“A country actually legislates respecting its parents?” said one of the eight million people to comment on the story on Sina Weibo.
“This is simply an insult to the nation.”
Another poster said: “The government uses legislation to protect the elderly, but in reality it is just to put all the blame on to their children.
“The government should have thought of how they would address this problem when it brought in the one-child policy.”
The state-run Shanghai Daily said the new law gives parents the power to apply for mediation or bring a case to court, but experts are unclear about how the measures will be enforced, or how often visits are required.
“More quantitative standards and measures need to be added,” Xia Xueluan, a professor with Peking University’s Institute of Sociology and Anthropology, told the Global Times.
“The current revision looks more like a reminder for young people to refocus on the traditional values of filial piety rather than a compulsory law,” he said.
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