On April 23, a speeding bus plunged 13 meters off the ramp of a bridge in Southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, killing 26 of its 32 passengers.

Shortly afterwards, Deputy Mayor Zhou Mubing announced that compensation will be doled out regardless of the victims' residence status and a higher yardstick would be used in case of discrepancies.

Chongqing is presumably the world's largest municipality, encompassing large swaths of rural areas. It is reasonable to assume that victims include both urban and rural residents.

By "urban" and "rural", I mean the residence permits people hold, not necessarily where they actually live. Migrant workers may work in cities for years, but legally they are not residents.

This is essentially a caste system that condemns a vast majority of the nation's citizens to a secondary status, with no safety net of insurance, healthcare or welfare to fall back on. Education is way below the urban standard, and salary-earning jobs are virtually non-existent.

This discrimination extends to the afterlife, so to speak. According to the current regulation, compensation rates are calculated by the average per-capita disposal income of the town, if the victim is a city slicker, or the average net income in the case of a rural resident. Since urban income is much higher, an urban resident, even when killed in a traffic accident, can command far higher compensation.

As revealed by Li Yuling, a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, using the 2005 rates, the urban-rural gap for such compensation is 98,000 yuan ($12,700) in Sichuan, 110,000 ($14,300) in Hubei, 130,000 ($16,900) in Hunan, 140,000($18,200) in Jiangsu.

It is by no means a revelation that the rural population suffers discrimination. It is the ultimate insult when a life tragically cut short is worth so much less because that person was born in the "wrong" place.

To be fair, the force of reform unleashed by Deng Xiaoping has chipped away some of the shackles that used to chain rural residents to the land. Nowadays they can choose to work in cities, albeit under abominable conditions, and even buy real estate in places where they don't hold a residence permit, even though their children have to pay extra fees to get into public schools.

Ironically, people who advocate equal rights for rural residents are mostly urbanites with good education and a strong sense of right and wrong. In the public arena, rural people don't really have a voice. While it is admirable that we urbanites relentlessly highlight the woes of our rural brethren, some resort to an idealistic scenario in rebutting the old argument that repealing the residence system will cause havoc.

I have no doubt that a sudden surge of rural-to-urban migration in the absence of a two-tier system will exacerbate public security problems in our cities in the short run. Would you be surprised that a significant amount of urban crime, especially petty theft, is committed by rural migrants? We don't need to make the disenfranchised into saints to prove the system wrong.

The forecast of the authorities is correct because, by removing obstacles to the free flow of humanity the negative consequences of urbanization will surface. But it is a moral issue that overrides the security issue. It is simply reprehensible to hold down one section of the citizenry so that another can enjoy more rights and government management will be easier.

The Chongqing municipal government is following several provinces in the right direction. It may not deliver the coup de grace to this inherently iniquitous residence system, but any dent will help to dismantle the entrenched notion that everyone is equal but urbanites are more equal than country folks.

Email: RAYMOND ZHOU@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 04/28/2007 page4)