A recent survey has highlighted China’s widening rich-poor gap as a key challenge that incoming leaders face. Just days remain before China’s once-a-decade leadership transition.
The poll commissioned by China Youth Daily showed which issues concern the public more. About 75% of more than 11,400 people born between 1970 and 1999 cited a “serious rich-poor divide” as the country’s main problem.
Despite its emerging from abject poverty to become a giant economy over the past few decades, the widening income gap could hinder China’s development in the next decade, the paper said. The income of the richest 10% accounts for 57% of total household income in China, a survey conducted in May by the central bank and a Chinese university said.
The Chinese are also concerned of “unfettered public power” and the growing power of “interest groups” or state-owned monopolies and individuals with connections to government officials, using that influence to advance and acquire wealth.
The survey also pinpointed the worsening environment, economic slowdown, strained international relations and ageing population as problems the society is concerned about, AFP reports.
