A recent survey undertaken by Peking University's Institute of Social Science has revealed that China has one of the world's highest levels of income inequality. 

The families that comprise the richest one percent of China's households own a third of the country's wealth, the study says.  In stark contrast, the poorest 25 percent of the country's households own just a single percent of the riches accumulated by China in its three-decade ascent toward economic development.

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The irony of the situation is not lost on the leader of the world's most prosperous Communist country.  China's President Xi Jinping is said to have lived a hard, disciplined life as a young man in the midst of the Cultural Revolution.

"We want to continuously enlarge the pie, while also making sure we divide the pie correctly," Xi wrote in the state-run People's Daily three years ago. "Chinese society has long held the value of 'Don't worry about the amount, worry that all have the same amount.'"  

But the task of ensuring the equitable distribution of wealth among China's 1.4 billion-strong population has not been easy.  Rampant corruption and unreported incomes pose challenges for estimating wealth levels in the country, according to the Financial Times.

Citing the Peking University study, the Financial Times further reports that China's Gini coefficient for income, a widely used measure of inequality, was 0.49 in 2012.  The World Bank (WB) regards any coefficient above 0.40 as an indication of severe income inequality.

The WB tracks Gini data in 25 countries with large populations.  Among these, only South Africa and Brazil have higher coefficients for income than China at 0.63 and 0.53, respectively.  The figure for the US is 0.41.

The figures culled by the Peking University survey are higher than official estimates.  The Chinese government said last year that the country's Gini coefficient saw a slight decrease from 0.477 in 2011 to 0.469 in 2014.   

In a report citing the US Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Harvard Kennedy School's Journalist's Resource says income inequality in China has outpaced that of the US since the 1980s. 

"The incomes of the poor [in China] are growing, but it appears the rich are getting richer much faster," the Harvard report says. "Driving the phenomenon are development policies that favor heavy industry, cities and special economic zones in coastal areas."

Beijing has pledged to address the inequality, advancing policies that encourage investments in places outside of the country's coastal zones even as the government moves forward on programs aimed at doubling China's 2010 average per capita income within the next four years.

Analysts, nevertheless, say the results of the Peking University survey are likely to reinforce calls for more progressive taxation and increased public welfare spending in China.

TagsChina wealth, China income inequality