While a corporate president builds a fortune of over $250 million and plays stock using several hundreds millions of dollars per trade, a peasant leaves his village to work in the city for a daily income of $8 to feed his family. The divide between rich and poor is growing at an alarming rate. The government is struggling to correct this imbalance by promoting the building of "a harmonious society" and "an all-round well-off society". Why do poor people stay poor? New Rich and Rural Poor presents a comprehensive view of today's most pressing issues in China.
Propaganda of the Communist Party, or report on the truth? The Chinese government is currently reviewing the nature of news media coverage. This causes various heated debates within media organizations over what should be reported and to what extent. While young journalists take on issues that were until now considered taboo, the more experienced ones attempt to uncover village secrets that were never meant to surface. There lies the question as to what journalism actually is. NHK takes a close look at wavering journalists, editors and executives.
One of the biggest issues for Beijing is to secure an adequate water supply. With the Beijing Olympics nearing, the rush to remodel Beijing, make it greener, and even increase the number of car washes has created an overwhelming pressure to find enough water. To combat the problem, Beijing's water regulators carry out surprise inspections of water-guzzling construction sites and restaurants because of their frequent unauthorized consumption of public water. Meanwhile, hoping to ease the water shortages, the government has even launched rockets in attempts to create artificial rain. Beijing's Looming Water Crisis follows China's efforts to solve this looming water problem.
Chinese society is aging at a furious pace. Due to its inadequate social security system, the nation now faces a major issue of providing care for the elderly. For the first time, the camera was allowed into the nursing home in Qingdao, where the aging rate is 18%. Already, around 500 elderly people, each with different backgrounds, live here, and there are still many more on the waiting-list. This program portrays the reality of the rapidly aging Chinese society with a focus on the lives of senior citizens at the nursing home.
The Qinhai-Tibet railway was constructed by mobilizing tens of thousands of workers. How is this railway with the highest altitude in the world changing Tibet? The Chinese government invested huge sums of money to construct this railway to develop the western part of China. The railway is expected to transport not only tourists but also business people and a range of goods. On the other hand, there is an impending sense of crisis felt among the ethnic Tibetans. They fear that they will be swallowed up by the Han Chinese. In Search for Tibetan Wealth reports on the current situation in Tibet since the opening of the railway.
Recently China enacted a new property rights law. For the first time since the founding of the country, the law stipulates "equitable protection" of national and individual private property. As China's rapid economic growth spurs redevelopment, developers and government authorities working together sometimes forcibly seize land. This causes numerous disputes with citizens, and lead to the establishment of the law. Following the actions of citizens in a certain regional area over an extended period, Save Our Land documents the tribulations the citizens go through as they try to protect their rights to their property and homes by using, for the first time, the power of the new law.
With over 70 million members, the Communist Party of China (CPC) is the world's largest political party. The Trials of Local Leaders follows two regional CPC officials over an extended period. One is an official in China's northeast, where economic development has stalled. The official must grapple with dismantling a bankrupt state-owned enterprise and provide help to unemployed workers. The other official works in the prosperous south. With the region's ample tax revenues, the official has introduced a type of social insurance system rare even for China. Through this sustained look at these two Party officials, the rarely seen reality facing the CPC is revealed. It shows China's approach for "reduction of disparities and the realization of a harmonious society."
With the one-child policy in China, parents tend to spoil their child, and the problems associated with the so-called "little emperors" are well known. But there is no sign that the fever-pitch education boom, which puts a great burden on children, is abating. Children are beginning to suffer psychological problems from the pressure, and the Chinese government has been warning of the over-emphasis on scholastic ability. Focusing on the fifth-grade class of a public elementary school in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province, Tears of Little Emperors shows the efforts of parents and the school to press their children to study and the stress and strain that some children suffer.
The chairman of Wahaha, one of China's largest beverage companies, was sued by a foreign company with which it has a partnership. The main issue of the lawsuit is to find out who holds the rights to the Wahaha trademark, which has bolted upward in value as Wahaha being a corporate giant now carrying 20, 000 employees. Wahaha is also busily trying to control counterfeit-brand beverages being sold in China. Battles Over the Brands traces the back and forth dispute about the brand, and the frontlines of the rapidly evolving Chinese economy.
Liang Peisi, a university student from Shanghai, has come to a poverty-stricken rural village. She joins a youth program that renders assistance to the poorest villagers, and for one year she volunteers as a teacher at a high school. Despite her sense of mission, the realities of life in an impoverished region are overwhelming. Her students live in the most shabby of dormitories, and try to study on an inadequate diet. Though Liang does her best to be supportive, almost all her pupils abandon the idea of going on to university. Although the country is growing economically, poverty remains in regions such as this and many people are left behind.
Beijing is now bursting with condominiums: more than 3,000, at last count. Gone is the era of government-built public housing. Nowadays everyone aspires to possess a private residence purchased with one's own earnings in a newly developed area. However, a new problem is emerging. Condominium residents now wish to form "property owners' committees" that will be responsive to their wishes. But conventional organizations such as the condominium management companies try to block residents' actions and inhibit their independent spirit. Fighting for Self-governance introduces the clash of old and new by focusing on condominium owners in two newly developed residential complexes in the city.
The strains on China's health care system are beginning to tell. From all over the country, patients flock to the large, public hospitals; they wait in lines through the night. With treatment costs now borne by the patients, but the insurance system still underdeveloped, most people will not go to a hospital unless an ailment has become serious. That is also why they prefer the large, public hospitals. At the same time, hospitals compete to offer the best staff and the best facilities. To survive, they need to attract the wealthier patients by offering better care. This widening health-care gap is now a top priority for the government.
Environmental pollution is one of China's most difficult policy issues. Countermeasures vary greatly among the regions. In coastal cities, pursuant to a national directive, polluting companies have been exposed one after another and sanctions have been applied, even to the point of shutting the companies down. In Hangzhou, authorities carry out 24-hour monitoring, thanks to a video surveillance system installed in more than 300 major companies. Infractions can trigger intervention by a Pollution Task Force. In China's interior, however, many local governments are freely dynamiting mountains and damming rivers so as to build hydroelectric plants that will help fullfill supreme directives to establish prosperity. How can China reconcile such conflicting imperatives and achieve a harmonious society?