State Power and Village Cadres in Contemporary China: the case of rural land transfer in Shandong province

Abstract

In the case of land transfer in rural China, why do some village cadres act as entrepreneurs, some become middlemen between agribusinesses and peasants, and others choose to be passive bystanders? Based on comparative case studies in Shandong province, it is argued that state power, rather than village elections, informal solidary groups and economic benefits, is the dominant explanatory mechanism. This article suggests that our discussion of the state–village cadre relationship should not be limited to the control perspective. To achieve policy objectives, village cadres' ability and creativity are as important as motivation to local government. Substantial support makes village cadres more capable, and some degree of leeway is necessary for creativity. Local government relies on three forms of leverage (control, support and non-intervention) to address three issues (motivation, ability and creativity) in shaping behavioral patterns of village cadres.

Notes

^1. In contemporary China, rural land is classified into agricultural land, construction land and unused land. Hereafter, land transfer exclusively refers to the transfer of use rights of agricultural land.

^2. Qian Forrest Zhang and John A. Donaldson, ‘The rise of agrarian capitalism with Chinese characteristics: agricultural modernization, agribusiness and collective land rights’, The China Journal 60, (2008), pp. 25–48; Qian Forrest Zhang and John A. Donaldson, ‘From peasants to farmers: peasant differentiation, labor regimes, and land-rights institutions in China's agrarian transition’, Politics & Society 38(4), (2010), pp. 458–489.

^3. Village cadres refer to those who serve in the administrative village-level organs such as Party branch and villagers' committees. The primary village cadres are the Party secretary, the head of the village committee and the village accountant. The heads of the village small groups and representatives of villages are not included.

^4. Xiaolin Guo, ‘The role of local government in creating property rights: a comparison of two townships in Northwest Yunnan’, in Jean C. Oi and Andrew G. Walder, eds, Property Rights and Economic Reform in China (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999), p. 71.

^5. Yongshun Cai, ‘Collective ownership or cadres’ ownership? The non-agricultural use of farmland in China', The China Quarterly 175, (2003), p. 665.

^6. Studies of rural land issue can be divided into several categories. For example, for the loss of agricultural land and the discontents of peasants affected, see for example Cai, ‘Collective ownership or cadres’ ownership?'; Xiaolin Guo, ‘Land expropriation and rural conflicts in China’, The China Quarterly 166, (2001), pp. 422–439; H. G. Jacoby, G. Li and S. Rozelle, ‘Hazards of expropriation: tenure insecurity and investment in rural China’, American Economic Review 92(5), (2002), pp. 1420–1447; G. P. Brown, ‘Arable land loss in rural China: policy and implementation in Jiangsu province’, Asian Survey 35(10), (1995), pp. 922–940; Samuel P. S. Ho and George C. S. Lin, ‘Non-agricultural land use in post-reform China’, The China Quarterly 179, (2004), pp. 758–781; Samuel P. S. Ho and George C. S. Lin, ‘Converting land to nonagricultural use in China's coastal provinces: evidence from Jiangsu’, Modern China 30(1), (2004), pp. 81–112; Peter Ho, Institutions in Transition: Land Ownership, Property Rights, and Social Conflict in China (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). For transactions of arable land-use rights, see J. K. S. Kung, ‘Off-farm labor markets and the emergence of land rental markets in rural China’, Journal of Comparative Economics 30(2), (2002), pp. 395–414; S. P. S. Ho and G. C. S. Lin, ‘Emerging land markets in rural and urban China: policies and practices’, The China Quarterly 175, (2003), pp. 681–707; Qian Forrest Zhang, Qingguo Ma and Xu Xu, ‘Development of land rental markets in rural Zhejiang: growth of off-farm jobs and institution building’, The China Quarterly 180, (2004), pp. 1050–1072. For the role of the land system in shaping relations between agribusiness and farmers, see Zhang and Donaldson, ‘The rise of agrarian capitalism with Chinese characteristics’. For the debates on the superiority of the current system over privatizing rural land, see Qian Forrest Zhang, ‘China's agrarian reform and the privatization of land: a contrarian view’, Journal of Contemporary China 22(80), (2013), pp. 255–272. For comparative studies of contract farming, see Qian Forrest Zhang, ‘The political economy of contract farming in China's agrarian transition’, Journal of Agrarian Change 12(4), (2012), pp. 460–483. For the role of local governments and village cadres in land tenure and institutional change, see L. Brandt, S. Rozelle and M. A. Turner, ‘Local government behavior and property right formation in rural China’, Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics JITE 160(4), (2004), pp. 627–662; S. Rozelle and G. Li, ‘Village leaders and land-rights formation in China’, American Economic Review 88(2), (1998), pp. 433–438; Alvin Y. So, ‘Peasant conflict and the local predatory state in the Chinese countryside’, Journal of Peasant Studies 34(3), (2007), pp. 560–581; Fubing Su, Ran Tao and Hui Wang, ‘State fragmentation and rights contestation: rural land development rights in China’, China & World Economy 21(4), (2013), pp. 136–155.

