Everyone, I've had this cold for 2 or 3 weeks now,
and it seriously affected our normal production schedule.
Honestly, it's not a major illness,
but Japan's medical system really dragged this whole thing out.
About 2 weeks ago, I went to the hospital.
They tested me for Covid, the flu, and all that,
and it turned out to be neither.
So they gave me medicine for the symptoms, stuff for coughing,
nasal congestion, and so on.
But no antibiotics.
Even then, I already suspected it was a bacterial upper respiratory infection.
I took the medicine for a few days, but it didn't really help.
So last Friday, when I saw there was still no improvement,
I went back to the hospital.
I told the doctor, look, my mucus is yellow.
This is obviously a bacterial infection.
Just give me antibiotics.
He finally gave me 3 days worth.
I took them from Friday through Sunday,
and I could clearly feel the difference.
But I finished the medicine yesterday,
and this morning I went back again and got a few more days of antibiotics.
If they had prescribed them a week earlier,
I'd probably be fine by now.
But as you can hear, my voice,
and especially this nasal tone, still sounds sick.
So today, I basically dragged myself into the office and kept recording the show.
Now what are we talking about today?
As everyone knows,
the CCP is currently holding the two sessions in China.
And the two sessions, you know how it works.
The rubber stamp National People's Congress goes to Beijing,
everybody shows up, has a few meals, votes yes,
and all the major policy plans are treated as approved.
This year, there are two big topics that both Chinese and foreign media are watching.
One is economic growth.
The target has dropped from 5% to 4.5%.
So naturally, some people are saying, well,
this shows the Chinese economy is under pressure.
The other big topic is the approval of the 15th Five-Year Plan.
Both are broad economic blueprints for the future.
Generally speaking,
China's NPC delegates don't really get to speak on issues like this.
They hand you the plan, you look it over,
and when it's time to vote, you vote yes.
So if you want to survive as an NPC delegate in China, there's one rule.
Don't actually think of yourself as an NPC delegate.
Don't think of yourself as part of the highest legislative body.
Just think of yourself as a high-level spectator.
When they tell you to vote, you vote yes.
Shen Zhilan served as an NPC delegate for eight terms,
and she said it herself.
I've learned one thing.
I vote yes on everything.
These matters have already been decided by the party and the state.
What opinions could we ordinary representatives possibly have?
So I vote yes on all of it.
And that tells you a lot about how the system works.
Later, people asked her what kind of person is fit to be an NPC delegate.
She gave the standard answer.
An NPC delegate should represent the people and help them solve problems.
But when they asked whether she actually communicated with voters, she said no.
She said, ours is a democratic election.
If you go around talking too much, that's not appropriate.
If people don't elect you, then don't go talk to them.
That's dangerous.
And really, the people who get into trouble
are the ones who take the whole thing too seriously.
People who actually believe they are genuine representatives.
People who really think they are part of the highest organ of state power.
Those people usually don't end well.
Maybe you get too much attention this year,
and next year, you're gone.
So what do delegates usually talk about during the two sessions?
Mostly livelihood issues, things closer to everyday life.
The big macro questions are left to the party and the government.
Economic growth targets, five-year plans, long-term strategy.
Those are not really areas where delegates are supposed to have much of a voice.
But on social issues and daily life concerns,
they're given a little room to speak.
For example, during this year's two sessions,
there was a village party secretary from Liaoning named Tong Liang.
Not a township party secretary, a village party secretary.
And Tong Liang said...
After he gave that interview,
it immediately drew a lot of media attention.
And now that Chen Jilan is gone,
there are only a handful of rural delegates left in the National People's Congress.
So once the media found one, they all rushed over.
It was Guo Fenglian, the former party secretary of Dazhai.
And as reporters followed her and asked questions,
Guo Fenglian said while walking...
Now, think about it.
Urban workers get pensions, but farmers get just 200 yuan.
Isn't that way too little?
When I saw that news, I honestly felt a bit upset.
Why? Because when Guo Fenglian was talking to reporters,
she looked pretty nervous.
She didn't really dare stop and stand there for an interview.
She was talking while walking.
And everyone knows Dazhai.
