20101102 Article, "Beijing Sees Resistance to Census", contributed by Kyung Jin Lee

<Kyung Jin Lee>

OCTOBER 31, 2010

Beijing Sees Resistance to Census

Workers say that residents are concerned about privacy and don't want to disclose information to the government

 

By JEREMY PAGE

BEIJING—China's national census, which aims to update the official count for the world's largest population, will also illustrate the increasingly mobile society's growing sense of privacy—and distrust of their government.

Communist Party leaders hope the ten-yearly survey, set to begin Monday, will provide an unprecedented amount of information about the lives of its citizens, who numbered 1.3 billion in 2000. In particular, the government will try to calculate exact figures for the tens of millions of migrant workers who have flooded into cities from the countryside, and for the millions of children who have been born in violation of China's one-child policy.

But when six million census workers conducted preparatory surveys in August and September, they met a surprising level of resistance from people, most of whom didn't hesitate to cooperate 10 years ago.

Li Fengying, a 60-year old retired woman who worked on the census 20 years ago, was hired again this year to gather information on 117 households in the building where she lives in central Beijing. "It's really not an easy job! It didn't go smoothly and I suffered a lot of cursing," she said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

She said 30 of the 117 households either refused to open their doors, or wouldn't show official documents. Many were migrant workers who were renting the apartments, in some cases sharing them among four or five families, she said.

"In the past, the population structure was very simple, most of the residents in the building were permanent residents, and we knew each other very well," she said. "But now there are many non-natives or migrants living here. And people's minds are quite different from in the past. They have their own ideas and don't like to disclose their private affairs." 

Vice Premier Li Keqiang, who is overseeing the census, has made a personal appeal for cooperation. Official posters have been plastered across the country with messages such as: "Mom—don't forget to tell the census worker: I am also a target of the census!"

Still, some census workers facing resistance have resorted to counting beds and toothbrushes in migrant workers' dormitories, according to state media. 

Such problems reflect the social changes that have swept across China over the past decade, said Zhang Yi, a demographer at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciencies. In 2000, the majority of people still depended on the state for work, housing and welfare. Today, most people work in the private sector and own their own homes; many regard the state as more of a hindrance than a help in their everyday lives.

One of the government's biggest concerns is the migrant population, which has provided the cheap labor to drive economic growth, but also represents the biggest potential source of social unrest. The 2000 census found that about 800 million people lived in the countryside, but it counted migrant workers not where they worked but in their home provinces where they were registered to receive social services. 

Annual surveys have updated the urban and rural population estimates but Chinese experts say that data is often skewed by local officials who under-report migrant numbers to boost economic statistics such as income per capita. This year's census will try to get around these problems by recording where migrants live and work, said Feng Nailin, director-general of the department of population and employment statistics of the National Bureau of Statistics. 

The problem, however, is that migrants are reluctant to cooperate for fear being evicted or losing their jobs, while employers are also reticent because they worry about being taxed or fined for violating labor regulations.

"The migrant population is a rather big problem for our census," Mr. Feng told journalists earlier this month.

The other problem is how to count children who have been born in violation of the one-child policy and are therefore not qualified to receive education, health care and other public services unless their parents pay a fine. The government wants to include them to calculate accurately the country's birth rate and gender balance—key indicators that could decide whether Beijing relaxes the one-child policy next year—so it has been offering discounts of up to 70% on the fines it usually charges. 

But while wealthier urban couples appear to be responding to that, they also tend to be the most reluctant to give other personal information, especially relating to their property and finances.

 A typical case is Jack Dou, 41, who owns a gift-making company in Beijing and whose wife gave birth to a second daughter in April. He agreed to register his second child and paid a fine of 186,000 yuan—a 30% discount—but said he had planned to pay the higher fine anyway. He also said he had answered honestly when census workers first came to his home, but had reservations about answering more detailed questions, especially about his finances. 

"People don't want to give their private information to the government," he said. "Nowadays, we rely on the government less and less."