Negotiating Rural Land Ownership in Southwest China: State, Village, Family 9780824867973

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NEGOTIATING RURAL LAND OWNER­SHIP in Southwest China

A Study of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute

NEGOTIATING RURAL LAND OWNER­SHIP in Southwest China State, Village, F­ amily

Yi Wu

University of Hawai‘i Press Honolulu

© 2016 University of Hawai‘i Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of Amer­i­ca 21 ​20 ​19 ​18 ​17 ​16    6 ​5 ​4 ​3 ​2 ​1 Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-­Publication Data Names: Wu, Yi, author. Title: Negotiating rural land own­ership in southwest China : state, village, f­ amily / Yi Wu. Other titles: Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University. Description: Honolulu : University of Hawai‘i Press, [2016] | Series: Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2015048908 | ISBN 9780824846770 cloth : alk. paper Subjects: LCSH: Land tenure—­China—­Fuyuan Xian (Yunnan Sheng) | Village communities—­China—­Fuyuan Xian (Yunnan Sheng) | Rural families—­China—­Fuyuan Xian (Yunnan Sheng) | Fuyuan Xian (Yunnan Sheng, China)—­ Politics and government. Classification: LCC HD1339.C5 W8 2016 | DDC 333.33/509513—­dc23 LC rec­ord available at http://­lccn​.­loc​.­gov​/­2015048908 Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University The Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute of Columbia University ­were inaugurated in 1962 to bring to a wider public the results of significant new research on modern and con­temporary East Asia. University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid-­free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Council on Library Resources.

To my ­family, far and near

Contents List of Illustrations  ix Notes on Mea­sures and Transliteration  xi Acknowl­edgments  xiii 1 Introduction  1

PART I

Two Kinds of Villages  19 2 Zhaizi, the Per­sis­tent Natu­ral Village in Fuyuan  23 3 Zhaizi and the Making of Bounded Collectivism  41 4 The Administrative Village: Power Differentiation and Land Rights Shared between Its Two Administrative Levels  66

PART II

Rural Families  89 5 What Is ­under the Control of the ­Family?  91 6 The Economic Resilience and Predicament of Rural Families  111

PART III

The Local Government  129 7 Land as a New Subject of Control: The National Context of Reform  131 8 Land Resources and the Fuyuan Government’s Development Agendas  147

PART IV

An Evolving Land Owner­ship System in the Reform Era  163 9 Negotiating Land Use Rights and Income Distribution in Agricultural Production  165 10 Contesting Land Transfer Rights and Income Distribution in the Land Market  193 11 Concluding Reflections  221

vii

viii     Contents

Notes  239 Chinese Character Glossary  253 Bibliography  261 Index  273

Illustrations Maps 1.1. Fuyuan County’s location in southwest China 2.1. Distribution of rural settlements and towns in Fuyuan County

14 24

Figures

3.1. 3.2. 3.3. 3.4. 3.5. 3.6. 3.7. 8.1. 9.1. 9.2.

Fuyuan’s administrative structure, 1949–1952 Fuyuan’s administrative structure, ­Great Leap Forward Fuyuan’s administrative structure, 1962–1970 Fuyuan’s administrative structure, 1970–1984 Fuyuan’s administrative structure, 1984–1987 Fuyuan’s administrative structure, 1988–2000 Fuyuan’s administrative structure, 2000–2015 Fuyuan’s coal output, 1953–2013 Area of tobacco cultivation in Fuyuan, 1947–2013 Fuyuan’s konjac production, 1994–2013

42 51 53 57 60 61 62 151 168 187

­Tables 3.1. Fuyuan’s administrative changes, 1950–1957 3.2. Fuyuan’s administrative changes, 1958–1982

ix

43 51

Notes on Mea­sures and Transliteration 1 mu（亩）= 0.165 acre； 6 mu = 1 acre 1 zhang（丈）= 3.33 meters 1 dou（斗） = 1 decaliter 1 jin (斤) = 0.5 kilogram = 1.1 pounds 1 yuan（元）= approximately U.S. $0.119 in 2005 and $0.161 in 2015. All transliteration of Chinese terms uses the pinyin system of Romanization of Mandarin (Putonghua).

