“Frozen the disability certificates held by 17 holders. Six of them were visually assessed, and 10 held driver’s licenses (9 of them had physical disability level two, and one had vision level one). One person’s disability level was not consistent with the actual situation.”
On October 9, the Disabled Persons’ Federation of Pu’an County, Qianxinan Prefecture, Guizhou Province issued an announcement revealing the above information. The announcement also stated that if a disability assessment is not carried out for more than 6 months without justifiable reasons, the county-level Disabled Persons’ Federation will forcibly cancel the disability certificate in accordance with laws and regulations, and no re-application will be allowed within one year after cancellation.
Recently, many places across the country have launched special projects to review disability status and re-evaluate disability certificates. For example, Jishishan County in Gansu Province stipulated that 77 people who had previously been visually assessed as disabled were re-evaluated as disabled; Chunhua County in Shaanxi Province canceled the disability certificates of 58 people who had not been re-evaluated after multiple notifications, and sent their names to the county civil affairs bureau, and simultaneously stopped the payment of living allowances for disabled people with disabilities and nursing subsidies for severely disabled people.
The background is related to the continuous deepening of the centralized rectification of unhealthy tendencies and corruption issues around the masses by the civil affairs and Disabled Persons’ Federation systems in 2026. “This year, the scope of rectification will be expanded to the qualification identification of persons with disabilities. Not long ago, our disciplinary inspection and supervision team, together with the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the Party Committee of the China Disabled Persons’ Federation, repeatedly studied and included it in the ‘task list’ for centralized rectification in the new year.” Geng Xiaochen, a second-level researcher of the discipline inspection and supervision team of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, said in an interview in early 2026.
The Disability Certificate is a legal certificate for identifying persons with disabilities and their category and level of disability. With this certificate, you can enjoy preferential policies from the national and local governments. According to the Measures for the Management of Disability Certificates, to apply for a Disability Certificate, the applicant or the legal guardian must submit an application to the county-level Disabled Persons’ Federation in the place of residence, and submit medical records and other relevant materials. After the disability grade is assessed and reviewed, the certificate can be approved only if the conditions are met.
Li Dingming, a lawyer at Zhejiang Jingheng (Zhengzhou) Law Firm, has long been concerned about the field of disability assessment and assistance, and serves as a legal consultant for many disability assistance organizations. In an interview with China News Weekly, Li Dingming said that many places conduct verification of disability certificates, focusing on investigating and dealing with two types of issues: disability assessment issues (false certificate application, illegal application of certificates, or “people are less important than certificates”), and social security issues for people with disabilities. “These problems affect social fairness and justice, and also occupy funds for disabled people, causing a loss of financial funds. We must squeeze out the water through verification to ensure the credibility of the disability certificate.”
AI illustration/adan
30,000 yuan for a second-level disability certificate?
“Regardless of whether your registered place is local or not, you can apply for a disability certificate through me.” Recently, a reporter from “China News Weekly” contacted many scalpers in Shenyang and other places in the name of applying for a disability certificate, and two of them said so.
Scalper Li Liang said that to apply for a certificate with him, you need to prepare your ID card, household registration book, and medical insurance card. Customers whose registered place of residence is out of town need to come in person twice. “It’s the first time I come to apply for a residence permit. I have channels to introduce relevant personnel and quickly help the customer get the residence permit. The fee is 3,000 yuan, and the residence permit can be obtained within a month. When the disability is assessed, the customer comes again.”
According to relevant regulations and standards, disability types are divided into vision, hearing, speech, physical, intellectual, mental and multiple disabilities. Various disabilities are divided into four levels according to the degree of disability. Disability level one is extremely severe, disability level two is severe, disability level three is moderate, and disability level four is mild.
Li Liang was unable to apply for a disability certificate rated Level 1 because “disabled people with Level 1 disability have severe conditions such as paralysis, which are obvious from the outside and difficult to apply for a certificate.”
For Li Liang, the difference between other levels of disability certificates is just the price. “It costs 30,000 yuan to apply for a second-level disability certificate, 25,000 yuan for a third-level certificate, and one to two thousand yuan cheaper for a fourth-level certificate. These fees include the cost of the residence permit. When signing the agreement, the customer must pay in one lump sum. If the application fails, a refund will be issued within three working days.” Li Liang said that applying for a second-level disability certificate will take four to five months from the date the customer signs the agreement with the customer. It takes two to three months to apply for a Level 3 or Level 4 certificate.