^7. See for example, Kevin J. O'Brien and Rongbin Han, ‘Path to democracy? Assessing village elections in China’, Journal of Contemporary China 18(60), (2009), pp. 359–378; Björn Alpermann, ‘Institutionalizing village governance in China’, Journal of Contemporary China 18(60), (2009), pp. 397–409; Björn Alpermann, ‘The post-election administration of Chinese villages’, The China Journal 46, (2001), pp. 45–67.

^8. Jean C. Oi and Scott Rozelle, ‘Elections and power: the locus of decision-making in Chinese villages’, The China Quarterly 162, (2000), pp. 513–539.

^9. For the informal accountability, see Lily L. Tsai, ‘The struggle for village public goods provision: informal institutions of accountability in rural China’, in Elizabeth J. Perry and Merle Goldman, eds, Grassroots Political Reform in Contemporary China (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2007); Lily L. Tsai, ‘Cadres, temple and lineage institutions, and governance in rural China’, The China Journal 48, (2002), pp. 1–27; Lily L. Tsai, Accountability without Democracy: Solidary Groups and Public Goods Provision in Rural China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); Lily L. Tsai, ‘Solidary groups, informal accountability, and local public goods provision in rural China’, American Political Science Review 101(2), (2007), pp. 355–372.

^10. For the role of economic benefits in shaping village cadre behavior, see James Kung, Yongshun Cai and Xiulin Sun, ‘Rural cadres and governance in China: incentive, institution and accountability’, The China Journal 62, (2009), pp. 61–77.

^11. Shukai Zhao, Xiangzhen Zhili Yu Zhengfu Zhiduhua [Township Governance and Institutionalization of Government] (Beijing: Shangwu yinshuguan (Commercial Press), 2010), p. 181.

^12. See for example, John Burns, ‘China's nomenklatura system’, Problems of Communism 36(5), (1987), pp. 36–51; John P. Burns, ed., The Chinese Communist Party's Nomenklatura System: A Documentary Study of Party Control of Leadership Selection, 1979–1984 (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1989); John P. Burns, ‘Strengthening central party control of leadership selection, the 1990 nomenklatura’, The China Quarterly 138, (1994), pp. 458–491; John P. Burns, ‘The Chinese Communist Party's nomenklatura system as a leadership selection mechanism: an evaluation’, in Kjeld Erik Brødsgaard and Zheng Yongnian, eds, Chinese Communist Party in Reform (London: Routledge, 2006), pp. 33–59; James Kung and Shuo Chen, ‘The tragedy of the nomenklatura: career incentives and political radicalism during China's Great Leap famine’, American Political Science Review 105(1), (2011), pp. 27–45; Kjeld Erik Brødsgaard, ‘Institutional reform and the Bianzhi system in China’, The China Quarterly 170, (2002), pp. 361–386; Tsai, ‘The struggle for village public goods provision’; An Chen, ‘The failure of organizational control: changing party power in the Chinese countryside’, Politics & Society 35(1), (2007), pp. 145–179.

^13. John P. Burns, ‘Local cadre accommodation to the “responsibility system” in rural China’, Pacific Affairs 58(4), (1985), pp. 607–625; Kevin J. O'Brien and Lianjiang Li, ‘Selective policy implementation in rural China’, Comparative Politics 31(2), (1999), pp. 167–186; Susan H. Whiting, Power and Wealth in Rural China: The Political Economy of Institutional Change (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001); Maria Edin, ‘State capacity and local agent control in China: CCP cadre management from a township perspective’, The China Quarterly 173, (2003), pp. 35–52.

^14. Whiting, Power and Wealth in Rural China; Edin, ‘State capacity and local agent control in China’; Stig Thøgersen, ‘Frontline soldiers of the CCP: the selection of China's township leaders’, The China Quarterly 194, (2008), pp. 414–423.

^15. O'Brien and Li, ‘Selective policy implementation in rural China’; Yongshun Cai, ‘Between state and peasant: local cadres and statistical reporting in rural China’, The China Quarterly 163, (2000), pp. 783–805.

^16. Michel Oksenberg, ‘China's political system: challenges of the twenty-first century’, The China Journal 45, (2001), p. 23.

^17. Elizabeth J. Perry, ‘Studying Chinese politics: farewell to revolution?’, The China Journal 57, (2007), pp. 1–22; Elizabeth J. Perry, ‘From mass campaigns to managed campaigns: “constructing a new socialist countryside”’, in Sebastian Heilmann and Elizabeth J. Perry, eds, Mao's Invisible Hand: The Political Foundations of Adaptive Governance in China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, Distributed by Harvard University Press, 2011), pp. 30–61.

