A suggestion by China’s widely respected former central bank governor Dai Xianglong that money seized from corrupt officials and some proceeds from land sales could be used to top up the state social security fund has raised questions over the financial viability of the nation’s pensions.

Dai, who was former chair of the National Council for Social Security Fund following his stint as People’s Bank of China governor, made the remarks at a forum on pensions held by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences on Saturday.

China’s social security fund had a balance of 585.5 billion yuan (US$89.6 billion) at the end of last year, but that figure would have dropped into the red for the seventh straight year if it hadn’t been for subsidies. China faces a pension shortfall of between 8 trillion and 10 trillion yuan in the next five to ten years, according to a report by the Insurance Association of China.

The government proposed gradually extending the legal age of retirement in a document on planning for the year 2035 that was issued last month.

However, the topic is a sensitive one in China. For example, protests erupted in Wuchuan city in Guangdong last year after news of the pensions being misused.

In 2006, a scandal over the misuse of as much as 10 billion yuan of social security funds brought down Shanghai party chief Chen Liangyu, Baoshan District chief Qin Yu and the director of the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Labor and Social Security Zhu Junyi.

Click here for Chinese version

---------------------------------

Apple Daily’s all-new English Edition is now available on the mobile app: bit.ly/2yMMfQE

To download the latest version,

iOS: bit.ly/AD_iOS

Android: bit.ly/AD_android

Or search Appledaily in App Store or Google Play