Benjamin Almeda-Lopez

Politics Final
How does the Peoples Republic of Chinas National policy on disabled people differ
from how disabled people are typically handled at a local level?
At the national level Chinas laws and policies on disabled people seem very
progressive and advanced. Education, Employment, accessible living and public
spaces, protection from discrimination, general participation in culture and society,
protection by family or in foster homes and even political representation are all
guaranteed under the law along with many other things. However, in practice at
least at the local level these laws are generally ignored or circumvented.
For example according to national policy education is guaranteed for all disabled
citizens, and those disabled people who are capable of adapting to classroom
environments are supposedly allowed and even encouraged to integrate into
regular schools and classrooms. In fact multiple acts and laws regarding education
state that if for example a disabled student passes entrance examinations for a
university or other school then the school must allow that student to attend and
provide any assistance they may require in order to do so.
On the other hand numerous schools from Kindergarten age through high school
have outright no disabled students policies for their enrollment. The screenings for
whether children are considered competent enough to attend regular classes at
schools are done by medical personnel with little to no actual input from educators
of any kind. When students would be enrolled in special needs classrooms they are
often turned away regardless with the excuse that the schools have neither the
training nor the equipment to properly educate children with those disabilities, but
the staff and administration of many schools are known to repeatedly refute the
need for training and extra equipment for special education programs. It sometimes
takes groups of angry parents petitioning the government to force schools into
accepting disabled students and at times officials in the local government are not
even aware that national law requires them to do so. At the university level those
students that are allowed in are typically confined to a Special Education-based
major and classes in segregated buildings, even when their intelligence might
enable them to competently take up other majors.
Employment in China is another thing national laws guarantee for disabled citizens.
A minimum of 1.5% of any public of private businesses employees must be disabled
in order for that business to avoid heavy taxation or fines and numerous
government mandated programs for occupational therapy and otherwise finding
work for the disabled supposedly help thousands or even millions of disabled
Chinese get jobs each year according to official figures.

However while the programs are effective at getting disabled Chinese into jobs at
the first place, little attention is paid to ensuring that people with disabilities
actually keep these jobs. The 1.5 percent part of employment laws is very loosely
enforced and long term employment is rare for most of Chinas disabled population.
When the law is enforced many companies both public and private prefer to take
the loss from the fine to hiring a disabled person. A lot of lip-service is paid to the
idea of employing disabled people but few permanent results come from it.
The problems with ensuring the disabled populations cultural and societal
participation are tied together with general failure to protect against discrimination
and loss of dignity. Many disabled people hide away in their homes or are
sometimes even locked up in their homes by family members who feel ashamed of
them or just do not know what to do with them and little if anything is done by the
government to address this despite it technically violating laws on both family care
for the disabled and their participation in society. This is also partially tied into the
issue of a lack of accessible public spaces. While national law requires accessibility
throughout the country, the reality is that the idea of making things accessible is
often laughable in both rural areas where lack developed infrastructure makes it
difficult if not impossible and in urban areas where city sprawl means that even
where there are accessible pathways for the physically disabled they are often
blocked by motorists, shop-owners or pedestrians, or sometimes torn up and rearranged into unusable labyrinths by constant construction.
Going back to the issue of family, the Law for the Protection of Disabled People
specifically states that families have a duty to care for and help their disabled
children and other family members. Yet these days the vast majority of children in
Chinese orphanages are disabled in some way either physical or mental. Of these,
many are not actually orphans at all but merely abandoned by parents who do not
want the burden of raising a disabled child themselves. Local orphanages take them
in all the same, typicaly without any legal repercussions for the families that
abandon their children.
Much of this seems like it could be fixed with proper political representation, and
that too is guaranteed under the law. The official organization for representing the
portion of Chinas population with physical or mental handicaps is Chinas Disabled
Persons Federation, which is tasked with pretty much all duties related to the
disabled in China as well. Formed in 1988 with Deng Pufang as the head
Chairperson of the organization, the CDPF were also largely responsible for the
aforementioned PRCs Law on the Protection of Disabled Persons in 1990 that
spelled out and guaranteed all of these rights and more for the handicapped in the
first place.
While Deng Pufang and some inner circle members of the CDPF are disabled and
Federation claims to be a representative organization first and foremost, in most
areas of China at the smaller local there are few or no handicapped people working