“China News Weekly” contacted multiple scalpers in many places. Two scalpers claimed that they could help non-disabled people successfully assess their disability and apply for a second-level disability certificate for a fee of 30,000 yuan. Picture/mobile phone screenshot
“Both the hospital and the Disabled Persons’ Federation need (us) to send (money) to them.” Li Liang said, it is enough to come to the hospital to show your face during the disability assessment and go through the motions. “It can be caused by physical or hearing disabilities, or it can be caused by the sequelae of cerebral hemorrhage or femoral head necrosis. You don’t have to be missing arms or legs to get a disability rating.”
In order to avoid exposing the issue of whether the driver’s license needs to be canceled after applying for a disability certificate, Li Liang said that there are ways to ensure that “holding the license does not affect driving.” “For example, it can be said that only the left femoral head is necrotic, and the right side is fine, and it does not affect normal driving.”
In fact, the existence of driver’s license is an incision in this round of re-evaluation of disability certificates in many places. Announcements issued in many places have mentioned the issue of “disabled people holding driving licenses”. The Disabled Persons’ Federation of Chengxian County in Gansu Province said it plans to freeze the disability certificates of 106 disabled people. Among the list, 20 people have severe visual, mental, intellectual and other disabilities but hold driver’s licenses.
Relevant staff of the Pu’an County Disabled Persons’ Federation told China News Weekly that according to regulations, disabled people who meet certain standards can hold a C5 driver’s license. However, in the announcement issued by the county’s Disabled Persons’ Federation, the relevant disabled people hold a C1 driver’s license. “Some people may still be non-disabled when they obtain their C1 driver’s license, and some may have problems during the disability assessment. We are still checking the specific reasons.” The staff member said.
Some able-bodied people try their best to apply for a disability certificate, which is related to the value of the disability certificate. Taking Shanghai as an example, according to current policies, disabled people with certificates can enjoy transportation subsidies, living allowances for disabled people in need, and other subsidies. If the disabled person is an only child, his parents can also apply for special subsidies for family planning families.
For enterprises, according to relevant regulations, every time an enterprise places a disabled person in employment, the enterprise can enjoy a monthly value-added tax refund of four times the local minimum wage standard; the wages paid by the unit to the disabled can be deducted before the corporate income tax; if the employer cannot arrange employment for the disabled to meet the prescribed ratio, it must pay the employment security fund for the disabled.
Disadvantages of visual assessment
Starting from January 1, 2018, the method of visually assessing disability categories and disability levels has been cancelled. Disability conclusions must be made by designated hospitals or professional institutions. “The county-level Disabled Persons’ Federation shall issue disability certificates in accordance with the disability category and disability level assessment conclusions made by hospitals or professional institutions designated by the Provincial Health and Family Planning Commission and the Disabled Persons’ Federation, and shall be responsible for the management of the original files of the certificates.”
For a long time in the past, the reason why scalpers were able to successfully apply for disability certificates was because the disability assessment methods of relevant institutions were unscientific.
Staff from Disabled Persons’ Federations in Chunhua County, Shaanxi and other places told China News Weekly that one of the main reasons for this re-evaluation of disability is that many people had their disability certificates assessed through visual inspection before 2018. A staff member of the Jishishan County Disabled Persons’ Federation of Gansu Province also said: “The 77 people mentioned in our announcement were all assessed as disabled before 2018.”
“100 Questions on the Management of the Issuance and Issuance of Disabled Persons’ Certificates” (a policy Q&A book written by the China Disabled Persons’ Federation) mentions that before 2018, if the disability category and level of an applicant for a disability certificate were obvious, a total of three people from the county-level Disabled Persons’ Federation, including the chairman of the Disabled Persons’ Federation, could directly determine the category and level of disability through visual inspection, without the need to go to a hospital for disability assessment.
Disability assessment is very professional and rigorous, and must be accurately determined with the help of medical equipment and instruments. In particular, it is difficult to make accurate conclusions through visual inspection of disability levels. Through visual inspection and assessment of disability, phenomena such as “favor certificates” and “fake disability certificates” will inevitably appear.
Li Dingming learned about a case in which he was communicating with the grassroots Disabled Persons’ Federation. A university teacher was blind in his left eye. Although his right eye was short-sighted, it had little impact on travel and other activities. In the past, the Disabled Persons’ Federation assessed him with a disability of Level 2 through visual inspection.
According to the “Disability Classification and Grading of Disabled Persons”, visual disability refers to both eyes. If the vision of the two eyes is different, the one with better vision shall prevail. If there is visual disability in only one eye and the visual acuity in the other eye is 0.3 or better, it does not fall into the category of visual disability.
“About two years ago, the local Disabled Persons’ Federation found out about the above-mentioned teacher through data screening and asked him to re-evaluate. Because his right eye’s myopia has deepened and his corrected vision has dropped below 0.3, his disability level was still upgraded, but it was downgraded to level four.” Li Dingming said.