^18. Kevin O'Brien and Lianjiang Li, ‘Campaign nostalgia in the Chinese countryside’, Asian Survey 39(3), (1999), pp. 375–393.

^19. Heilmann and Perry, eds, Mao's Invisible Hand; Zhao, Xiangzhen Zhili Yu Zhengfu Zhiduhua [Township Governance and Institutionalization of Government].

^20. Nicole Liu Ning, Carlos Wing-Hung Lo and Xueyong Zhan, ‘Campaign-style enforcement and regulatory compliance’, Public Administration Review 75(1), (2015), pp. 85–95.

^21. In Chinese terms, transaction of land-use rights is usually described as land circulation (tudi liuzhuan), which means the circulation of land-use rights. Hereafter, land transfer and land circulation are interchangeable. Land transfer or land circulation also refers to land rental markets rather than land sales markets, since collectives own rural land in China.

^22. Subcontracting means farmers transfer their land rights to other households in the same village.

^23. Leasing means the land rights are transferred to non-village households or parties.

^24. Shareholding denotes that land contractors, of their own free will, jointly pool their rights to land contractual management as shares to engage in cooperative agricultural production.

^25. Assigning means that farmers who have contracted land transfer their rights of land contractual management to other parties, and once they do so, they could not reclaim the land contracted again during the remaining period of the term of the original contract.

^26. Exchange means that households in the same village exchange their plots for convenience or other purposes.

^27. Mu is a Chinese unit of measurement, with 1 mu = 1/15 hectares = 1/6 acre.

^28. Interview 22, village Party secretary and village head, Z village, N county, Shandong, November 2010.

^29.Ibid.

^30.Ibid.

^31. Interview 25, deputy township head, N county, Shandong, November 2010. More and more economically successful businessmen are being recruited into the Party branch, see Xiaojun Yan, ‘To get rich is not only glorious: economic reform and the new entrepreneurial party secretaries’, The China Quarterly 210, (2012).

^32. Interview 24, township Party secretary, N county, Shandong, November 2010.

^33. See Qian Forrest Zhang, ‘Comparing local models of agrarian transition in China’, Rural China: An International Journal of History & Social Science 10(1), (2013), pp. 5–35.

^34. Interview 34, head of Station of Rural Economic Management, N county, Shandong, November 2010.

^35. Interview 31, deputy township head, N county, Shandong, November 2010.

^36. Interview 34.

^37.Ibid.

^38. Interview 27, village Party secretary, D village, N county, Shandong, November 2010; Interview 28, village head, D village, N county, Shandong, November 2010.

^39. Interview 35, village Party secretary, C village, N county, Shandong, November 2010.

^40.Ibid.

^41. Interview 10, official at Office of Agriculture, N county, Shandong, December 2009, November 2010.

^42. Interview 35.

^43. Interview 10.

^44. Interview 35.

^45. Interview 35; Interview37, head of Station of Rural Economic Management, N county, Shandong, November 2010.

^46. See Zhang, ‘Comparing local models of agrarian transition in China’.

^47. For state penetration, see for example, Prasenjit Duara, Culture, Power, and the State: Rural North China, 1900–1942 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988); Vivienne Shue, The Reach of the State: Sketches of the Chinese Body Politics (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990); Jonathan Unger, ‘State and peasant in post-revolution China’, Journal of Peasant Studies 17(1), (1989), pp. 114–136; Jean Oi, State and Peasant in Contemporary China: The Political Economy of Village Government (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1989). For peasants' power and response, see Daniel Kelliher, Peasant Power in China: The Era of Rural Reform, 1979–1989 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992); Kate Xiao Zhou, How the Farmers Changed China: Power of the People (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996); Thomas P. Bernstein and Xiaobo B. Lü, Taxation without Representation in Contemporary Rural China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).

^48.Ibid. Robert Ash, ‘Squeezing the peasants: grain extraction, food consumption and rural living standards’, The China Quarterly 188, (2006).

^49. See for example, Ray Yep, ‘Can “tax-for-fee” reform reduce rural tension in China? The process, progress and limitations’, The China Quarterly 177, (2004); Linda Chelan Li, ‘Working for the peasants? Strategic interactions and unintended consequences in the Chinese rural tax reform’, The China Journal 57, (2007); John James Kennedy, ‘From the tax-for-fee reform to the abolition of agricultural taxes: the impact on township governments in north-west China’, The China Quarterly 189, (2007).

^50. Kevin J. O'Brien and Lianjiang Li, Rightful Resistance in Rural China (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006).