China Development Brief

China’s top leaders recently recognised the need for a corps of professional social workers. Chang Tianle (常天乐) reports on ongoing efforts and challenges in building the new profession.

A grassroots NGO in Qinghai Province, the Sanchuan Development Association (三川发展促进会, SDA), has negotiated grant support from the US-based Eurasia Foundation to establish an NGO resource centre in the provincial capital, Xining, to provide information, networking and practical support for Qinghai’s growing NGO community.

While the adverse impacts of industrial production and pollution are receiving ever more public attention in China, new government and NGO initiatives are also emphasising the difference that consumers, including government agencies, can make to the local and global environment.

A steep rise in soybean and cotton imports, mainly from the United States, has led to falling prices for Chinese farmers, with the result that “many . . . get almost nothing from the plant[s]” and twenty million have given up farming altogether, according to the November 30 issue of Beijing Review.

An informal, national network of around 45 NGOs serving autistic children and their families has provided both a learning opportunity and an inspiration to the Beijing-based Capacity Building & Assessment Centre (CBAC, 倍能组织能力建设与评估中心), which is now hoping to facilitate similar networks with funding support from an international development agency in Germany.

A network of people studying and working on gender-related issues and a gender and development “case bank” (http://g-case.id666.com/) are taking shape to accelerate gender mainstreaming in China.

Despite China’s impressive progress in improving living conditions, the country and its people face huge challenges in securing a sustainable supply of clean water, according to UNDP’s Human Development Report for 2006.

Yang Shaobin (杨少斌), born to a coalmining family in Hebei Province, has put together an exhibition of oil paintings and installations that, according to the catalogue, “dialectically thinks about the linkages between Chinese history, culture and social development.” Nick Young looks at these and other pictures, wondering what “dialectically” might mean nowadays.

November’s China-Africa summit in Beijing was like a coming-out ball for China as a new global force. As well as substantially boosting aid, trade and political ties, it further isolated Taiwan’s pro-independence movement and, as a bonus, gave Beijing extra, pre-Olympics practice in hosting major international events. But there was no sign of civil society at the party; and they should be invited next time.

Self-help groups of people living with incurable illnesses or disability provide an invaluable forum for information sharing and personal support. But although they are appearing in China, as Chang Tianle (常天乐) reports, their growth is hampered by problems of legal status and fundraising.