Back during the Cultural Revolution,
it was held up by the Gang of Four as a national model.
Chen Yonghui, the party secretary of Dazhai, was an illiterate peasant.
And he later became a vice-premier of the state council.
Guo Fenglian was his successor as party secretary.
So after the Cultural Revolution ended,
she of course got dragged down along with Chen Yonghui
and had a rough time too.
But in recent years,
Guo Fenglian was elected again as a delegate
to the National People's Congress.
So in a sense, she still counts as a rural representative.
And you can see how carefully she raised the issue
of the 200 yuan pension for farmers.
And that figure is not made up.
There is real data behind it.
I looked up an official number.
The average pension under China's rural pension system,
the so-called New Rural Insurance Program,
is 287 yuan a month.
Now don't misunderstand that number.
It's only an average.
The gap between different parts of the country is huge.
In Shanghai, for example,
it has basically reached 1,555 yuan a month,
which is actually pretty high.
In Beijing, it's 998 yuan,
which is also not bad.
But in Gansu, it's only 249 yuan.
The national average is 287 yuan.
And 287 yuan is clearly nowhere near enough
to support a retired farmer.
Why?
Because according to the CCP's own published standard,
the minimum living guarantee in rural China
is 594 yuan a month.
In other words,
if you are a farmer living in rural China,
the minimum amount needed
just to stay above the basic survival line is 594 yuan.
So if you're only getting 287 yuan,
you're still several hundred yuan short.
You're not even at the rural minimum subsistence level.
So if you expect pensions to support farmers in old age,
then no, it is clearly nowhere near enough.
And that creates a huge elderly care crisis in rural China.
I once read an academic paper
about elderly care in rural China,
and it pointed out several major features of the problem.
First, the older people get, the poorer they become.
When you're 60, you may still have basic mobility
and some ability to work.
You might still be able to take on odd jobs.
But once you reach 70 or 80,
the older you get, the poorer you become.
Second, elderly women are poorer than elderly men.
Why?
Because in the rural social structure,
men usually control family finances,
while women often have little financial power.
So once a woman loses her husband or has no one to rely on
and has to depend on her children to support her,
her later years can become even more miserable.
Everyone knows that in Chinese society,
there has long been this idea of raising sons
for old age support.
But the social structure of rural China
has already been broken apart.
The core family is weakening.
The clan-based structure is gone.
So under today's conditions,
relying on children for young Lao
is no longer something you can count on.
And that is exactly what has created
this very severe young Lao crisis in rural China.
Do you still remember the episode
that first made Hu Qianfeng go viral?
Wasn't it the one where he was in Chengdu, Sichuan,
and saw an elderly woman in a supermarket
trying to buy something?
I was 78 years old.
Did you get any pension?
No, no.
What do your children do now?
They are still studying.
They have two sons.
They are still studying.
Do you usually spend any money?
Yes, I do.
I just go out and look for them.
And then he just started tearing up on the spot.
Did you ever do any housework?
Yes, I did.
I earned 300 yuan a month.
A lot of people have gotten used to the glitter
and glamor of China's cities.
And to how beautiful and polished
the cities themselves look.
But what many people don't realise
is that in China's countryside,
there are still 180 million people
living on an average monthly pension of just 280 yuan.
Just imagine what kind of life that really means for them.
It is exactly in this context
that during this year's two sessions,
some delegates proposed raising farmers' pensions
to 500 yuan as quickly as possible.
Some even suggested raising them to 1,000 yuan.
But what was the actual result?
On March 5th, at Premier Li Qiang's press conference,
it was announced that farmers' pensions in 2026
had been increased.
20 yuan, from 143 yuan to 163 yuan a month.
That is the reality in China today.
So today, I want to talk about this issue.
Is there any real chance that farmers' pensions
could be raised to 500 yuan?
Why can't they reach 500 yuan?
And what is the bigger background behind all this?
Before we get into that,
let's first look back
at how the new rural pension system came about.
As everyone knows,
Chinese farmers have long been ignored by society.
In China, being a farmer is not just a job,
it is an identity.
After Mao built what he called New China,
he basically divided people into different ranks.
