According to a paper in early release by PNAS, China’s income inequality almost doubled 1980-2010, and now surpasses that of the US. Yu Xie and coauthor Xiang Zhou say that China’s current high income inequality is driven by structural factors, mainly regional disparities and the urban-rural divide, resulting from its political system. Xie says that Chinese people seem to “recognize income inequality as a serious social problem; on the other hand, they seem to … accept it as a fact of life. Something they have to pay for fast economic growth.”

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