From isolated fence to inclusive society: the transformational disability policy in China

Abstract

China’s disability policies are changing, some of which are gradually closer to the requirements of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Based on the social model of disability, this article explains the driving forces of disability policy reform, and especially adopts the critical policy analysis approach to evaluate the revised education policy along with the rehabilitation policy of disabled people. The inclusive education policy is improving disability policy issues the most compared with others because of the disability advocacy by disabled persons’ self-help organizations. Meanwhile, the nascent rehabilitation policy is typically top-down oriented by the government. Public participation may be the main way forward, especially with the growth of the disability movement in China. It is hoped that scholars pay more attention to the transformational disability policy in non-western settings.

Keywords:

• Disability policy
• Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
• social model
• inclusive society
• China

Introduction

Public policy change and the discourse for the rights of disabled people are popular research topics in the field of disability and politics (Lunt and Thornton 1994; Symeonidou 2014; Williams and Porter 2017). However, we find that the literature has paid little attention to the transformational disability policy narrative and the meaning for the disability community in non-western settings, such as China. Recently, some scholars began to research the promoting force of disability policies from the grassroots perspective (Zhang 2017), but the government-led policy-making is always having an overarching priority in China’s disability issues. Under this circumstance, the new changes of disability policies deserve more research.

It has been 10 years since the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) was signed by China’s government. The most important responsibility for the state party is to promote policy change based on the social model (Holler 2014; Zhuang 2016). The transformational disability policies are welcomed by disabled people in China, but they do not always work because of poor resources (Huang, Guo, and Bricout 2009), watering down of the policy in favor of rationing and calling on communities and families to play their part. Meanwhile, the disability policy reform driven by the disability community advocacy is key to promoting the development of disability rights, especially in regimes within non-western settings (Oliver 2013; Zhang 2017). This article sheds light on how the transformation of China’s disability policy has a potential impact on social inclusion and disability rights.

Driving forces of disability policy reform in China

Improving the lives of people with disabilities formally became a government commitment as the China Disabled Person’s Federation was set up in 1988. Then a lot of laws and policies for people with disabilities were promulgated by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress and The State Council of the People’s Republic of China, most of which were made based on the individual-oriented medical model (Yang 2015). When China became one of the state parties of the CRPD, the central government gradually began to revise disability policies and make new ones. The newly issued disability policies in China are obviously a positive step forward, but they do not necessarily address the first of the general principles of the CRPD, which is about the right to autonomy. The reason for this is that the government’s unclear understanding of the basic principles in the CPRD made disability policies seem more like social welfare relief rather than social right protection (Fisher and Jing 2008). Meanwhile, the Chinese government always put high efficiency and low cost as the policy priority, over local practice innovations and policy experiments (Mei and Liu 2014). Above all, disability policy changes based on the social model were vague without the participation of disabled people. Essentially, policies do not always give disabled people the right to have a choice.

Disabled persons’ self-help organizations (DPOs) also play an important role in promoting disability policy reform. The DPOs in China have been emerging through promotion by experts and international non-profit organizations since 2008, some of which have been actively trying to conduct disability policy advocacy. On this condition, the design ideas, supporting resources, supervision and enforcement mechanism of policies were slowly closer to the requirements of the CRPD’s general principles and obligations (Zhang 2017), such as inclusion and accessibility. The involvement of DPOs has already been shown to be effective in some issues for which they are advocating, such as education policy.

The transformational disability policy

In 2017, two important disability policies were issued by the State Council of the People’s Republic of China. One policy is the revised ‘Regulation on the Education of Disabled Persons’ (first issued in 1994，recently revised in 2017), and the other is the ‘Regulation on the Prevention and Rehabilitation of Disabled Persons’ (first issued in 2017), which is the first specific health and rehabilitation policy for disabled people. These newest policies are the most critical cases for the analysis of the transformational disability policies in China.

Converting an inclusive education policy

The revised ‘Regulation on the Education of Disabled Persons’ is the basic education policy for people with disabilities based on China’s laws for education. According to the general principles of the CRPD, we can find some policy changes compared with the old version. The most obvious change is the idea of inclusive education. In the revised policy, general education becomes the first and main choice for disabled people, along with complementary special education as an optional choice, which is different from the special education priority principle in the past. This main policy design idea makes the education policy closer to inclusion in society and equality of opportunity. Following the core designing idea, the policy also transforms specialized education based on the idea of categories of homogeneous disabled people into multilayered education based on the acceptance of diverse disabled groups. The policy states that the government provides differentiated education resources based on disabled persons’ physical and mental conditions to distinctly improve the quality of their education, which shows respect for the difference and diversity of persons with disabilities.

