Chinese society lacks trust: experts

A survey designed to measure how trusting people are indicates that many Chinese do not trust others, experts from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) said.

The Chinese public was given a "trust score" of just 59.7 points out of a total of 100, according to the results of the CASS survey conducted among residents in seven cities, including Beijing, east China's Shanghai, south China's Guangzhou, central China's Wuhan and southwest China's Chongqing municipalities.

The survey showed that residents in China's central and western regions tend to trust others more than their eastern counterparts.

It also indicated that Chinese tend to be more trusting of government departments than business organizations.

Yang Yiyin, one of the survey's organizers, attributed the lack of trust to migration, China's transformation from a planned economy to a market economy and declining "family culture."

"People are more concerned about trust, especially in a transformative period when a new system of trust has not been established," said Yang.

Food safety scandals, government corruption and publicly highlighted tragedies like the death of Wang Yue, a toddler who died after being run over by a minivan and ignored by passersby in south China's Guangdong Province in October 2011, have led to public calls for greater moral education.

The CASS survey also measures Chinese people's feeling about justice, happiness as well as their mentality and psychological health.

Findings of the survey show that 44.7 percent of a total of 51,100 effective respondents are satisfied with their life, a drop from 47 percent in 2011.