And at the very bottom were the farmers.
Farmers had no right to go work in the cities,
and no right to receive pensions.
So when farmers got old,
they could only rely on themselves.
Of course, that had been the way things worked
for thousands of years.
But wasn't the Communist Party always claiming
that it represented workers and peasants?
In reality, it looked after workers, not farmers.
Then, in 2009, during the Hu Wen era,
the government introduced what was called
the New Rural Pension System.
Under that system,
the central government put up 55 yuan
to create a very basic pension for farmers.
That 55 yuan was universal.
As long as you were over 60,
you could receive it every month.
At the same time,
they also copied the Urban Employee Pension Model
and created individual accounts.
These were divided into five contribution levels,
100, 200, 300, 400, and 500 yuan.
Depending on which level you paid into each year,
local governments would add a subsidy.
The minimum subsidy was 30 yuan per person.
Over time, money would build up in your personal account.
And once you reached 60,
the total in that account would be divided by 139 months.
That monthly amount,
plus the 55 yuan from the government,
became your pension.
So yes, after 2009,
farmers technically had a pension system.
But the increase was extremely small.
In 2009, the government's basic pension was 55 yuan.
By 2015, it had risen to just 70 yuan.
That took six years.
And the total increase was only 15 yuan.
Think about that.
During the same period,
how much did urban workers' pensions rise?
How much did pensions for civil servants
and public institutions go up?
I don't even need to compare them.
The increase for farmers
probably didn't even amount to a fraction of that.
Then it rose to 88 yuan in 2018,
and to 103 yuan in 2023.
After 2023, the pace picked up a little,
with an average increase of 20 yuan a year.
In 2024 and 2025,
it went up by 20 yuan each year,
reaching 143 yuan.
And then, in Premier Li Jiang's government work report
on March 5th this year,
it was announced that in 2026,
it would go up by another 20 yuan,
bringing it to 163 yuan.
Now, besides the basic pension provided by the government,
the personal pension portion also varies from place to place.
In the past, it was divided into five levels,
from 100 to 500 yuan.
But now in many places,
the contribution tiers are much more spread out.
In some areas,
the highest level can go up to 10,000 yuan a year.
So over time,
a nationwide structure has gradually taken shape.
That is the basic historical background
behind the development of China's new rural pension system.
Once that system was set up,
China's overall pension system
basically came to be divided into three major parts.
The first is the pension system
for government agencies and public institutions.
Everyone knows that is the most privileged group.
Right now, about 23 million people
are receiving pensions from that system.
The second is the urban employee pension system.
This one is basically built on self-contribution
by urban workers.
The third is the pension system
for urban and rural residents.
Right now, about 180 million people
are receiving pensions from that system.
While the number receiving urban employee pensions
is about 120 million.
So nationwide,
there are roughly 330 million people
receiving pensions in total.
Now, among these three systems,
one feature really stands out.
The second one,
the urban employee pension system
is basically funded through self-accumulation.
As everyone knows,
if you have a job,
you pay 8% yourself and your employer pays 16%.
For a total of 24% going into the pension fund.
But the other two systems are different.
One is for government agencies and public institutions.
And the other is for urban and rural residents.
These two are not mainly built through self-accumulation.
They are largely supported
through the state welfare system.
In other words,
both have a very strong welfare character.
Let's first look at government agencies
and public institutions.
As I said,
only about 23 million people are in this group.
Nominally,
their pension system has already been merged
with the urban employee system.
But during that so-called merger,
the government basically played a trick.
On top of the basic pension,
it also created an annuity system.
And through large amounts of fiscal subsidies,
that annuity system made sure retired officials
and public sector employees
did not see their pensions fall at all
compared with the old system.
In many cases,
they actually got more.
What is their replacement rate?
It is between 80 and 100%.
What does 100% mean?
It means that once you reach a certain administrative rank,
your income basically does not fall after retirement.
You more or less keep receiving what you earned before.
Or take another example.
If you started working before 1949,
then your pension could also be paid at 100%.
And on top of that,
the annual increases are relatively high.
An 80% plus replacement rate
is already among the highest in the world.
