoping” which claims that “the scale of the difficulties [in implementing reform], the extent of opposition, the stubbornness, ferocity, complexity and even weirdness of those who haven’t adapted to reform or even oppose it go far beyond what most people imagine.” This unusual language enjoyed the government’s stamp of approval. Guoping is a pseudonym that has been used for articles that are widely thought to reflect the president’s political views. According to the government’s website, it is the nom de plume of a group of the state-run media’s top commentators and propagandists.

The so-called opposition, as described in the article, may be exaggerated for effect. But the difficulties and dissent are real. Senior government and party...Continue reading

Why Chinese economic worries look overdone

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

WITH investors already in a febrile state of mind about China’s slowdown, the latest bits of gloomy news only seemed to confirm their worst fears. A survey showed that its manufacturing sector is on track in August for its weakest month since the dark days of the global financial crisis more than six years ago. Adding to the sense of panic, Chinese stocks plunged another 4% on Friday, closing off one of their worst weeks in years. The sell-off, which has already scorched emerging markets, enveloped developed markets as well; European, Japanese and Australian stocks all fell. Investors, though, are hardly known for taking measured views when markets get topsy-turvy. There is good reason to be anxious about China, but the pessimism is almost certainly overdone.

No one doubts that China’s factories are struggling. Industrial growth was 6% year-on-year in July, well below the double-digit rates of the not-too-distant past. The manufacturing survey published on Friday suggests that it is likely to slow yet further. New orders, exports and production are all down in August. One-off factors might have added to the troubles: last week’s deadly...Continue reading

Uncivil society

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

RECENTLY the Communist Party has put forward a raft of proposals aimed at preventing perceived challenges to its monopoly of power. On July 1st a national-security law was passed that authorised “all measures necessary” to protect the country from hostile elements. Now a draft of China’s first law for regulating foreign non-governmental organisations (NGOs) is expected to pass in the coming weeks. The law is deemed necessary because of the threats NGOs are presumed to pose.

The draft law represents a mixture of limited progress and major party retrenchment in a sensitive area. Under Mao Zedong, China had no space for NGOs. But they have multiplied in the past decade to fill the gaps left by the party’s retreat from people’s daily lives. Officials say the law will help NGOs by giving them legal status, a valid claim. But it will also force strict constraints on foreign or foreign-supported groups. No funding from abroad will be allowed. And all NGOs will have to find an official sponsoring organisation. They will then have to register with China’s feared public security apparatus, which will now oversee the entire foreign-backed...Continue reading

Poisonous connections

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

What the blast laid bare

RESIDENTS who had their homes destroyed by the huge explosions that rocked the northern city of Tianjin on August 12th are being offered 2,000 yuan ($312) a month for three months. “The government says it is taking care of people who lost their homes,” says one resident, Chang Zaixing. “But they’re lying and cheating. Everyone in Tianjin knows it, but we should let the rest of China and the rest of the world know it.”

After one of China’s biggest industrial accidents, the government’s emergency response is being met with open contempt. Residents with banners, loudhailers and face masks dog officials’ footsteps, demanding full compensation for their homes. Others want to know what has happened to their relatives—65 people remain unaccounted for. It took almost a week for the mayor, Huang Xingguo, to appear before a press conference. When he did, on August 19th, the city’s claim that air-quality readings were acceptable met with incredulity. “Are the data really true?” asked a reporter from the Communist party mouthpiece, the People’s...Continue reading

A blast in Tianjin sets off an explosion online

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

THE most remarkable feature of the aftermath of the explosions in Tianjin, in northern China, has been the extraordinary contrast between the official reaction to the crisis, which has been profoundly flawed, and the online reaction, which has entirely dominated the agenda.

The prime minister, Li Keqiang (pictured), visited the scene of the destruction on Sunday, August 16th. Government officials, he said, had to have a “strong sense of responsibility” towards people’s lives and must act “without withholding information”. Fine words. The trouble was that Mr Li was accompanied by Yang Dongliang, the head of the state administration of work safety, a national body. Mr Yang was in charge of the investigation team in Tianjin and had spent 16 years working in the Tianjin government before being promoted. But today, August 18th, he was in disgrace and placed under investigation by the government’s anti-corruption body. It was a huge embarrassment to the government’s efforts to clean up the city. And it was...Continue reading

Packing up the suitcase trade

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

A FERRIS wheel visible from the Russian bank turns alluringly on the low island of Daheihe on the Chinese side of the Amur river. But the main attraction is the Daheihe Island International Trading City, with its bright ferry terminal and multi-level trading hall. Russian traders used to flock across the border to stuff their suitcases with cheap Chinese goods. Yet that trade, which long sustained the nearby Chinese city of Heihe, has hit a rough patch. Inside the vast trading hall stall-keepers spend more time knitting, napping and playing cards than they do making deals.

