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Change in China

Interview: Neil King, Samantha EarlyNovember 23, 2013

Beijing is again planning major reforms, which some Chinese feel will never reach them.

https://p.dw.com/p/1AMVH

China has announced a raft of reforms, including relaxing its one-child policy, which was introduced in the 1970s to stem rapid population growth. The country's leadership fears the effect of the ageing population on the labor pool and on state coffers. More than a quarter of the population is expected to be over 65 by 2050.

Beijing said the reforms would allow the free market to play a bigger role in the country, and farmers would enjoy greater property rights over their land. In a bid to improve the human rights situation, labor camps created half a century ago, which hold tens of thousands of inmates, are also supposed to be dissolved. Inmates have regularly been sentenced without trial to years of incarceration. Reforms are also supposed to include a reduction in the number of crimes subject to the death penalty.

But how do all these reforms trickle down to ordinary people?