Brussels
British experts are advising Chinese officials on how to minimize
the social impact of closing down unproductive mines. When it comes
to employment and social affairs issues, experts from the continent
that invented the modern welfare state believe they have plenty to
offer to China.
"We want to help China develop a modern system of social
protection," EU Commissioner Vladimir Spidla told DPA ahead of his
departure for a three-day visit to Shanghai Friday.
In Shanghai, the local pension system is largely based on Sweden's.
During his visit Spidla, a Czech who holds the employment and social
affairs portfolio, planned to share his views on labor relations and
social security and sign a formal agreement with the Chinese Academy
of Social Sciences, the country's top think tank in this field.
While China is free to pick and choose policy ideas from Japan, the
US or any other nation, experts in Brussels say the EU is especially
well positioned to offer advice.
In recent years, for instance, the EU has helped a number of nations
make the shift from a planned to a free market economy (10 of the 12
countries, which have joined since 2004 were once under communist
rule).
And other areas where the EU sees itself as having positive track
records include managing diversity and securing social cohesion.
"The EU and China both want to combine social and economic progress.
And while they have 31 provinces, we have 27 member states," one EU
official noted.
Despite or perhaps because of its dazzling economic growth record,
China is now suffering from many of the problems that Europe has
spent years trying to deal with.
One concerns health and safety in the workplace.
More than 101,000 people died in work-related accidents in China in
2007. And though 10 percent down on the previous year, Chinese
officials consider the figure provided by the head of the State
Administration of Work Safety "unacceptably high".
Meanwhile, the government has spent billions of renminbis to improve
safety in its coalmines, considered among the most dangerous in the
world.
Another huge problem that China is only now beginning to confront -
and which Europe knows plenty about - is an ageing population.
As a result of its "one family, one child" policy and of the fact
that richer Chinese now live longer, the life expectancy rate of
Chinese men has now risen to 71.3 years, compared with 63.2 years in
India.
The EU has so far provided 20 million euros ($28.8 million) in
funds, as well as technical assistance and training of civil
servants, to help China modernize its pension system.
Such help is not entirely free of self-interest, however. If Chinese
workers were granted better pensions and more rights, for instance,
this would limit "social dumping" - a term used to describe a
country's ability to export cheap products by enforcing only weak
labor standards.
Improving working and social conditions in China, Spidla said, is
"in our own interest. It is the best way to defend ourselves from
social dumping."
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