Subsistence security of children living in difficult circumstances strengthened. The Ministry of Civil Affairs has issued the Opinions on Regulating the Adoption of Children with Extremely Indigent Biological Parents and of Abandoned Orphans, Measures for the Management of Families with Children Entrusted to Their Care, Opinions on Establishing a Guiding Mechanism for Charitable Deeds Concerning Children, and other regulatory documents, explored the provision of classified security for children living in difficult circumstances, pushed forward a pilot program of a moderate general preferential welfare system for children, and encouraged the public to join in philanthropic activities for children. The subsistence allowances for orphans were continuously increased. The central budget allocated 2.3 billion yuan in addition to the financial provision of local governments to cover the basic cost of living for orphans, benefiting 557,000 orphans and 5,200 HIV-affected children nationwide.
Women and children's healthcare service improved. The National Health and Family Planning Commission made 2014 "Woman and Child Health Care Service Year," kicking off a campaign to provide high-quality health care service for women and children. In-patient childbirth subsidies were granted to rural women. Rural women received free cervical cancer and breast cancer screening examinations practices that had been continued for years. In 2014 some 10 million and 1.2 million rural women, respectively, had such free examinations, and 10,362 women patients with financial difficulties each received 10,000 yuan of aid on average.
The government went ahead with free pre-pregnancy physical examinations, which covered more than 80 percent of the targeted women in 2014. Common diseases, frequently-occurring diseases afflicting women and children were effectively prevented and cured. The mother-to-child transmission rate of AIDS dropped to 6.3 percent. The occurrence of serious anemia among pregnant or lying-in women, of low-birth-weight infants, and of malnutrition among children all declined. The central budget allocated 2.162 billion yuan of special subsidies to support 552,000 orphans and 5,226 HIV-infected children.
The "pilot program of nutrition improvement for infants in poverty-stricken areas" had spread to 300 counties in 21 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government by the end of 2014, and the "act to eliminate anemia among infants" benefited 150,000 babies. Some 500 million yuan and 159 million yuan, respectively, were spent on nutrition improvement of children and disease-screening examinations of newborns in contiguous poverty-stricken areas. Free nutrition packages were provided to 1.37 million infants aged six to 24 months, and screening for phenylketonuria, congenital hypothyroidism and hearing loss was conducted for 1.325 million newborns. Some 10,000 children suffering congenital heart disease in the Tibet Autonomous Region received free treatment.
Rights and interests of senior citizens guaranteed. The government continued to implement the 12th Five-Year Plan for Helping Senior Citizens and 12th Five-Year Plan for the System of Old-age Services (both 2011-2015), Opinions of the State Council on Accelerating Old-age Services and Opinions on Improving Care for Senior Citizens. Shandong, Hebei, Guangdong and Hainan provinces, and Shanghai have drawn up their own regulations regarding the protection of the rights and interests of senior citizens, special care for them, and management of nursing homes. In these provinces and the city of Shanghai, allowances were provided for senior citizens over a certain age, and old-age service subsidies were issued to the elderly in financial difficulties.
Information platforms for the elderly have been set up in more than 60 counties, cities and municipal districts in 25 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government, benefiting 20 million elderly people. Home care and community services now cover 70 percent and 37 percent, respectively, of the elderly population.
The basic pension benefits for enterprise retirees have been increasing for 10 years in a row, with the per capita monthly amount being raised from 647 yuan in 2004 to 2,050 yuan in 2014. From July 2014 the lowest monthly basic amount of the pension insurance for rural and urban non-working residents was raised from 55 yuan to 70 yuan per person, for which the central budget allocated 12 billion yuan as additional subsidies, benefiting 143 million rural and urban non-working residents.
The central budget provided 2.5 billion yuan to improve the conditions of welfare institutions and rural nursing homes to satisfy the needs of senior people in difficulties. By the end of 2014 the number of nursing home beds nationwide had reached 26 for every 1,000 senior citizens, and over 88.8 percent of the Chinese over 65 years old had been incorporated into the health management system. One billion yuan from the central special lottery public welfare fund was provided to 33,300 rural nursing homes.
