Universal Postal Service
To protect the constitutional rights and freedom of
communications of the citizens, the Chinese government is obliged to provide universal postal services. Different from those commercially oriented services and public services such as gas, power and urban traffic, the universal postal service aims at satisfying the basic communication need of the people all over the country, including those living in islands, mountainous regions, rural and frontier areas. In addition, the universal service of China Post plays an important role in disseminating the principles and policies of the government and the CPC. The content of universal postal services, in accordance with the Universal Postal Union Convention, are determined by the real demands of different countries. In case of China, universal postal services are divided into two parts: first, communication services including letter mails, parcels and transfer targeting at the whole society; second, postal services guided by government policies, such as issuance of party newspapers and periodicals, confidential communications and delivery of literatures to the blind and letters to the compulsory servicemen for free.
China’s universal postal services enjoy the advantages of complete business lines, low and unified postage, postal outlets across the country and a nationwide delivery network. By the end of 2003, China Post has established 64,000 postal outlets all over the country (46,000 of them are located in the rural area), 287,000 groups of post boxes and 21,000 postal routes including a one-way length of 3.27 million km, ensuring the constitutional rights of communications enjoyed by the public.
However, China Post also faces severe difficulties in providing the universal postal service. To put it specifically, China is a country with a vast area. A large number of places were underdeveloped, the communication task in the frontier areas is heavy and the cost of universal postal service is excessively high. According to statistics, in 2001 alone, the universal postal services suffered a loss of more than RMB 5 billion yuan, and the service cost still kept rising as the social prices continued growing, creating heavy pressure on postal enterprises. It is in urgent need to set up a new and stable compensation system for the universal postal service.