Society

At least 27 million chinese people shopped online last year, spending 73.4 billion yuan (about 10.74 billion U.S. dollars), China IntelliConsulting Corp, a market survey company, said in a recent report.

The survey, conducted in January among 3,000 people in 21 cities, showed Beijing has become the second city after Shanghai where online shopping spending exceeded 10 billion.

However, the growth of the online shopping in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen was lower compared to that of the cities in middle and western China.

Among them, the growth of Wuhan, Chengdu and Xi'an have reached 115 percent which was twice than that in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

A quarter of the total amount are Clothing purchase accounts , according to the survey.

We all know about China's poor medical care system: poor people who has serious health problem just get out hospital waiting for that day, because they don't have enough money to fix it.

But now the poor people here figured out one way to help themself:

A man who suffers from a kidney disease tried to sell one of his eyes in order to get money to pay for a kidney transplant.

Farmer Yang Dengming, 33, of Liujiao village, Sichuan province, walked along the streets of Chengdu on Wednesday morning.

"I was told that a cornea can be sold for 150,000 yuan ($21,900) and I want the money for my kidney transplant operation," Yang said.

Yang was diagnosed with a kidney disease and his poor family cannot afford an operation although they're willing to donate a kidney.

The local government said they encouraged people to donate to him and they also provided some support. A lawyer said his plan to sell an eye is illegal.

The top disciplinary official in a public security bureau in north China has been sacked for arranging a police motorcade for his mother's funeral cortege, local anti-graft watchdog officials said Friday.

Zhao Mingwen, secretary of the commission for discipline inspection at the Jinzhong Municipal Public Security Bureau, was also given a "serious warning" from the Communist Party of China (CPC).

Li Rongsheng, a traffic police officer in Yuanping city, was given a "serious warning" for offering the police escort. Officials with such penalties have fewer chances of promotion.

The Yuanping Municipal United Front Work Department recommended the removal of Zhao Zeying from his post of the member of the standing committee of the the Municipal People's Political Consultative Conference.

Zhao Zeying, a relative of Zhao Mingwen, together with 11 others, beat two reporters and snatched their television camera after the reporters came upon the motorcade by chance and filmed the scene March 2. The reporters from Shanxi television station suffered slight injuries.

The 12 who beat the reporters had been given penalties, including administrative detention and fines, the Shanxi Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection said, without elaborating.

Rich people that violate China's one-child policy (So-called family planning policy)by having more than one child may be subject to increased penalty fines from this year, an official said Wednesday.

Deng Xingzhou, chief of the capital's family planning commission, said the penalties will vary "depending on the families' annual income", instead of the average per capita.

Currently, the fine, or "social maintenance fee" as it is called, is usually three to eight times the average income per capita in Beijing, which according to 2008 official statistics was 24,725 yuan ($3,600) for urban residents and 10,747 yuan for rural residents.

Many affluent couples have been known to voluntarily pay the rather trivial fine to have a second or third child.

News of Chinese celebrities having more than one child has often stirred wide discussions on the legality of the second child's birth.

"The public does not appreciate the fact that the rich or famous can get away with breaking the family planning policy just by paying the fine, which is well within their means," Deng said.

Beijing will draft new rules for rich families, specifying correct ways to calculate penalties based on their annual income, he said.

Guangdong and Hubei provinces have also adopted measures to increase the fine for violators in a bid to achieve social justice.

However, many still believe increased penalties will not be enough to stop the rich from having more than one child.

Timothy Wong, an associate at a management consulting firm, said: "A one-off fine will not bother the rich. What they spend in a hospital will still cost a lot more than the penalty.

"Why not penalize the violators in the form of long-term taxation? That will make them think twice before having a second child."

Song Yini, a senior consultant at a Beijing-based consulting firm, said how the government utilizes the fines it collects should be made transparent to the public.

"Maybe the rich should be asked to donate directly to an orphanage or old people's home," she said.

Beijing is under tremendous pressure to achieve its goal of restricting its population to below 18 million by 2020.

By last year, Beijing's population had reached 16 million.

"Seeing how the population continues to grow, we will not be able to achieve the target," Deng had said earlier.

The capital will stick to the family planning policy, which as a fundamental national policy will exist for another 20 years, he said.

To encourage people to follow the rule, Beijing also plans to increase the subsidies for couples that abide by the rule.

"Three decades ago, the monthly subsidy of 5 yuan for parents with one child accounted for 10 percent of a worker's salary. But it seems too trivial now," he said.

China's one-child rule restricts only 35.9 percent of its population, mostly in large- and medium-sized cities, to have one child. Until last year, the policy has helped avert about 400 million births. That policy is trying to control the population growth, and help india to become the country own the largest population.