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By Root 478 0

at deaths per 10,000 vehicles) between 1975 and 1998 shows that the growth rate in China—243 percent during the period—was the second highest in the world. Although rising traffic fatality rates are closely associated with a rising rate of motorization, weak states tend to have relatively higher death rates.1 The incidence of traffic accident fatalities in China almost doubled between 1985 and 2000 (about fifty-eight road fatalities per 10,000 vehicles in 2000, compared to thirty-four in 1985).2 In 2002, China reported 109,381 road fatalities.3 An international comparison using the 1995 data shows that traffic fatality risks were much higher in China than in many of its neighbors. Road fatalities per 10,000 vehicles were twenty-six for China, twenty for India, and eight for Indonesia. China fared better only than Tonga (fifty-two), Bangladesh (forty-four), Myanmar (thirty-six), and Mongolia (thirty).4 Road hazards arc not the only example of the state’s poor ability to protect the public. Due to weak regulatory enforcement, more than 100,000 people were made ill or killed by rat poison alone each year.5

Data on workplace safety in China reveal a similar state weakness. The Chinese workplace may be among the most hazardous in developing countries. A survey conducted by the official All-China Federation of Labor Unions in 1997 found that 10 percent of the workers polled reported having suffered injuries on the job.6 Official figures record 13,960 industrial and mining accidents in 2002 that resulted in 14,924 fatalities.7 Figures compiled by the International Labour Office for 1997 show that mining deaths in China (3,273) were more than thirteen times those in India (242).8 The rate of fatalities in coal mining accidents in China is the highest in the world, with seven deaths per 1 million metric tons of coal produced in 2001; India’s rate was 0.9.9 Most of the mining fatalities occurred in unsafe small mines run by private entrepreneurs, many of whom were either connected with local government officials or had held important official positions before. In the first five months of 2002, for example, private coal mines accounted for 54 percent of the fatalities; coal mines operated by township governments reported 14 percent of the fatalities.10 Unsafe private mines have powerful allies because many local officials arc investors in these mines and use their power to protect them.11 In one case, a local mafia group took over several coal mines in jiangxi and bribed nearly all the local officials, including the police chief, in return for protection.12

Education

The Chinese government’s ability to provide access to education does not compare well, either. China’s education spending, around 2 percent of GDP in the late 1990s, was considerably below the average of 3.4 percent of GDP for low-income countries. According to UNESCO’s data on public expenditures on education as a percentage of GDP, China spent significantly less on education than did India, Mexico, Brazil, and the Philippines. During 1998-2000, public expenditure on education in China was 2-2.1 percent of GDP, compared with 3.2-4 percent in India, 4.2—4.4 percent in Mexico, 4.2 percent in the Philippines, and 4.2-5.2 percent in Brazil. China spent less on education than Bangladesh (2.4 percent of GDP), a much poorer country.13 As a result, access to primary and middle-school education in 1998 was available to 85 percent of the school-age population nationwide and to only 40 percent of the children in the poor western regions. The middle school drop-out rate in rural areas was 42 percent in the late 1990s. In some parts of the south, the rate was 30-50 percent.14

According to a study by UNESCO in 2002, China will not achieve UNESCO’s literacy goal for 2015. Another study, conducted by the UN Development Programme (UNDP), showed that China’s underinvestment in education may have contributed to hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths of children. According to the UNDP, had China maintained the same rate of education as Vietnam, where per capita income was