However, there are still some policy narratives inconsistent with the general principles of the CRPD, especially in terms of disability rights consciousness and individual autonomy, such as the freedom to make one’s own choices. More specifically, educational administrative departments decide access to general education for persons with disabilities, which illustrates that the right to inclusive education is a ‘can’ instead of a ‘must’. The government officials stated that this deliberative policy discourse was under the constraints of inclusive education resources and poor societal respect awareness for disabled people. Meanwhile, education policy lacks the specific articles to nurture disabled persons’ awareness of their own rights and to nurture societal receptiveness to the rights of persons with disabilities.

The effect of policy implementation further depends on the supporting resources, enforcement mechanism and public participation, especially in the authoritarian regime where the economic development and social development at the local level are visibly unequally distributed (Zhang et al. 2015). In contrast to the previous version, the revised education policy especially highlights the sanction mechanism for the investment of resources and the legal responsibility of the government at various levels. For example, Chapter 7 strictly requires local governments above the county level to arrange education funding for persons with disabilities from their annual budget. Besides, local governments should carry the special funds to promote the establishment of barrier-free environments at all levels of all types of schools with a definite deadline. Furthermore, Chapter 8 states that the local government officials will be penalized if they fail to perform corresponding duties.

Nevertheless, the voice and participation of disabled people and DPOs in the stage of policy implementation are hardly found. In spite of the policy calling for non-profit organizations to provide personalized education support for disabled people, the government recognition of these is for service-orientated non-profit organizations rather than advocacy-orientated DPOs.

Constructing a nascent rehabilitation policy

Issued along with the disability education policy, the ‘Regulation on the Prevention and Rehabilitation of Disabled Persons’ was formulated both to prevent and reduce physical disabilities and to promote disabled persons’ rehabilitation, as officially announced by the State Council.

Although making a breakthrough of its sort in China, the nascent rehabilitation policy is seen as symbolic participation, partly dependent and fragmented. Firstly, the rehabilitation policy is only symbolically influenced by the participation of disabled people. The rehabilitation policy was drafted, conducted and issued by the government without the participation of disabled people or their representatives in the policy-making stage. The positive side is that persons with disabilities are involved in the policy implementing process by presenting their and their families’ suggestions on the rehabilitation plans. Secondly, a national rehabilitation service system for disabled people is to be established, but this relies on communities and families for disability prevention and rehabilitation. The barrier-free environment is only required in rehabilitation institutions not in public areas, which makes communities and families indispensable. Lastly, the policy is not all round and does not offer full coverage. Although the policy proposes whole life-cycle disability prevention and rehabilitation, it mainly focuses on the youth, especially those who live in cities. As a result, the needs of disabled people with invisible disabilities, people lacking access to health service and sexual health and disabled people living in rural areas are not satisfied.

Just like the revised education policy, the rehabilitation policy highlights the objects of responsibility, supporting resources and supervision mechanism to ensure policy implementation. Financial, medical and facility supports are raised by governments, like subsidizing medical insurance and basic auxiliary equipment, providing free operation, facilities and rehabilitation services to children younger than six years old with disabilities. A package of access regarding tax preference and land use is open to non-profit organizations.

In general, the rehabilitation policy makes remarkable progress in promoting disabled persons’ health and living conditions, some ideas of which are consistent with the principles of the CRPD. Meanwhile, it has many insufficiencies and limitations and is seen to be less inclusive, such as the absence of consideration on individual autonomy and full accessibility, owing to the inadequate public participation through the whole period of the policy-making process.

Conclusion and discussion

With the progressive understanding of the CRPD by government officials, successful local policy experiments and consistent grassroots advocacy by DPOs, China’s disability policies in some specific areas are revised or newly formulated, which contributes to promoting social inclusion and the quality of life for disabled people based on the social model of disability. The inclusive education policy is the most improving disability policy issue compared with the others because of the disability advocacy by DPOs. Meanwhile, the nascent rehabilitation policy is typically ‘top-down oriented’ by the government, giving a basic framework and leaving some room for improvement. Case analysis shows that the policies can only be developed and work well if DPOs are involved all along, so public participation may be the main way forward, especially with the growth of the disability movement in China. The interaction between government and grassroots persons with disabilities in policy-making and policy advocacy deserves more research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.