This May, factory worker Xu Xiaoping was left with a broken leg and ribs after a beating with iron bars by foremen at Xinjiang's Yili Steel Limited Number One Foundry, according to a recent Worker's Daily report (26/6/01).

To what extent will political reform in China prove a necessary counterpart to and /or natural consequence of economic reform? Few questions are more central to the country's future.

A conference on the role of the non-state sector in the development of China's western regions, held in Guiyang in June, came up with a number of recommendations (summarised in the supporting article linked above) that broadly echo appeals made by numerous Chinese scholars and economists in recent years. These add up to a resounding vote in favour of private sector development in the west, as the likeliest motor of future growth.

China has a long history of encouraging and rewarding orthodoxy and holding up models for emulation. In imperial times, memorial arches (paifang) were built in honour of widows who adhered to strict Confucian standards of chastity and propriety. The examination system linked advancement in public service to the ability to expound Classic texts such as 'Filial Piety' (xiao jing) with its sometimes gruesome collection of stories of extreme loyalty to the correct principles of human relationships defined as 'lun'. The practice continued in a new form into the Communist era, with celebrated exemplars such as the model soldier and citizen Lei Feng, awards to model workers, or campaigns that proclaimed 'in agriculture study Dazhai, in industry learn from Daqing'.

The 1991 Law of the PRC on the Protection of Disabled Persons sets out a radical agenda for social equality and inclusion, although like many Chinese statutes it is long on general principles and short on detailed commitments.