Non-governmental organizations of senior citizens received support. By the end of 2014 China had 490,000 community-level associations of senior citizens and nearly 20 million senior volunteers. There were 2,137 legal assistance centers offering timely services for the elderly. In 2014 judicial and administrative agencies handled 113,000 cases of legal assistance for the elderly and provided legal consultations to more than 340,000 senior people.
VII.
Rights of Persons with Disabilities
In 2014 the government adopted a series of measures to protect and improve the well-being of persons with disabilities, and progress was made in social security, employment, education, and provision of public services for disabled people.
The lives of disabled persons with financial difficulties better secured. The Ministry of Civil Affairs and China Disabled Persons' Federation supported the introduction of living expense subsidies to disabled persons with financial difficulties and of nursing subsidies to those suffering from a high degree of disability in some regions. Nineteen provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government adopted the policy of granting living expense subsidies to disabled persons with financial difficulties, and 15 had adopted the policy of granting nursing subsidies to those suffering from a high degree of disability. Nationwide, 77.42 percent of the entitled population had access to either of the two policies, benefiting more than seven million people with disabilities.
Notable achievements in key rehabilitation projects. In 2014 the central special lottery public welfare fund provided 1.063 billion yuan for the rehabilitation of the disabled. Thanks to a number of key rehabilitation projects, 7.515 million disabled people received rehabilitation services of various kinds: 748,000 received cataract surgery, including 300,000 free operations; 142,000 visually impaired people received visual aids; 123,000 blind people received orientation and mobility training; 32,000 children with hearing impairments received hearing restoration or language training; 30,900 children with intellectual disabilities received training in rehabilitation institutions; 73,400 children and 34,800 adults with intellectual disabilities received rehabilitation guidance in their communities or homes; 40,000 children with brain paralysis received training in rehabilitation institutions, and their parents also received relevant training; 367,000 physically challenged people received rehabilitation training in their communities or homes; 8,860 physically handicapped children from poor families and 224 persons suffering from leprosy received surgery; 5.837 million patients with mental disorders received comprehensive rehabilitation services, 462,000 indigent people with mental disorder received medical services, and 20,000 children with autistic disorders received rehabilitation training; 1.524 million assistance devices were provided to people with disabilities, of which 403,200 were provided gratis by the central special lottery public welfare fund for disabled people living in poverty; and 29,000 artificial limbs and 64,000 remedial aids were provided cheaply or free for disabled people living in poverty.
In addition, efforts were made to train rehabilitation personnel, including 25,800 rehabilitation management staff, 55,900 rehabilitation specialists and 169,800 community rehabilitation coordinators. In total, 914 municipal districts and 2,023 counties and county-level cities provided community rehabilitation services, benefiting 6.1445 million people.
Construction of barrier-free facilities accelerated. In 2014 the construction of a barrier-free environment progressed in accordance with the law. All provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government made steady headway in building barrier-free cities and counties, involving 650 cities and 1,600 counties nationwide. The focus was on building barrier-free curb ramps, ramps for wheelchairs and pavements in residential quarters, and barrier-free entry-exit, passages, floors, stairways, elevator landings and compartments, and other areas in public buildings. The "database of barrier-free renovation of deprived families with disabled members" was put into operation to promptly record the progress of barrier-free renovation work.
Public cultural services to persons with disabilities improved. In 2014 nearly 50,000 urban and rural centers of public cultural services provided barrier-free access, with rehabilitation facilities and cultural amusement devices available where conditions permitted. Public libraries nationwide had 800,000 copies of books in braille, and provided 180,000 reading seats for blind people. Libraries and cultural and art centers at all levels organized performances, cultural training programs and resources distribution around the "National Day for Assisting Disabled Persons," "International Day of Persons with Disabilities" and "Ear Care Day." Blind people who sat the national college entrance examinations in 2014 took the exams in braille, or with the assistance of audio device. Special staff were provided to assist them in taking the exams.
VIII.
Right to a Clean and Healthy Environment
In 2014 the Chinese government gave the country's major environmental problems high priority, making considerable efforts to safeguard the people's right to a clean and healthy environment, and further exploring a new way to make ecological progress with Chinese characteristics.
