First, please ask Professor Zheng Gongcheng to talk about social security. What are the risks involved in social security in China?

Zheng Gongcheng: I do feel that people's risks are increasing, and they are getting bigger and bigger. People's personal risks are related to social security. I think some of them exist in the market economy, while others appear after the reform of the market economy, such as people's longevity. In the past, people were afraid of not living long. Now people's longevity is getting longer and longer. Longevity without social security will become a very big risk for people. Therefore, it is unfortunate to be short-lived in the past. If there is no social security, it is very risky to live long.

Another is disease. Now it should be said that there are many factors that make up it. People pay more and more for their health, and the individual's tolerance is relatively reduced.

The second is natural and man-made disasters, including the recent tsunami in the Indian Ocean, which caused many deaths and many injuries.

The third kind is the risks brought by the market economy, such as unemployment. The risk of unemployment is not only a threat to workers, but also to the whole family of workers. These risks have changed from personal risks and family problems to social risks and social problems.

there is also the risk of labor relations, which did not exist in the planned economy era. At that time, it was a planned economy. Now there are differences in the interests of labor relations. As the differences in interests between labor and capital are getting bigger and bigger, this confrontation should turn from potential to dominance, which also makes the status of workers decline and develop into a great social risk.

I think all these phenomena are related to social security. Without social security mechanism, these problems are difficult to be solved, and there is also the gap between the rich and the poor. Since the reform and opening up, these problems need to be solved with new security mechanisms.

Moderator: As far as my personal feeling is concerned, the social security of urban population is different from that of rural population. As a person living in the city, which blocks does the whole social security system include now?

Zheng Gongcheng: Let's talk a little more. We have all three. Social insurance is for workers, including old-age insurance, medical insurance, industrial and commercial insurance, unemployment insurance and maternity insurance.

The second one is social relief and social assistance, mainly for the low-income class. We are talking about the relief for the poor, the relief for the victims, and the treatment for the particularly difficult people.

the third is social welfare, the welfare of the elderly, the welfare of the disabled, and the welfare of women and children.

But according to my original division, there are six systems. Besides these three systems, there are three others. It is an independent system for PLA officers and soldiers. This is the fourth system.

fifth, I think medical insurance should be counted as a system. Social insurance includes basic insurance, but rural medical care is not included. Health care, endemic disease prevention and children's immunization and other economic and welfare medical insurance are not included in the scope of medical insurance. Medical insurance constitutes the fifth block, which is led by the government.

The sixth block is becoming more and more important now, and it is the multi-level social security system in our country. More importantly, it is the sixth block. We call it the supplementary security system, which includes enterprise annuity, supplementary pension, welfare undertakings, etc. These aspects are completely driven by the government's finances. The social security of our country includes these six blocks, which is a huge system.

Moderator: I once went to a place for an interview. For example, some employees in scientific research institutes are very concerned about the transformation and restructuring of some institutions. During the biggest transition period in China, will the rights and interests of employees change after the restructuring of state-owned enterprises? From a big perspective, how has the social security in China changed from a planned economy to a market economy?

Zheng Gongcheng: The reform of social security is divided into three stages. The first stage, from 1986 to 1993, both the government and the policy research department have supported projects and mechanisms that emphasize the reform of social state-owned enterprises. Since 1993, we have positioned the model of socialist market economy reform as one of the five pillars of market economy, but since 1998, that is, after the last government, we have actually abandoned the original supporting mechanism of state-owned economy and used it as a basic social system for construction.

what's the difference? Before 1993, we only fully cooperated with the reform of state-owned enterprises, and we cooperated with them whenever necessary. That was very passive, so we excluded non-state-owned enterprises. In 1993, the market economy was launched, and we used it as a pillar of the market economy, which has changed from a state-owned economy to a non-state-owned economy, which can be said to be an improvement. But we still regard it as an economic policy. Therefore, during the period from 1993 to 1998 to 2, social security became more and more like an economic policy. There were many things in it, which were independent of the economic field and actually exceeded the policies above the economic system. Since 1998, the interest of social security reform has been gradually restored, so as to safeguard and ensure social equity and coordinate the origin of social and economic development.