xi

Acknowl­edgments Many p ­ eople and institutions helped me to complete this book. In a very practical sense, this research proj­ect would not have been pos­ si­ble without the generous help from so many p ­ eople in Fuyuan County, Yunnan Province. I went to Fuyuan for the first time in 1997. Over the course of almost two de­cades, ­people ­there have provided invaluable assistance throughout my long-­term research on rural land property relations. Numerous villa­gers welcomed me into their lives and homes and shared their stories and experiences with me. They accompanied me to climb up the mountains, walk across the rice paddies, or visit fellow villa­gers to concretely teach me the history of each piece of land; they graciously let me observe their worshipping of the earth god or such impor­tant rites of passage as funerals and weddings, and, of course, always prepared delicious foods for me; and they put up with numerous cross-­ocean telephone interviews for gathering new local data, clarifying issues, or getting their opinions. I am especially grateful to the families of Wu Lifei and Wu Lixin, who made my stay in Fuyuan feel like home. Fieldwork would have been impossible without the support of the Fuyuan County government, the Fucun Township government, the Huangnihe Township government, Desheng Administrative Village, Huangnihe Administrative Village, Yizuo Administrative Village, the Office of Local Chronicles Compilation of Fuyuan County, the Bureau of Land and Resources of Fuyuan County, the Forest Bureau of Fuyuan County, Fuyuan County Archive, and Fuyuan County Court. For the individuals who in dif­fer­ent positions provided me with all kinds of valuable assistance throughout my fieldwork, I want to say “thank you” from the bottom of my heart, although I cannot provide their names h ­ ere for privacy’s sake. This book began its life as a dissertation guided by Myron Cohen and Brinkley Messick. Myron Cohen provided me with consistent encouragement and unstinting help throughout my PhD studies. As an insightful critic of my dissertation, he offered thoughtful comments and carefully edited the key chapters. His expertise on Chinese families guided my analy­sis of the economic organ­ization of rural families in the book. Moreover, his views xiii

xiv     Acknowl­edgments

on the instrumental role played by patrilineal lineages in maintaining restricted rural communities helped me refine “bounded collectivism,” the concept that I developed for explaining an impor­tant feature of rural land own­ership in China. Brinkley Messick, who guided me into the fascinating field of ­legal anthropology, particularly the area of property studies, has been my theoretical inspiration throughout the years. This proj­ect was able to take shape b­ ecause of his crucial guidance at e­ very stage of my PhD studies. L ­ ater, his suggestions for revisions, especially his emphasis on strengthening the historical dimension of my research, brought this book to a new level. His firm support of and strong confidence in my research have always motivated me. In my research on the issue of rural land own­ership in China, I received intellectual guidance and practical support from many p ­ eople. The most impor­tant among them is Mark Selden, a mentor and friend for two de­cades. As a committed teacher, he is the person from whom I learned the importance of a rigorous research method. His academic rigor, expertise on China’s socialist transformation, and numerous critical questions helped me refine the concept of bounded collectivism. Especially impor­tant is that he drew my attention to the role played by rural communities in organ­izing ­labor and thereby broadened my analy­sis of bounded collectivism. My discussion of the dif­fer­ent stages of rural collectivization in China also benefited greatly from his caution against the potential pitfalls in describing such a complex land own­ership system as China’s. I also owe intellectual debts to Jonathan Unger and Philip C. C. Huang, both of whom offered warm encouragement and timely advice and comments when I sought feedback on the concept of bounded collectivism. Jonathan Unger shared with me his most recent works on rural land use and management, enabling me to compare both village collectives’ participation in the land market and landholding arrangements in dif­fer­ent parts of China. His PhD student Brendan Forde, who conducted fieldwork on the villa­gers’ groups in Hunan Province, offered useful comments on the po­liti­cal role of the villa­gers’ groups. Drawing on his research on China’s rural development in the past de­cade, Philip Huang informed me of the broader trends in China’s recent agricultural production and helped me refine my discussion of ­family farms in the reform era. I also greatly appreciate his kind invitation to publish a Chinese edition of this book, as part of the Rural China Series edited by him in China. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to three members of my dissertation committee. Laurel Kendall helped the development of my work from

