SWB
FE/1224 C1/9
China has formed a legal system to protect intellectual property rights. A trademark law and a patent law have been promulgated and put in force. On 1st June, 1991 a copyright law went into effect. According to 1990 statistics, more than 270,000 valid trademarks have been registered; and 66 countries and regions have applied for patent rights in China. By the end of 1990, American enterprises alone have applied for registration of 12,528 patent rights in China.
Public health facilities are a necessary guarantee for the human rights of life and health. In old China, health organizations and technicians were in short supply and at a low level and the majority of them were concentrated in urban areas. After the founding of new China, a public health network was gradually established. Covering all the cities and countryside, this network includes many kinds of health organizations at various levels and employs different types of public health workers. In 1990, there were 209,000 health institutions across the land, 56.9 times that of 1949. The number of hospital beds rose to 2,624,000, a 32.8-fold increase; and the number of professional health workers reached 3,898,000, 7.7 times that of 1949. In the countryside where the majority of Chinese people live, there are 47,749 hospitals at the township level; health centres or clinics have been set up in 86.2% of all villages; the number of hospital beds has reached 1,502,000; and there are 1,232,000 medical personnel and professional health workers. In China, every doctor serves an average of 649 people whereas in medium-income countries the figure is 2,390.
With the development of medical and public health undertakings, the incidence of infectious and endemic diseases has been drastically reduced. Such highly infectious diseases as leprosy, cholera, the plague and smallpox have been basically eradicated. Snail fever, Kaschin-Beck disease, the Keshan
disease and other endemic diseases have come under control. The development of medical care and epidemic prevention has greatly improved the health of the Chinese people. Impressed by what he called China's "surprising" achievements in medical care, Dr Bernard P. Kean, the World Health Organization's representative in China, said that he could hardly believe it was a developing country by looking only at such statistics as life expectancy, infant mortality and causes of death.
The Chinese nation has a fine tradition of respecting elderly people. This tradition has been carried forward in new China. Senior citizens have the right to material assistance from the state and society. By the end of 1990, there had been 23.01m people in the whole country living on retirement pensions. The proportion of the number of retired workers to the number of workers still in service is 1:6. In 1990, the pension for an average retired worker was 60% of the average pay for a worker in service, which ensured the livelihood of senior citizens in retirement, who also had the help and care of people frɔa 2" walks of life.
In urban areas, one of the major tasks of neighbourhood committees is to help widowed senior citizens and safeguard their rights and interests. Welfare institutions and senior cozen homes have beer, set up respectively by the state and the collective enterprises to provide board and lodging and other free services for senior citizens without relatives to
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depend on. In rural areas, childless and infirm old people are guaranteed food, clothing, housing, medical care and burial expenses by society and collectives. The legal rights of senior citizens are protected by law, it is forbidden to abuse, insult, slander, ill-treat or abandon them. Adult offspring have the obligation to provide for their parents.
China attaches great importance to guaranteeing the rights of women, children and teenagers.
According to the Constitution, women share equal rights with men in political, economic, cultural, social and family life. Like men, they have the right to elect and to be elected. A considerable percentage of people's deputies and officials at various levels are women. Of the people's deputies elected in 1988 to the seventh National People's Congress, 634, or 21.3%, were women. At present, 5,600 women serve as judges in the people's courts. The state lays special stress on training and promoting women cadres. The number of women serving in government offices has increased from 366,000 in 1951 to 8.7m; this accounts for 28.8% of the total number of civil
servants.
In China, men and women get equal pay for equal work, Working women enjoy the right of special labour protection and labour insurance. The total number of women workers in
China has increased from 600,000 in 1949 to 53m. Women's right to education is also duly respected. In 1990, the total number of female students at school reached 78.81m. These included 700,000 college students, 21.56m middle-school students and 56.56m primary school students, accounting for 33.7%, 42.2% and 46.2% respectively of the total number of students at school and college.
The state also pays special attention to protecting women's right to freedom of choice in marriage and forbids mercenary and arranged marriages and other acts of interference in other people's freedom of marriage. The judicial departments have taken stern measures according to law against criminals engaged in the sale of women.
The state has formulated laws and regulations to protect children. It is strictly forbidden to ill-treat and sell children and to use child labour. In order to safeguard the life and health of children, the state has issued a decision on strengthening and improving the health care in nurseries and kindergartens, and formulated special regulations to prevent and treat diseases such as infantile paralysis, smallpox, diphtheria and tuberculosis. China enjoys a relatively high rate of health care for children and of schooling for school-age children compared with other developing countries. The rate of inoculated children in China has almost reached the average level of developed countries.
However, China is still a developing country which is marked for its backward economic and cultural development, and much remains to be done to further expand the people's economic, cultural and social rights. In the ten-year program for the national economy and social development (1991-2000), concrete targets and measures are set forth for the further improvement of the people's economic, cultural and social rights.
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