By RUTH YOUNGBLOOD

BEIJING, March 8 (UPI) -- Taxicab driver Wang Liu is glad women are making strides in China, but happier that his wife is not among the achievers.

"I drive every day," he said. "Who would clean up, do the laundry and shopping if my wife decided she wanted to pursue a career or more education?"

Pointing at a stream of women hurrying Thursday from their jobs in offices and hotels to pricy restaurants to celebrate International Women's Day, a half-day holiday, Wang said, "With my wife at home, my mind's at ease."

While China's leaders and official media hailed the advances women have made in 17 years of modernization and the spate of laws aimed at wiping out discrimination, many men still stress their traditional responsibilities as priorities.

"Ambitious women who do not have the support of their families face a tough ordeal," said Li Yi, a vice professor at Hainan University in south China.

"They have to double their efforts, a burden I would not want to shoulder."

At the National People's Congress, China's 13-day legislature, only 609 of the 2,900 delegates are women.

The China Daily devoted a large spread to the accomplishments of women belonging to ethnic minorities. Among them were Cirenzuoma, the Tibetan head of the Lhasa Chengguan Carpet Factory and Sahatigu, a teacher in northwest China's Xinjiang Autonomous Region, both living in impoverished areas where the lot of females is particularly hard.

President Jiang Zemin reiterated the proclamation of the late Communist Party leader Mao Tse-tung, "Women hold up half the sky."

The government's determination to achieve equality of the sexes "is an important indicator of the civilization of society," he said in a message published by the China Women's News.

While females have made considerable advances since the party came to power in 1949, in many areas they have lost ground with the demise of egalitarianism.

The capitalistic-style changes accompanying China's transition from a centrally-planned economy to one driven by market forces have left urban women discriminated against in employment, education and even their domestic lives.

Although it is a criminal offense to buy and sell women, the burgeoning numbers of single males in the countryside have sparked a surge of kidnapping and trafficking.

The party has tried to wipe out the practice, but faces an uphill battle made bleaker by the fact that there are nearly three men for every two women among unmarried Chinese over the age of 15.

Despite Jiang's lofty sentiments, the uneducated and downtrodden failed to see any improvement in their plights.

Zao Jie was too busy trying to find buyers for the cheap tablecloths spread on the Beijing sidewalk outside a housing compound for foreigners to even remember Friday's holiday.

"There's nothing else I can do," said the 35-year-old Zao, supporting her ailing husband and young daughter with her meager earnings of about 56 yuan ($7) per week.

Zao said she and her family had no educations but they did have "big dreams" when they left their single-room mud-brick home on a barren farm in the countryside three years ago to try their luck in the capital.

Now crammed into a makeshift shantytown with other peasants pouring into the city, Zao said she traded "one nightmare for another."

In a blunt commentary, the China Women's News said, "What modern women need most is real and just equality in lieu of gifts on International Women's Day.

"The bulk of the laid off workers are women, female college graduates find it difficult to secure jobs, and rural women who fail to give birth to a boy are so ashamed they cannot hold their heads up high, " it said.

Ma Weimin said she was delighted when hired as a bookkeeper 16 years ago in the east China city of Hefei, but since then has only received one day off a year.