In most countries,
pension replacement rates are only around 40 to 50%.
But in China,
for government agencies and public institutions,
it is 80 to 100%.
Now look at the lowest end of the system,
which is the pension program for urban and rural residents.
This one is also mainly supported by state finances.
For example, in 2025,
the total size of the pension fund
for urban and rural residents
was more than 700 billion yuan.
Out of that,
more than 400 billion
came directly from government fiscal support.
So yes, it also depends mainly on government welfare.
The problem is that it is welfare at a very low level.
Let me give you one example.
Among these three pension systems,
each one receives annual subsidies from the state.
In 2023, how much did the state subsidize the pension system
for government agencies and public institutions?
599.1 billion yuan for just 23 million people.
For the urban employee pension system,
the subsidy was 773.1 billion yuan.
And for urban and rural residents,
how much was it?
Just 378.9 billion yuan.
But just look at the population breakdown.
The urban and rural resident system
covers 180 million people.
The urban employee system covers 120 million.
And the system for government agencies
and public institutions covers only 23 million.
Now look at the subsidy per person.
For urban employees,
the average annual subsidy is about 3,825 yuan per person.
For urban and rural residents,
it is only 246 yuan per person.
And for government agencies and public institutions,
it is even higher.
How big is the gap?
It can be as high as 17 to 1.
In other words,
every person in a government agency
or public institution receives 17 times
as much fiscal subsidy from the state each year
as an urban or rural resident does.
And by 2024, that gap was still widening.
In 2024, subsidies for urban and rural residents
came to 434.5 billion yuan.
Subsidies for the urban employee pension system
were 806.6 billion yuan.
And subsidies for government agencies
and public institutions were 643.9 billion yuan.
I also looked at the Ministry of Finance data.
At the budgeting stage,
they had actually set aside 710 billion yuan
for government agencies and public institutions.
Then when the final accounts came out,
they still had 70 billion left over.
That tells you just how favorable
the conditions are for that group.
And this creates a huge unfairness.
Think about it.
These are all fiscal subsidies.
But people in government agencies
and public institutions receive 17 times
what urban and rural residents get.
What is the logic behind that?
If the state is putting up the same public money every year,
roughly 2 trillion yuan,
then in principle, the subsidy
should be distributed more evenly on a per-person basis.
That would at least make basic sense.
So when Chinese farmers end up with pensions this low,
the real issue is not simply that they deserve less.
At its core, this is the result
of an unfair redistribution system.
And speaking of unfair redistribution,
there is one more point that needs to be made.
A lot of people say farmers do not get decent pensions
because they never built up enough personal contributions.
Urban workers paid into the system for 20 or 30 years,
so now they receive retirement benefits.
But that argument misses a major historical debt.
Historically, Chinese farmers were in many ways
employees of the state, even if they were called peasants.
Take the big infrastructure projects of the past,
irrigation works, roads, canals.
When Henan built the Red Flag Canal,
wasn't it farmers who were forced to provide unpaid labour?
When farmers did that kind of compulsory work,
they received no income at all.
It was basically like corvée labor in ancient times.
Now, if the state made them work,
did the state pay pension contributions for them?
Of course not.
But if the state compelled farmers to provide labour,
shouldn't the state also have taken responsibility
for their social security?
That is the first point.
The second point is this.
For a very long time,
rural China operated under so-called village self-governance.
At the village level,
that meant almost all public services were paid for
by farmers themselves.
This was the old system of the so-called
three deductions and five unified charges.
So in addition to agricultural taxes,
farmers also had to pay for all kinds of local expenses,
village-level fees, township-level fees,
things like teachers' salaries in rural schools,
the pay for village committee members,
local public security expenses.
All of it ultimately came out of farmers' pockets.
Before 2000, when we at CCTV
filmed those intense conflicts in the countryside,
many of them came directly from this problem.
Local authorities trying to squeeze money
out of extremely poor farmers through these charges,
creating very sharp tensions.
But if you think about it,
that money should have come from the state
in the first place.
Public services are supposed to be supported by tax revenue.
So why was it that in the poorest rural areas,
farmers had to fund everything themselves?
