Some media commentators say the national leadership's recent meeting held last week on building a harmonious society was the first in 20 years to focus on social issues. I think this may be a bit of an exaggeration.

Back in the late 1970s, the national leadership, guided by Deng Xiaoping, launched economic reforms meant to solve social problems as well. Perhaps the writers in today's media have forgotten how their parents used to stand in long queues just to get the meagre ration of some food or vegetables for their households.

That kind of life not only slowed down the economy, and working of the market, but also deeply cut into our social texture. Applause was heard from all sectors when Deng told his comrades that poverty shouldn't be the name of socialism.

Economic reform has not just marvelled the world with record growth in GDP, it has also yielded a great unifying force, many shared norms and goals for this society.

It would be quite wrong, indeed, to attribute the social problems facing China today to the reforms of the past two decades, as if these social ills were related purely to economic pursuits, or even worse, as if the problems now are its intended goals.

Take a glance at the areas where the problems are most acute. Medical services, education and housing have been nicknamed the "three mountains" to crush the backbones of the middle-income groups. However rising prices for these goods and services are not the inevitable consequences of having a market economy. It is the result of lack of public finance support and government initiative, despite continuous rises in tax revenues and the funds to better manage these community needs.

These are areas showing a lack of progress to match reform in the rest of society.

The management and supervision of public funds have remained weak and disintegrated, subject to the interference from many local officials without reporting to the central government.

One example is the recent scandal in Shanghai, where the former secretary of the municipal committee of the Communist Part of China Chen Liangyu used his discretion to lend the city's social security fund to his personal business friends.

Zhang Rongkun was one of the business people. But Zhang was only a "fake" capitalist. Of his 10 billion yuan (US$1.2 billion) worth of assets, according to the Chinese-language news magazine Oriental Outlook, 30 per cent was borrowed from the Shanghai social security fund, another 60 per cent borrowed from the State-owned banks, and the rest from government grant for the restructuring of a formerly State-owned enterprise.

Another example, which is even more outrageous, was reported from a smaller city called Chenzhou, a booming city of Hunan Province. Municipal government officials used the public housing fund for their gambling sprees in Macao's casinos.

At one time, one person (Li Shubiao, former director of Chenzhou administration of public housing fund) used as much as 120 million yuan (US$15 million).

The reforms of the late 1970s have generated a tremendous amount of money for China that could be used to help and care for low-income groups and building a harmonious society.

Instead, China social progress still has a long way to go because this tremendous amount of money is being wasted by corrupt officials at quite an alarming rate.

Don't blame economic reforms for the obvious problems. Blame the corrupt officials.

Email: younuo@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 10/16/2006 page4)