Voices

Too many worries to count

By Joseph Christian (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-03-11 10:57

I sat and stared at the screen of my laptop, just killing some time before I had to go out for dinner. As I was browsing through the news, one story caught my attention. "Beijing's population exceeds 22 million," the headline read.

The only thought going through my brain was: "Wow, that's a lot of people." But really that's an understatement.

To put it into perspective, that's roughly equivalent to the entire population of Australia and more than the combined populations of Finland, Sweden and Norway. And this is for a city that is still growing!

To be honest I was a little bit shocked at the 22 million figure. It didn't seem like very long ago that all the data that I looked at said the population of the city stood at somewhere between 13 million-15 million people. So where did such a difference come from?

The answer is quite simple - migrant workers. You can see them everywhere you go in Beijing, squatting near construction sites, slurping down a bowl of noodles.

To get an idea just how much the city's migrant worker population has swelled, I took a journey through the annals of the Internet that my techie friends refer to as "cached" pages.

I found that only a few years ago in 2005 the migrant worker population of Beijing only stood at around 3.6 million. Today it is estimated to be somewhere just over nine million.

It might not be the most scientific of data but it means that 5.5 million more people have been added to Beijing in just five years.

That means that every year over a million people are making their way to Beijing to try to cash in on China's economic boom.

Sure everyone deserves their chance at making it big in Beijing, but the more I think about it, the more I am convinced that such a dramatic surge in population can't be good for the city. All those people put an enormous stain on Beijing's limited resources.

Everyone knows the basic necessity for life is water, but did you know that last year Beijing was 400 million cubic meters short of its water supply target?

For years, China has been working on a mammoth south-to-north water diversion project to bring water to a parched Beijing.

Too many worries to count

But the largest sections aren't going to be ready for a few more years. Where is Beijing going to conjure up all the water necessary to sustain its growth?

Maybe they can call in the famous Chinese magician Liu Qian. After all he can make coins fall through tables, so why not water from dirt.

Beijing is already overcrowded. Every day, its subway system transports the equivalent of more than the entire population of Ireland. But the overcrowding causes more trouble than just overly packed subway cars.

In some places crime is on the rise. More often than not, migrant workers pack themselves into crowded communities located in Beijing's suburbs.

It's a mass of humanity filled with people that don't know each other and are eager to get ahead.

As a result, some areas in Beijing's southern Fengtai district have almost seen a 100 percent increase in burglaries over the last year.

In fact, in their effort to curb crime, Beijing police often focus their efforts on areas with large migrant worker populations.

While it would be a stretch of the imagination to say that every migrant worker is a criminal, it's clear from the cold, hard facts that they do cause an increase in crime. But, where is Beijing going to get enough police officers to keep up with the growth of its migrant worker population?

There are other questions too about how to handle the surge of migrant workers? How will Beijing educate the children of migrant workers when many schools still restrict their attendance because their parents don't have their paperwork in order? How will it deal with their waste and garbage? How will their rights be protected from the abuses of greedy employers?

Will migrant workers, that have settled down and have greatly contributed to the city's development, finally be granted a Bejing hukou? Believe me, I have a whole list I am not even mentioning.

I don't mean to sound hopeless but I see no reason for Beijing to be jubilant that it could now be or very soon be the biggest city in the world unless, of course, it can acquire the services of Liu. Saving Beijing may be the biggest magic act yet.