That was clearly the responsibility of the state,
but the burden was shifted onto farmers.
And at the same time,
farmers were not even allowed to freely move to the cities
to work, settle down and live there.
So this is not just a policy problem today,
it is also a huge historical debt.
And if the government used farmers
to carry out local governance in the countryside
through that kind of exploitation back then,
then shouldn't it now pay back that historical debt?
That is the second very important point.
And then there is a third point.
What is the third point?
Let me think for a second.
My memory isn't what it used to be.
Right.
The third point is this.
Since people keep saying farmers never paid into the system,
does everyone remember that people in government agencies
and public institutions also didn't pay
into the pension system in the past?
When I was still in China, I taught at a university.
Later, when we moved into the social insurance system
at CCTV, I had to get a document from my old employer.
It was called deemed contribution.
What that meant was,
even though you hadn't actually paid pension insurance
in those earlier years,
the state would still recognize those years
as if you had contributed.
In other words, those years counted.
So why is it that people in government agencies
and public institutions can rely on deemed contributions
and still receive pensions,
while farmers, who also did not make formal contributions,
are told there is no such thing for them?
That is unfair too.
By the same logic,
if public sector employees can be treated as having paid,
then farmers should also be treated that way.
So you can see the point here.
The argument that farmers have no right to pensions
because they didn't pay into social insurance
simply does not hold up.
And besides, if you look around the world,
in most countries,
farmers' pensions are largely funded by the government.
Anyway, take Taiwan, for example.
Taiwan has an old age allowance for elderly farmers.
From what I saw,
the highest figure has already gone
above 10,000 new Taiwan dollars a month.
And that money is paid directly.
Farmers are not required
to have made pension contributions for it.
There is an income cap, of course.
Once your income reaches a certain level,
you no longer qualify.
But in essence,
it is a universal old age welfare program
funded by the state.
And why do I call it universal?
Because the money comes from public finance.
As I said earlier,
China already spends close to two trillion yuan a year
subsidizing its three major pension systems.
But because government agencies and public institutions
take the biggest share,
and farmers get the smallest share,
the result is that farmers
can only get around 200 yuan a month,
while many people in government agencies
and public institutions
can get 8,000 or even 10,000 yuan a month.
If this money were turned into a more universal system
and distributed on a per-person basis,
some calculations show that farmers' pensions
could immediately rise to around 560 yuan a month.
That would be much closer
to the basic principle of citizenship.
Because if pensions are being paid
out of public finances to the whole population,
then why should people in government agencies
and public institutions,
who are already relatively well-off,
still get such high pensions,
while farmers, who are much poorer,
get such low ones?
Clearly, this is a deeply unfair pension system.
So if you look at the issue carefully,
the reason Chinese farmers cannot get pensions
of 500 yuan a month
is not that the state cannot afford it.
The real reason
is that the redistribution system itself
is obviously unfair.
So from that perspective,
what does it really mean
when farmers' pensions go up by just 20 yuan a year?
Is that some kind of benevolent policy?
Or does it show that farmers' interests
are still being ignored?
My own conclusion is very clear.
Giving farmers just 20 extra yuan a year
is not some great act of benevolence.
It is simply another sign
that farmers' interests are continuing to be neglected.
And that is why many scholars,
and also some NPC delegates,
are now calling for farmers' pensions
to be raised to 500 yuan
as quickly as possible.
Now, there are a few possible paths for reform here.
The ideal path is the one I mentioned earlier.
Level out the amount of public fiscal subsidies
across the board.
In other words,
people in government agencies and public institutions,
urban workers, and farmers
should all enjoy the same basic pension support
from public finances.
If you did that,
farmers' pensions could immediately rise
to around 560 yuan a month.
Pensions for people in government agencies
and public institutions
would probably come down a bit,
meaning their retirement income
would be reduced somewhat.
But the truth is,
their replacement rate, over 80%,
is already far too high.
It's deeply unfair,
and it should come down anyway.
As for urban workers,
their replacement rate is around 40 to 50%.
I think that can stay where it is for now.
But for government agencies and public institutions,
the annual subsidy is now around 640 billion yuan.
I ran the numbers.