Acknowl­edgments     xv

the very beginning to the finished product, and always provided me with perceptive comments and suggestions. Madeleine Zelin helped me appreciate the nuances of Chinese history and the continuity of po­liti­cal culture during dif­fer­ent historical periods and has always been a strong supporter of my research and c­ areer. Benjamin Liebman’s expertise in Chinese law helped clarify my discussion of some l­egal issues and cases. Thanks are also due Richard Moench and Sofia Mohsen at the State University of New York at Binghamton. Richard Moench’s erudition and wonderful sense of humor opened my eyes to the fascination of anthropology. Through her teaching of gender studies, Sofia Mohsen introduced me to the joy of critical thinking. Without the enthusiastic support and encouragement of ­these two teachers, I would never have been able to pursue my PhD studies in anthropology. My gratitude also goes to my colleagues and students in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Clemson University, whose welcome and support enabled me to teach and do research effectively and efficiently. I thank the Weatherhead East Asian Institute at Columbia University for supporting the publication of this book as part of their series Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute. Revision of the book benefited from the comments and suggestions of the two anonymous reviewers. Pamela Kelly, my editor at the University of Hawai‘i Press, provided invaluable support for the completion of the book. I greatly appreciate her patience in guiding me through the book preparation and her understanding throughout the unrelated difficulties that delayed my writing. I am grateful to ­Virginia Perrin for her skillful editorial assistance and to my production editor Deborah Grahame-­Smith for her guidance and support as I prepared the manuscript for production. I thank Carol Zuber-­Mallison for making wonderful maps and charts for this book. Heartfelt thanks are also due to many ­people in China who offered ­great assistance during my fieldwork. In Kunming, Yang Yunbao at Yunnan Education Press generously gave his time and resources to arrange my interviews and help me find research materials. Tian Chenyou, who then taught at the Law School of Yunnan University, helped arrange my fieldwork in Fuyuan and offered insightful opinions on China’s ­legal reform. Shi Yafeng at the Yunnan Provincial Procuratorate graciously collected research materials for me and explained many impor­tant ­legal concepts. Zhao Juncheng at the Institute of Rural Economy of the Yunnan Acad­emy of Social Science introduced me to the most recent research by Chinese scholars

xvi     Acknowl­edgments

on the rural land tenure system. In Beijing, Zhao Xiaoli at the Law School of Peking University provided insightful views on the operation of the grassroots ­legal institutions and social and economic realities of rural areas. My discussion with Zhang Xiaoshan at the Rural Development Institute of the Chinese Acad­emy of Social Sciences helped me to appreciate the complexity of China’s rural economy. From the same institute, Wang Xiaoying patiently explained a wide range of issues related to rural land management. Over the years I have been fortunate to receive substantial financial support for this proj­ect. The Dissertation Improvement Grant from the Law and Social Science Program of the National Science Foundation (grant number LSS—0213841), the Dissertation Fieldwork Grant from the Wenner-­ Gren Foundation for the Anthropological Research, and the Y .F. and L. C. C. Wu Fellowship from the Weatherhead East Asian Institute at Columbia University made pos­si­ble the field research upon which this research is based. The Scheps Fellowship and the A. M. Fellowship from Columbia University funded preliminary summer research. The V. K. Wellington Koo Dissertation Fellowship from the Weatherhead East Asian Institute at Columbia University provided support for me to write my dissertation. Fi­nally, my deepest gratitude goes to my f­ amily. I am lucky to live in a big, loving ­family. Their love, understanding, and support enabled me to persevere over my long academic journey. I am proud to have parents who have always believed in me and gave me much freedom and space to pursue my interests both in life and work. I owe my pursuit of an academic c­ areer to my f­ather, who revealed to me the joy of learning and the won­der of knowledge. The warmth and caring of my ­mother, Xu Juhua, and my maternal grand­mother, Liu Suzheng, allowed me and my s­ister to thrive and grow into persons who believe the best of life is always before us if we try hard enough. Despite her own hectic work schedule, my ­sister, Wu Qi, kept sending me much-­needed research materials. I am also grateful to her for looking ­after my parents while I am far away in Amer­i­ca. Both my parents and parents-­in-­law helped to take care of my c­ hildren at dif­fer­ent times, enabling my husband and me to better balance our professional and personal lives. My ­brother-­in-­law, Dong Danning, offered valuable advice when I applied to gradu­ate schools in the United States and offered generous help during the early years of my gradu­ate studies. My cousin Wu Tingting helped to collect research materials in Beijing. The courage that my u ­ ncles and aunts, especially my late aunt Wu Weixi, showed through many life hardships inspired me to choose Fuyuan, a place where a ­family saga began, as my re-

