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Opinion
Print Edition> Opinion
UPDATED: October 17, 2011 NO. 42 OCTOBER 20, 2011
OPINION
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CROWDED ROADS: On October 7, the last day of the weeklong National Day holiday, an expressway leading to Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, is congested (HUANG XIAOBANG)

Land Poisoned

Luo Wenxi, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said earlier this month that one sixth of China's farmland is polluted by heavy metals and only 11 percent of local arable land in Guangdong Province is heavy metal free.

Investigations done six years ago found that 20 million hectares of land in China, one fifth of the country's total arable land, had been polluted by heavy metals like cadmium, arsenic, chromium and lead.

Due to heavy metal pollution, the annual grain production of arable land around the country is down by 10 million tons, while 12 million tons of grain have been polluted with heavy metals. Heavy metals can cause chronic diseases.

Worse still, although it's known that heavy metals are dangerous, people have to keep eating crops grown on the polluted land. Not everyone has a piece of safe land to grow vegetables by themselves. The threat posed by heavy metals to vegetables and grain is becoming increasingly serious, but seldom do we see any departments do anything to cope with the danger.

The cost of cleaning up heavy metals is too expensive for local governments, so the most effective way to prevent further pollution and deal with the problem is to work out a strict law that is to be strictly implemented, so as to save the public from heavy metal poisoning.

Ji'nan Daily

Traffic Safety Alert

Three traffic accidents on October 7 killed more than 50 people. The accidents were all related to excessive speed on expressways and overloaded vehicles.

Since drunk driving was covered by China's criminal law on May 1, drunk driving has dropped by 39 percent compared with the same period last year. However, despite such serious punishment, many people still drive after drinking, and many drive over the speed limit. Some people do not bother to wear seat belts. As a result, every year more than 60,000 people die in traffic accidents in China.

Traffic accidents demand traffic departments to improve their management ability as soon as possible. For example, they must put in place various traffic regulations to curb traffic law violations, such as speeding. There are monitoring cameras on some road sections, but because there is no nationwide monitoring network yet, cars that break traffic rules are rarely punished. Also, holidays and festivals should be given special attention.

If drivers strictly follow traffic laws, there will not be so many car crashes and related tragedies. "Auto civilization" is not only marked by a prosperous auto industry and auto consumption, but also drivers' sense of responsibility and good training. Meanwhile, traffic departments should also learn lessons from frequent accidents and work out more effective measures to upgrade traffic safety management.

The Beijing News

House Property Tax

The Tax Bureau of Chongqing Municipality formally announced that from October 1 this year, it will begin to levy property taxes on more than 3,400 villas that are not inhabited by people, becoming China's first city to collect house property taxes on houses in stock.

Although the public understands why it is necessary to impose taxes on stockpiled houses, they have no idea how the collected tax revenues will be spent. The practice in the United States may act as a reference. All of the country's 50 states now collect property taxes. Almost 70 percent of the tax revenues are spent on local compulsory education, social security improvements and public environment improvements. Generally speaking, areas that impose the highest tax rates have the best education quality. When they know that these taxes can ensure their children a dozen years' high-quality education, people feel willing to be taxed. In Singapore, house property taxes are collected as subsidies for the poor, so as to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor.

Given the two examples, it will be a wise choice to put property tax revenues into building houses for low-income people. Meanwhile regular announcements on the whereabouts of the taxes are necessary. Maybe this will help to promote the popularity of house property taxes across China.

Guangzhou Daily

Education Input

Since this autumn, Ningshan County of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, which is an impoverished county, took the lead in providing 15-year free compulsory education.

Local farmers' per-capita net income in 2010 stood at 3,812 yuan ($595.6), so it's really difficult for such a poor county to provide free education. It should all be attributed to the local county government's high attention to the education cause. The local government contributes almost 40 percent of its annul fiscal revenues to education by cutting expenditure in other fields.

Against the background that the country's annual education input only stands at 4 percent of its GDP, an impoverished county surprisingly allocates 40 percent of local fiscal revenues to education, instead of using the money to attract commercial investments or set up certain image projects in order to add to local officials' political performance record.

In most cases, it's not the shortage of money that hinders the improvement of people's livelihoods, but the government's will to do the right thing. If a poverty-stricken county is able to input almost half of local fiscal revenues into education, what excuses do those economically developed areas have to shy away from livelihood-related projects?

Changjiang Daily



 
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