If you simply redirected that 640 billion yuan to farmers,
then the basic pension for farmers
could go straight up to around 500 yuan a month.
In other words,
even if you leave the subsidies
for urban workers completely untouched
and only take the 640 billion yuan
now going to government agencies and public institutions
and give it to farmers instead,
farmers' basic pension could still rise to 500 yuan a month.
That would be the best solution.
The second option is this.
Leave the pensions for government agencies
and public institutions alone.
Leave urban workers alone as well,
and just raise farmers' pensions separately.
If you want to raise them to 500 yuan a month,
our calculation is that it would require
an additional 729.5 billion yuan a year.
Now, how big is that number
relative to China's public finances?
China's annual public fiscal spending
is about 28 trillion yuan.
So 729.5 billion would account
for roughly 2.5% of total public spending.
That is not a small number.
It's probably about half of China's military budget, right?
Cut two aircraft carriers, and the money is there.
Of course, a lot of people would disagree with that.
But the point is, even this 729.5 billion
is not impossible to come up with,
especially if it is implemented in stages.
Personally, I think it is entirely doable.
For example, some scholars have suggested
transferring a larger share of state-owned equity
into the pension system
and using that directly to subsidize
urban and rural residents.
Others have suggested taking a fixed percentage
of tobacco tax revenue
and channeling it directly into the resident pension system.
So there are ways to do it.
For example, if you raised farmers' pensions
by 100 yuan a year,
then within three to five years,
you could bring them up to 500 yuan.
That is completely achievable.
And what would be the benefit of doing this?
Farmers are the poorest group in Chinese society.
For every extra yuan you give them,
some people have calculated
that they will spend 0.8 to 0.9 yuan of it.
Why? Because they are poor.
Once they receive the money,
they will immediately use it
to meet basic consumption needs.
And in the end, the multiplier effect is significant.
For every 1 yuan given to farmers,
the total economic effect in society
could reach 1.4 yuan.
As everyone knows, in the past few years,
the government has kept talking
about boosting domestic demand.
Consumption in China accounts for only about 40% of GDP.
For a long time, domestic demand has been too weak.
So under these circumstances,
if you give farmers 700 billion yuan more,
the multiplier effect could generate
more than 1 trillion yuan in economic activity.
So this would actually be good
for both the country and the people.
Once farmers have some money in hand,
once that pension reaches 500 yuan,
which is at least around the subsistence level,
it would also help boost domestic demand.
That is one proposal.
There is another proposal some NPC delegates have raised,
and it is a bit more cautious, a bit more conservative.
The idea is to keep things basically unchanged
for people in their 60s.
Their pensions would still go up gradually,
maybe by 20 yuan a year as they do now.
But for people over 70,
the pension could first be raised to 500 yuan.
The reason is simple.
The number of people over 70 is smaller.
Their poverty is more severe.
And for them, this money is much closer to lifesaving money.
If that plan were adopted,
the additional fiscal spending each year
would be only 230 billion yuan.
Against a total public spending budget of 28 trillion yuan,
the impact would be even smaller.
The annual increase would be less than 1% of total spending,
only about 0.7%.
But the problem is that Chinese farmers
do not form a real interest block within the system,
including within the National People's Congress.
In other words, the interests of farmers
basically have no real spokespeople in this society.
At most, a few delegates raise the issue and make an appeal.
But whether that ever gets reflected
in actual government policy
depends entirely on whether the people in power
happen to care at that moment.
So the real question is this.
Out of 180 million farmers,
how many people actually care about their poverty?
How many elderly farmers in China
have already passed away in hardship and poverty,
and no one really paid attention?
China now claims it is no longer
the poor country it used to be.
It calls itself an emerging developed nation.
But with such a huge group of elderly people
still trapped in poverty,
can you really call yourself a rising great power?
So I also hope Premier Li Qiang,
after delivering your government work report,
might take a look at Wangju Paya,
take a look at the numbers we've laid out here.
If you really are people-centred,
if you really care about the poorest group in China,
then I hope the Chinese government
will raise farmers' pensions as soon as possible
to an average of 500 yuan a month.
All right, that's all for today.
Thank you, everyone.