Acknowl­edgments     xvii

search destination. Fi­nally, I am grateful that I have Chenning, Jonathan, and William. My husband, Chenning Tong, has been the greatest supporter of my work. He has shared all the joys, frustrations, and complications resulting from my long academic pursuit. His encouragement and patience are a major reason why I was able to complete this book. I owe my inspiration and optimism to my two c­ hildren, who entered our lives at dif­fer­ent stages of my ­career. Jonathan came at a time when I was busy with doctoral qualification exams. ­Later, two-­year-­old Jonathan accompanied me during the first half of my dissertational fieldwork. William joined our f­ amily a few weeks a­ fter my defense, making the completion of my dissertation a double happiness. The presence of my c­ hildren has made my work more meaningful.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Rights over land, the most salient form of property, have been at the heart of controversies concerning the transformation of con­temporary China. As a fundamental economic institution that shapes the life chances of this ­country’s more than six hundred million rural residents, the current rural collective land own­ership system in China has been a contested arena throughout the P ­ eople’s Republic period (1949–­pres­ent). The combined impacts of po­liti­cal turmoil, changing state-­society relations, and population pressure gave rise to successive land property regimes. The land reform in the late 1940s and early 1950s took land owned by landlords and extra land owned by rich peasants and redistributed it to the rural poor. A roughly equal landholding among farmers was established thereafter. Starting in the mid-1950s private land own­ership was gradually abolished in ­favor of collective land own­ership and collective agricultural production. For more than two de­cades the majority of the rural populace was administratively bound to their collective units within the P ­ eople’s Commune System and was obligated to engage in collective l­abor. When the House­hold Responsibility System, the first major post-­Mao rural reform, started in the early 1980s, land was allocated to individual ­house­holds through contracts. Although farmland continued to be collectively owned, rural families ­were freed from the forced collective ­labor of the Maoist era and reemerged as the primary units of agricultural production. As China proceeded further down the road to a “socialist market economy,” sweeping institutional changes in land management occurred. First, land reemerged as a commodity a­ fter the Chinese constitution had banned land transactions for de­cades. Then a unified land management system was created in 1986, 1

2     Introduction

e­ nabling the central government to control national land resources more efficiently and effectively. As urbanization became a primary driver of China’s economic growth in the new millennium, millions of farmers lost their contracted farmland for development, and land issues generated diverse conflicts and nationwide popu­lar re­sis­tance. Such profound and rapid change in rural land property relations in China over the past six de­cades has drawn extensive scholarly attention. Joining in the effort to understand the transformation of China’s rural land own­ership, this book approaches the issue of land own­ership through in-­depth ethnography in village communities and is based on my research since 2002 in Fuyuan County in the southwestern Chinese province of Yunnan. As an anthropological proj­ect, this research has three methodological focuses. First, drawing on theoretical developments in property studies since the 1980s that highlight issues of power (Appadurai 1986; Coombe 1998; Hann 1993a, b; Messick 1995, 2003; Stark 1996; Strathern 1984, 1988; Verdery 1996, 1999, 2003; Verdery and Humphrey 2004), I view the formation of a property regime as a fluid pro­cess within which social actors with dif­fer­ent resources and capacities compete for control over vari­ous property ele­ments such as rights, value, and meanings, and therefore I formulate the central questions of this study as to how the three major rural alignments—­ local governments, village communities, and rural families—­have contested and negotiated land rights at the local level and thereby transformed the structure of rural land own­ership in the ­People’s Republic of China. Second, following the central anthropological contention that property relations are to be understood as social relations and to be seen in terms of ­human society and culture (Firth 1965; Gluckman 1965; Hoebel 1966; ­Malinowski 1935), I do not take the property of land per se as my focus; rather, I focus on the interrelations between the land tenure system and the surrounding social and cultural systems. I explore how land property relations ­were ­shaped by complex cultural patterns and long-­held traditions, such as the distinctive identities of rural settlements, popu­lar religion, the logic of the ­family farm economy, egalitarianism, and a survival ethic that has long surrounded land distribution in rural China. Third, as a historical anthropology of current rural land own­ership in China, this research draws on the convergence of anthropology and history that since the 1980s has prompted anthropologists to historicize social and cultural phenomena and examine “history from below” (e.g., Cohn 1987; Dirks 1986; Geertz 1980; Messick 1996; Rosaldo 1980; Sahlins 1981;