for or with the CDPF, which means that its common for the people representing the
disabled do not truly understand the peoples needs. Secondly because the CDPF is
at least a quasi-governmental association and receives most of its funding from the
government and generally has to maintain good guanxi with it at all levels, no one
really tries to make big, potentially agitating changes anymore. When combined
with lack of formal education for many disabled citizens regarding anything and
many handicapped peoples inability or unwillingness to leave their homes, a
situation is created where people often do not even realize they have nationally
recognized rights that are being ignored, and where if they do find out it is usually
much easier for officials to just ignore them than try and rock the boat and risk
getting their funding cut off.
So in summary while the national laws are very progressive, protective or optimistic,
at the local level they are often ignored or poorly implemented by a populace that is
often unaware of or unwilling to address their existence more than nominally.
Question 2
What are the similarities and differences between the Americans with Disabilities
Act of 1990 in the U.S. and the Peoples Republic of Chinas Law on the Protection of
Disabled People written in the same year?
At a surface level both seem extremely similar to one another. Both were written in
the same year though the PRCs law went into effect in 1991. Both also guarantee
rights of equality and inclusion to the disabled populace of their respective
countries in areas such as education, employment, and protection from
discrimination, and political representation amongst other things. It should probably
be acknowledged that this may not be entirely coincidental, as Deng Pufang went to
school in and also attended rehabilitation clinics in the United States around the
same time as the disabled advocacy movement there was first hitting its full swing
before returning to China and becoming head Chairman of the CDPF, an
organization that was instrumental in crafting the Law on the Protection of Disabled
People.
However while both laws guarantee rights in many of the same areas, their general
focuses as well as their specifics in doing so vary considerably. While it addressed
rehabilitation, the Americans with Disabilities Act generally focuses more on
adapting society so that disabled citizens can function independently even without
a need for rehab. There is actually a small subsection guaranteeing that efforts are
made so that handicapped people can live, work and participate as well as able
people can. Chinas policy is on the opposite end of the spectrum, with its focus on
rehabilitation, prevention and family care, though adaptation and accessibility are
included. It has subsections that obligate family and guardians to care for disabled
members rather than encouraging them to live independent of others and talks
about fixing the handicapped so they can be productive members of society as well

as making promises to look at ways to prevent such people from being naturally
born and subtly promising the option of euthanasia for such children.
On the subject of education the two laws are also quite different. Both promise
education for all disabled citizens but the ADA makes it illegal for schools to require
medical examinations for enrollment unless it is a requirement for all students as
well as denial from enrollment based solely on any such exam unless the children
pose an immediate and lethal threat to others. Chinas laws make such a medical
exam a requirement for disabled children to attend school even if a school
otherwise would not require a medical examination.
On the subject of employment the two laws differ greatly again. While both require
employment for disabled persons Chinas Law on the Protection of Disabled People
requires all companies hire disabled persons so that at least 1.5% of their
employees are disabled or they will suffer a fine, while tax breaks are similarly given
for diversity in the U.S., The ADA requires that hiring practices merely not
discriminate against disabled applicants, and makes exceptions for certain jobs or
companies where physical and mental fitness might be required including some
defense jobs and nuclear power plant work for the sake of example.
Discrimination and what it means to be disabled are also handled or at least
phrased a little differently by both sets of laws. The PRCs Law on the Protection of
People with Disabilities makes discrimination and actions which diminish the dignity
of disabled persons illegal but does not really expound on what constitutes
discrimination very clearly. The Americans with Disabilities Act on the other hand
defines discrimination multiple times as something similar to anything that would
cause the exclusion or marginalization of disabled people based solely or in part on
their disabilities. The two do have similar definitions for what it means to be a
disabled person, except that the PRCs law adds on an emphasis that goes
something like loss of a major organ or function in part or in whole in addition to
an inability to perform an action in a manner considered normal by the majority.
In some other general senses the laws are also not the same, especially regarding
exceptions and leniency. For example while most or all of the requirements for
schools, businesses and public transport or accessibility laws are enforced equally
and without exception across the board in the PRCs Protection of Disabled Persons,
the ADA is more pragmatic and economically focused, saying that all businesses,
schools and other public and private entities need only become accessible to the
best of their abilities and without putting undue financial burdens on themselves.
The matter of who is actually responsible for these laws and the disabled people
they apply to also differs between both countries laws. The Law on the Protection of
Disabled People makes all advocacy and general disabled people matters the
business of the Chinese Disabled Persons Federation and the Chinese Disabled
Persons Federation only, at least in terms of anything directly relating to the

government. The Americans with Disabilities Act on the other hand says it is
officially the duty of the entire United States Government to represent and
accommodate as best they can the needs of disabled people.
While both laws guarantee similar rights to similar people and were made at the
same time and so at a glance may appear to have more similarities than
differences, the way those rights are framed and focused means they are in fact
extremely different and achieve very different results for their respective disabled
communities.