as for what has changed? China's social security in the past 2 years, the greatest achievement is that the concept of national social security has undergone a major change. In the past, it relied on the state and units. Now everyone knows that we can't rely entirely on the state and units, and there is also the problem of responsibility return. This is a major change in concept.

the other one is that we have transformed the social security system from the original planned economy system into a social security system that is suitable for the market economy. According to what we said in the past, we should transform a planned economic social security system that was in charge of the state, arranged by units, with a plate structure and inefficient closed operation into a government-led, responsibility-sharing and open socialized social security system. In the past, the state was in charge, and the unit was arranged to be transformed into the government's only leading responsibility sharing. It should be said that the most difficult task of system transformation has been completed, but it has not been finalized. For example, the mechanism of responsibility sharing, how much the government bears and how much the people bear. We have explored institutional innovation in the course of reform. Our current model is unique in the world. On the basic system, we don't discuss whether the system is successful or not. At least, it provides a fresh approach for the reform of social security. Even if this fresh approach fails, it will learn lessons. If it is successful, it can be used for reference. The system is to explore the mechanism of intermediate efforts and innovation.

at present, we have no way to accurately evaluate the effectiveness of the innovation of this system and its future success or failure. It seems that it is still too early to draw conclusions.

Li Ling: Singapore has been doing thIS all the time, and the United States has been doing it all the time. Now there are two systems, one IS, an individual pension insurance account with tax concessions, and the other is, a weak one, who doesn't need to pay taxes at present, and pays taxes when you use this money in the future. He saves the money independently through the tax system to support the elderly.

what professor Zheng said just now is that in the process of transformation, I personally think it is to give consideration to the enthusiasm of individuals and share social risks, and insurance is to share risks. At present, the question you want to answer again, our system is well designed, and now we are facing great problems. From the old system to the new system, we are dragging the past forward. Why do we say that this generation has a particularly heavy burden? Many of our personal accounts are empty, and overall planning is not enough. We have changed from a self-raised system to this accumulated system.

Moderator: Professor Li and Professor Zheng have talked a lot about some proper terms, but many netizens don't quite understand them, such as the overall fund of accounts and how many models of personal accounts are there? How exactly do these modes work?

Zheng Gongcheng: It should be said that this combination is personal old-age insurance, because combining the two into a basic system, we say that the basic old-age insurance is divided into two parts: one is called social pooling, the other is to emphasize fairness, and the other is a personal account, which is completely in the name of an individual. Legally speaking, it is private for individuals, and two different systems are merged into one system.

If we had two separate lines in this system, there would not have been a gap in personal accounts. At the beginning, we combined the unified system with the broken system, and we usually talked about the channel type. Therefore, the gap in personal accounts was caused by the combination of the two systems and the inability to distinguish them clearly. In fact, we did not accumulate corresponding pension funds for the elderly in the past few decades. Now, through the transformation of this system, we have to pay pensions to tens of millions of people, and the money we pay now is paid by individuals. In fact, we pay the pension of the previous generation with the money of the present generation, which creates a gap.

is this gap reasonable or unreasonable? There seems to be different comments on this. My personal opinion is whether the gap in personal accounts is good or not. It's hard to say. Our country didn't have a personal account at least in 1995. If you don't have it, you won't take this kind of combination. If we talk about it now, if we don't have a personal account, all the problems today are that we used to implement this model of combining centralization and decentralization, including that you didn't have money at that time, and your economic ability was not good. Because the overall planning level at that time was not high, centralization and decentralization strengthened local interests, which actually separated the system and turned it into local interests. Now, local interests say that if they don't give you money, they will not be spent, and income and expenditure will become local money instead of personal money, so it is too early to introduce it. We are now talking about it. If the original personal insurance is converted into social endowment insurance, there is no problem. If it is converted into a unified one, it is like a child who is born without running and then runs. The current system is not like this.