Standardized disability assessment and verification
However, although the disability assessment method has been standardized, in reality there is still the problem of scalpers applying for disability certificates on their behalf.
In June 2026, scalper Chen Pan and acting reviewer Wang Zhao were sentenced to 1 year and 6 months and 1 year of probation by the Shanghai Hongkou District People’s Court for fraud. Wang Zhao said that in 2022, Chen Pan approached him, hoping to use his polio disease to help groups who want to be assessed as disabled but do not meet the standards to obtain disability certificates in order to earn benefits. Afterwards, Chen Pan solicited customers, and Wang Zhao put on a mask, took the customer information to a tertiary hospital, forged medical records indicating that he had polio, and then went to a disability assessment agency with the forged medical records to conduct disability assessments on behalf of the customers. Until 2024, the two used this method of cooperation to help four customers defraud nearly 70,000 yuan in state subsidies.
Li Dingming told China News Weekly that even though the assessment methods for disability certificates are becoming increasingly scientific and standardized, in the final analysis, people still need to be responsible. If the relevant personnel have insufficient sense of responsibility and do not pay attention to the review and review of relevant disability assessment materials, and do not pay attention to the physical changes of the disabled certificate holders at home, then it will also provide opportunities for illegal disability assessment by people with ulterior motives.
Multiple cases show that scalpers, disabled people, staff of the Disabled Persons’ Federation, doctors, etc. may all engage in manipulation.
Cases announced by the Supreme People’s Procuratorate show that from April 2020 to April 2022, Liu, the then chairman of the Disabled Persons’ Federation of Qitaihe District, Qitaihe City, Heilongjiang Province, applied for disability certificates for 283 people in violation of regulations, upgraded their certificates for 61 people in violation of regulations, and renewed certificates for 9 people in violation of regulations. He also paid bribes to the appraisal doctor Wu, who repeatedly upgraded the disability level for the personnel designated by Liu in violation of regulations. Liu also had problems such as falsely reporting subsidies for disabled car owners to obtain money. In November 2022, Liu was sentenced to three years and six months in prison for committing corruption, accepting bribes, and offering bribes.
The current chairman of the Qingzihe District Disabled Persons’ Federation told China News Weekly that relevant disability certificates have been re-evaluated. The District Disabled Persons’ Federation has canceled and downgraded certificates that did not meet the standards, and set up a special team to re-verify the district’s disability certificates.
Many interviewees said that in addition to cracking down on violators in accordance with laws and regulations, a series of measures should also be taken to further standardize the scientific nature and transparency of disability assessment.
For example, the system needs further patching. “After Liu’s case, we further improved the work process and file management system to ensure that one person has one file, and the paper disability assessment information must be entered into the computer simultaneously. After the assessment by the professional disability assessment agency, we will also make a public announcement. If no complaints are received within the specified time, the certificate will be issued.” said the above-mentioned chairman of the Qingzihe District Disabled Persons’ Federation.
Li Dingming also told China News Weekly that relevant departments need to adopt a combination of manual verification and technical means. The Disabled Persons’ Federation, civil affairs, social security, medical insurance, health and other departments should communicate with each other and conduct cross-checks on disability assessment files, social security payment records, employment registration information and medical records to screen for abnormalities. If an abnormality is found after big data screening, the Disabled Persons’ Federation personnel will notify the person to re-evaluate the disability, or visit the person’s home for review.
Ms. Yao, the person in charge of the Guojielou Community Disabled Persons’ Association in Simao Street, Simao District, Yunnan Province, told China News Weekly that there are currently 242 disabled people in the community. Every year, the district Disabled Persons’ Federation notifies the community’s Disabled Persons’ Association to conduct household visits. “We found that some disabled people improved after exercising, while others worsened. For these people, we will recommend them to have their disabilities re-evaluated.”
In response to the problem of some people using false materials to defraud people with disabilities or to obtain certificates for persons with disabilities, many interviewees believed that clear regulations should be made at the system level and punishments should be increased. “The registration of certificates for persons with disabilities is essentially a form of defrauding state financial funds. This behavior has serious harm to persons with disabilities, enterprises and society.” Li Dingming said.
The “Measures for the Issuance and Management of Disabled Persons’ Certificates in Anhui Province” clearly stipulates that “those who use false certification materials to fraudulently obtain a Disabled Person’s Certificate, or rent, lend, transfer, or mortgage the Disabled Person’s Certificate” are classified as cancellation of the Disabled Person’s Certificate, and re-application is not allowed within one year after cancellation.
(Li Liang, Chen Pan and Wang Zhao are pseudonyms in the article)
Reporter: Zhou Qunfeng
(zhouqunfenghaoren@163.com)
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