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A number of the emerging affluent in China have got into some
troubles, from facing stark charges of tax evasion to extortion by
few scoundrels and even occasional murders, and this special group
of people are not carefree, as they are often haunted by the
"hatred for the rich" mentality that has become increasingly
evident in certain sectors of society.
Such a mentality is abnormal and unfair to most of these people,
according to deputies and members to the imminent annual sessions
of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature,
and the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political
Consultative Conference (CPPCC), China's top advisory body.
The affluent people have become better-off through their honest and
diligent work with the assistance of pro-business policies of the
Chinese government, said Zhang Guoxi, owner of a profitable private
enterprise in east China's Jiangxi province and a member of the
imminent 10th CPPCC National Committee, on Monday.
They have contributed tremendously to society through providing job
opportunities, paying taxes to the state as prescribed by relevant
laws and voluntarily offering donations, said Zhang, who was listed
as the 42nd wealthiest man in China last year by Forbes
magazine of the United States.
Noting that he himself has donated more than 20 million yuan
(US$2.41 million) to social and public causes in recent years,
Zhang encouraged the general public to adopt a correct attitude
toward the concept of assets and toward those people who have
turned well-to-do first in the country.
"The private entrepreneurs should be taken as fine examples or even
models to seek the better-off lives through self-reliance and
diligence," said Zhang, who runs a private firm involving from wood
carving to tourism and manufacture of electric motors. "That would
be facilitate fulfilling China's goal of building a well-off
society in an all-round way." The goal was laid down at the 16th
Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee
held in Nov. last year.
Meanwhile, Zhang Shuguang, a noted researcher with the prestigious
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), said the people in China
should come to recognize that affluent people have not accumulated
their assets on the basis of others' financial difficulties. The
old notions such as "the rich people being heartless evils" and
"robbing the rich to the aid of the needy" are resultant from a
kind of abnormal mentality and psychology, he acknowledged.
According to a survey conducted by the United Front Work Department
of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee recently,
most of the private entrepreneurs had relied merely on a tiny sum
of funds to start with. Moreover, more than 90 percent of the
private businesses have been hiring laid-off workers from
state-owned enterprises, as the survey indicated, and their tax
payment has kept growing and the amount of their tax payment is far
greater than the profits they have made.
(Xinhua News Agency March 4, 2003)
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