White Paper: Protected Rights for Chinese Citizens

“Rights of Persons with Disabilities”

"Nineteen provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government adopted the policy of granting living expense subsidies to disabled persons with financial difficulties, and 15 had adopted the policy of granting nursing subsidies to those suffering from a high degree of disability. Nationwide, 77.42 percent of the entitled population had access to either of the two policies, benefiting more than seven million people with disabilities."

Clearly, the government has made notable advances in caring for the disabled, including "the central special lottery public welfare fund [which] provided 1.063 billion yuan for the rehabilitation of the disabled." The paper also stated that "thanks to a number of key rehabilitation projects, 7.515 million disabled people received rehabilitation services of various kinds" and "1.524 million assistance devices were provided to people." The paper then listed figures of the hundreds of thousands of people who benefit from such services, from free operations to mental disability services, and the training of rehabilitation personnel.

To better accommodate the disabled population, "all provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government made steady headway… the focus was on building barrier-free curb ramps, ramps for wheelchairs and pavements in residential quarters, and barrier-free entry-exit, passages, floors, stairways, elevator landings and compartments, and other areas in public buildings." The paper ended the section with information on various public cultural services for the disabled, including that public libraries have 800,000 books in Braille nationwide and national college entrance exams are accessible to the disabled.