Li Ling: Professor Zheng, I don't completely agree with your idea. I agree that the gap may be the premature implementation of personal accounts. I still think that we lack the design of a transitional system in the gap, and foreign countries are now vigorously promoting personal accounts. What is the background? Why should we make personal accounts? In fact, it is the society of the past, in which the international pension insurance is generally pay-as-you-go. Now the people who work are raising the retired people, and the aging is increasing, and people's living standards are improving. This system is difficult to maintain. China is aging faster and faster. Now there are fewer and fewer people working, and there are more and more elderly people. That is to say, people who need money now can't be raised if they receive money now. This is the problem that pay-as-you-go faces. They are now implementing personal accounts, and I am saving my money there for future pension. There are many arguments now. For example, the current rate of return on capital is the growth rate of high wages. If the growth rate of wages and the growth rate of economy are linked together, the rate of return on this money is high. Why is it better to use the accumulation system? I think it is very good for China to use this as a precaution.

It is equivalent to bringing the past system over. We have to support this generation, I have to save my personal account, and I have to support people who came down from the original system. In the past, people who retired from state-owned enterprises are now working, and the share of state-owned enterprises in the national economy is declining, and the number of people raised is declining. Even without personal accounts, the current pay-as-you-go system is difficult to maintain. The state should allocate a sum of money to compensate for the transformation from the past to the present. In the past, there were 1 million workers, but now there is a great decline, but now the number of people raised is greatly reduced. I have always believed that the state should have corresponding supporting policies to link these two systems.

Zheng Gongcheng: If we only talk about aging, this is an inevitable measure, but there must be environmental conditions. Why can't we say that we can't do it in 1995? In 1995, our enterprise security system did not have the condition of socialization, and this condition was immature. The second is that the economic situation and level at that time were not enough for one generation to bear the burden of two generations, and people's tolerance was limited. The third important thing is that the system is not unified, and the implementation is not a unified system. In 1995, our country launched a plan with local systems in addition to this plan. These hundreds of plans, and the whole unified system caused many problems.

at that time, because many conditions were not available, you put forward a reform plan, and now it should be the sequela of that time. Perhaps looking back today, it is a matter of timing that the enterprise insurance was transformed into socialized insurance in the past to promote the mode of combining unification and disconnection. Perhaps this system was implemented at that time, and all the difficulties were the consequences at that time. Now no one can implement it, even in Guangdong.

Li Ling: Overall planning means that a society shares risks. Now we take cities as units, such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, which are really risk-resistant, because they are large and have a high level of economic development. After all, your next prefecture-level city does not have the ability of social overall planning. There is also a city-based overall planning that limits the flow of labor. I have a different pension when I change places. At present, the consequences are relatively large, and it is difficult to collect it now.

Zheng Gongcheng: You are talking about the labor flow between urban and rural areas. When Beijing is transferred to Guangzhou, Guangzhou will not accept it when you are 4 or 5 years old. Because it is two systems, I will go to Guangdong. The leaders of Guangdong Province told me that people from Guangzhou will not accept it when they are transferred to Shenzhen. Shenzhen is my fund and Guangzhou is your fund. If you transfer me there, I will give you a pension.

Li Ling: I think this sequela is very serious.

Moderator: After the implementation of the pension in 1995, the practices of different provinces were different?

Zheng Gongcheng: Not only provinces, but at that time, cities and prefectures could determine their own plans.

Li Ling: The principle should be combined with individual's overall planning, and the way of fund-raising and other payment levels are allowed to be set by each place.

Zheng Gongcheng: 6% of Guangdong's contributions are credited to personal accounts, and Beijing is a big co-ordinator. Two identical people pay different fees, and the two accounts are different, so there is no way to communicate and get through. Therefore, if a person wants Beijing to go to Guangdong or Shanghai, your pension will be very different, and all places are evaluating it. Where I go is an advantage.

Li Ling: That's why all the job advertisements are under 4, or under 3.

Zheng Gongcheng: This has changed local interests, and the strengthening of local interests has affected the unification of the system. Now it is very difficult to unify the province.