The legal system for protecting the environment and eco-systems was further improved. In 2014 China made a comprehensive amendment to the Environmental Protection Law, by which governments at all levels and all enterprises are required to shoulder more responsibilities, the citizens' right to a clean and healthy environment and their duties regarding the protection of the environment are clearly defined, and a series of new mechanisms concerning closing down or distraining facilities (causing environmental pollution), total quantity control of major pollutant emissions, fines accumulating by the day, production restriction and halts, detention, environmental public interests litigation, regional joint defense against and control of pollution, and public participation are included. Specific normative regulations were also drawn up and issued to support the newly amended law, including the Rules on Investigating and Handling Emergent Environmental Incidents, Rules on Environment Information Disclosure of Enterprises and Public Institutions, Rules for Environmental Administrations in Limiting or Halting Pollution-causing Production, Rules for Environmental Administrations in Levying Fines Accumulating by the Day and Rules for Environmental Administrations in Closing Down or Distraining Pollution-causing Facilities and Equipment. These have all greatly reinforced China's legal system in the ecological and environmental field.
New progress achieved in ecological construction. In 2014 some 6.027 million hectares of trees were planted all around China, among which 1.999 million hectares was in the key ecological-rehabilitation projects. In addition, 96,000 hectares of urban built-up areas were greened. The state improved 1.265 million hectares of desertified lands, newly designated 23 counties as pilot areas for forest conservation, set up 32 national pilot desert parks, built 11 new nature reserves totaling 140,000 hectares, and increased the areas of conserved wetlands by more than 500,000 hectares. By the end of 2014 there were 2,729 nature reserves in China, including 428 national ones. In the same year, 17,800 cases concerning grassland damage were placed on file across the country, and 17,400 cases, or 97.6 percent, were closed; 49,000 cases of illegal encroachment on forest lands were investigated and settled, with 3,517.3 hectares of forests illegally encroached upon being rehabilitated; 31,000 cases concerning forest and wildlife crimes were recorded by public security organs, among which 25,000 were solved, an increase of 14.1 percent over 2013; and 6.1 tons of illegal ivory and ivory products were destroyed publicly for the first time. In the meantime, China provided a total of 5.7 billion yuan in a project for building and protecting a national ecological security barrier in the Tibet autonomous region.
Remarkable results in energy conservation and emission reduction. In 2014 China made an enormous adjustment to its industrial structure, accomplishing the year's goal of abolishing outdated production capacities in 15 key industries like steel and cement, and overfulfiling the targets for scrapping yellow-labeled and outdated vehicles whose emissions were above the national standards. A goal-oriented responsibility and assessment system for air protection was gradually put in place, with the Tibet Autonomous Region, and Guangdong and some other provinces having drawn up feasible and specific measures. The Ministry of Environmental Protection gave warnings in line with the law to heads of local governments and departments that had failed to fulfill their environmental protection duties or hadn't performed them well, including the mayors of Anyang in Henan Province, Hengyang in Hunan Province, Liupanshui in Guizhou Province, Linyi in Shandong Province and Chengde in Hebei Province, and supervised their improvements. In 2014 the chemical oxygen demand, and the discharges of ammonia nitrogen, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide continued to decrease, nitrogen oxide seeing the largest annual cut of 6.7 percent. The overall consumption of coal was reduced by 2.9 percent, and clean energy sources such as hydroelectricity, wind energy, nuclear energy and natural gas, rose to 16.9 percent of all energy consumption in China during the year. In China energy used to produce 10,000 yuan of GDP declined by 4.8 percent and the amount of water used to produce 10,000 yuan added value of industry decreased by 5.6 percent. The daily treatment capacity of urban sewage plants had reached 128.96 million cubic meters by the end of the year, an increase of 3.5 percent over that by the end of the previous year, and 90.2 percent of urban sewage was treated.
I’ve lived in China for quite a considerable time including my graduate school years, travelled and worked in a few cities and still choose my destination taking into consideration the density of smog or PM2.5 particulate matter in the region.
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