pending two hours commuting and 10 hours working every day, Tian Kun blames his busy schedule for destroying one of the pleasures of his life - he has no time to read.

"I just have no time and energy after a day's work," said the 28-year-old, who works at an educational organization in Beijing. "I put One Hundred Years of Solitude on my bedside table but it seems a hopeless task [to read it]."

Tian is not alone in his dilemma. An investigation by the Chinese Academy of Press and Publication in 2013 sheds light on what's widely considered a "reading crisis" facing China. The average time spent on reading is around 13 minutes per day, and Chinese read less than five books a year. The number for France is 20 books, South Korea 11, Japan 40 and Israel 64.  

Time-strapped

As in Tian's case, time is given as the main reason for the closed books. A recent survey by China Central Television indicates Chinese have only 2.55 hours per day for leisure activities, against 9.2 hours of working time. This is in contrast to the average 5.7 hours' leisure time enjoyed by the 18 countries surveyed in the 34-member Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development enjoy.

To make matters worse, Chinese, who live in the world's fastest growing digital product market, spend one-third of their leisure time on smartphones. With fragmented reading habits - reading bite-sized pieces of text - becoming a worldwide phenomenon in an information age seduced by social media, the digital grip obviously has a stronger impact on China.

"When I was traveling in China, I saw few bookstores," said Professor Kenichi Ohmae who once worked for U.S.-based UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. In his book Decline of Collective Intelligence, Ohmae predicts the reading crisis will make China "hopeless at growing into a developed country."

No matter whether Ohmae was exaggerating or not, he raised an issue that has caught the attention of the Chinese Government. 

Reading legislation

This year marked the second consecutive year that the subject of "nationwide reading" appeared in the annual work report of the Chinese Government, which promises to "encourage a love of reading in all people to build a nation of avid readers." Premier Li Keqiang, who delivered the report on March 5 this year, even promised the policy will be part of next year's report, too.

"I hope our people can foster a love of reading, and their volume of reading rises. Reading is a very important symbol of cultural and social progress," Li said, adding that it not only unlocks the potential for innovation but also enhances civic morality.

To that end, a new law to promote nationwide reading is in the process of being drafted. "Many people are still not aware that reading is actually a civil right," said Wei Yushan, head of the Chinese Academy of Press and Publication. Wei was responding to doubts about the necessity of imposing a law on reading. "It's an inevitable responsibility of the government to ensure equal access to reading resources for every citizen."

Legislation on reading, is, however, not unique to China. The United States launched the Reading Excellence Act in 1998 and No Child Left Behind in 2002. Both Japan and South Korea have similar laws to promote reading among their people. 

Government involvement

While a national law is being drawn up, Hubei Province has taken the lead in responding to the call, launching the first provincial regulation to promote public reading. The new regulation, effective since March 1, has set up a quantitative evaluating system. It assesses the local government's efforts to fund and subsidize projects and facility buildings to ensure all citizens - especially children, people living with disabilities, elderly and migrant workers - have equal access to reading materials.

It is easy to assume that more provinces will follow in its wake and similar campaigns will be started. However, the problem of under-used libraries - only 0.47 percent of Chinese hold library cards - appears to warrant more attention, indicating that people have little interest in using the facilities provided by the government.

"Government efforts alone cannot really solve the problem," said Li Shujuan, a veteran editor at the New World Press, a publishing house under China International Publishing Group. "It's not something that can be done in one go. [What we] need is a social environment without fickleness and utilitarianism."

Digital reading rules

If Li searches online, she will find many people holding the same viewpoint. This groundswell of opinion considers the utilitarianism growing along with the world's fastest industrialization and urbanization as the biggest challenge Chinese society is facing. This is also the reason behind the government's effort to restore the habit of reading, and more importantly, people's faith in spiritual pursuits.

That would be a long-term and arduous task requiring support from various sides, most notably, the publishing industry. Industrial figures show that as early as 2012, China's annual book production was almost twice that of the United States and now it has become the country with the largest book inventory in the world. With so many unwanted books, the market has seen a decline in quality and, as Li put it, "not many good books [out there] are worth reading."

While traditional publishing houses struggle to find a solution, the digital world is taking the lead. China Mobile, a major state-owned telecommunication company, is planning to distribute free coupons for e-books on its digital reading platform. The National Library of China has launched its subway library program, which allows passengers to read 10 e-books on their smartphones free by scanning the two-dimensional codes posted in train carriages.

So while Tian Kun may never finish the book gathering dust on his bedside table, there's still a chance he could enjoy the wit of Gabriel Garcia Márquez through fragmented reading, in keeping with his out-of-time lifestyle.