Shi Ying, a purveyor of medicines, tea, cosmetics and knick-knacks, blames the drop in value of Russia’s currency. Just over a year ago 100 roubles bought more than 18 yuan (about $3), but today they buy fewer than ten. The Russian economy has been hit by slumping prices for oil and gas, and by Western sanctions following Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014 and meddling in Ukraine. Russians, Ms Shi says, “have no money, it’s that simple.”

The stalls cover a huge space and offer wigs, watches, wheel rims, studded leather belts, fake Jim Beam bourbon, high-powered...Continue reading

Mapping the invisible scourge

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

THE capital’s “airpocalypse”, the choking smog that descended on Beijing in the winter of 2012-13, galvanised public opinion and spooked the government. The strange thing is, though, that information about air pollution—how extensive it is, how much damage it does—has long been sketchy, based mostly on satellite data or computer models. Until now.

Responding to the outcry, the government set up a national air-reporting system which now has almost 1,000 monitoring stations, pumping out hourly reports on six pollutants, including sulphur dioxide, ozone and (the main culprit) particulate matter less than 2.5 microns in diameter, or PM2.5. These are tiny particles which lodge in the lungs and cause respiratory disease. The six are the main cause of local pollution but have little to do with climate change, since they do not include carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas. Scientists from Berkeley Earth, a not-for-profit foundation in America, have trawled through this recent cloud of data for the four months to early August 2014, sieved out the bits that are manifestly wrong (readings where the dial seems to be stuck, for instance)...Continue reading

Inferno in Tianjin

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

"IT sounded," said Guo Jianfu, who was asleep in a workers' dormitory at the time, "like the start of a war. I thought maybe Japan was bombing our port." Just before midnight on August 12th a pair of huge explosions in an industrial warehouse tore through Tianjin, a major city in north-east China, killing at least 44 people and injuring over 400. A swathe of the industrial zone was devastated, with shipping containers strewn about like toys. Residential areas also suffered extensive damage. On the China Earthquake Administration's seismograph, the biggest blast registered a magnitude of 2.9.

Disasters, man-made or natural, are dangerous to authoritarian governments since public distress can turn to public anger. Social media add to the problems since they make it harder for governments to hush up the scale of damage or the inadequacies of the response.

The Tianjin explosions showed new rules of disaster management in action. With a few exceptions, the authorities allowed reporters access and have so far done little to censor coverage. Tweets were not blocked, even those criticising the response: why, asked one, were firemen allowed into a burning warehouse full of...Continue reading

Silent waves

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

IN THE dog days of August, Beidaihe is a sea resort unlike any other. Swimmers, waddling through the streets with flotation rings around their waists, pause at road crossings as paramilitary police, in tight single-file with ramrod straight backs, march past. Visitors entering town are stopped at checkpoints. Cars require special certification. And tourists know their fun can only go so far: just beyond the westernmost public beach, guards stop anyone approaching a tree-lined boulevard leading to villas where very important people are, apparently, discussing very important matters.

Exactly who these people are is a secret. China’s leaders—President Xi Jinping; the prime minister, Li Keqiang; ministers, provincial bosses and retired senior officials—are probably all now at the resort on Bohai Bay, two hours from Beijing by high-speed train. But ordinary citizens will not find out. Since the earliest years of Mao’s rule, the government has never published a list of attendees at these annual conclaves.

Warm breezes and shaded gardens are thought conducive to debates about policy. “Top leaders have the luxury of time to discuss serious...Continue reading

At sea in the city

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

City rapids

MANY Chinese cities offer “sea views”, but of a kind that arouse fear and anger rather than raise spirits. The term is often used scornfully by Chinese media to describe the floods that render roads impassable and sometimes kill people during heavy downpours. They are largely the product of woefully inadequate drains. Urban areas have more than doubled in size since 1998, but officials have scrimped on arrangements for keeping them dry.

During the summer rainy season, the complaints of urban residents swell as fast as the foul water in the streets. They are targeted at the government. Even the state-controlled press joins in. On July 28th China Youth Daily said it was “beyond understanding” that city planners should give priority to high-profile “vanity projects” while ignoring the need for storm drains and the like. “Money doesn’t seem to be a problem,” it said. Residents of Beijing still harbour bitter memories of flooding in 2012 that killed 79 people (mostly outside the urban core) and caused 12 billion yuan ($1.9 billion) in damage. Much of the mayhem was caused by the...Continue reading