The widening economic divide between rural and urban China — and between its coastal and western regions as well — will only get worse as its spectacular economic growth continues, a Chinese scholar warned at a recent symposium in Tokyo.

The worsening poverty of China's rural farmers has been complicated by water shortages and other environmental threats confronting the country, said Yuan Gangming, a professor with the Institute of Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

At symposium held Sept. 20 by the Keizai Koho Center on the theme of the "sustainability of the Chinese economy," Yuan brushed aside widespread concern that China's economy is overheating.