Introduction     3

Thompson 1963, 1966; E. Wolf 1982). As a result, my work does not start from the perspective of the state or national policy; nor do I treat the system of land relations as static. Rather, based on extended ethnography, archival documents, and local history from Fuyuan, I explore how local culture and practices articulated and interacted with the wider po­liti­cal economy, resulting in changes in land own­ership structure. These changes continued throughout the long historical pro­cesses such as establishing rural collective land own­ership in the 1950s and 1960s, implementing the ­house­hold contract system in the early 1980s, and readjusting the rural economy in the new millennium. With the above theoretical and methodological focuses, this book adds to the existing lit­er­a­ture on China’s rural land own­ership system in three aspects. First, it provides a new approach to the formation of the current system of collective land own­ership in rural China by shedding light on the enduring social identities of rural settlements (often referred to by the Chinese government as “natu­ral villages”) during the ­People’s Republic period (1949–­pres­ent). Specifically, it reveals how a landholding structure, which I term “bounded collectivism,” was initially formed in southwest China as a result of the contestation between the socialist state aiming to establish collective land own­ership and rural settlements seeking exclusive control over land resources within their traditional borders. Second, it reveals the power of rural families in shaping the structure of rural land own­ership through the examination of the grassroots land allocation princi­ples ­under the House­hold Responsibility System in the early 1980s and of how domestic property relations are constructed through long-­held norms regarding the rights and responsibilities of genders and generations, instead of state laws. Meanwhile, it also analyzes predicaments faced by small ­family farms in the new social and economic context of post-­Mao China. Third, while the majority of recent research on the reform of China’s land management in the post-­Mao era focuses on policy analy­sis and institutional changes at the national level, this book uses village-­level data to show how local governments, rural communities, and rural ­house­holds have contested and negotiated the essential component rights of land own­ership (i.e., use, income, and transfer rights) in two major economic spheres—­agricultural production and the land market. The contestation has manifested in several forms: conflict and cooperation between the local government and rural ­house­holds in agricultural production; rural ­house­holds’ re­sis­tance to the government’s compulsory land requisition; village cadres’ attempts and

4     Introduction

strategies in taking control over the collectively owned land and their underground activities in the land market; and the government’s strategies in monopolizing land sale profits and the apparatus supporting its predatory practices in the land market. Only by understanding such competition and operation at the grassroots level can we understand why and how China’s rural land own­ership system is changing. In short, by providing a multilayered and historical-­con­temporary analy­sis of the relationships formed among major rural alignments in dividing and sharing land rights over the past six de­cades, this ethnography demonstrates that the current rural land own­ership system in China is not a static system imposed by the state from above, but a constantly changing hybrid resulting from the contestation among the major rural alignments. This property regime defies simplistic and ideological labels such as “socialist,” “cap­i­tal­ist,” or “postsocialist.” Understanding the characteristics of land property relations in China ­will contribute to the understanding of the historical specificity and complexity of property relations and the dif­fer­ent trajectories of socialist and postsocialist transformation across the world.

Making “Bounded Collectivism”: The Long Overlooked “Natu­ral Village” (zirancun) The current rural collective land own­ership system in China has been a major research topic in the field of China studies. The power and strategies of the Chinese state in establishing the rural collective land regime are studied by scholars from multiple perspectives. It is well known that, through vari­ ous po­liti­cal campaigns and movements, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) gradually abolished the previous private land own­ership system and implemented collective own­ership across the countryside within a de­cade of the establishment of the P ­ eople’s Republic in 1949. During the pro­cess, a new rural economic and administrative structure—­the ­People’s Commune System—­was established in rural areas. As a result of this administrative change, ­every county in China started to contain a number of communes, each of which was composed of production brigades, which in turn ­were composed of production teams. The number of production brigades within a commune, like the number of production teams within a brigade, varied from region to region. Within this tri-­level administrative structure, agricultural production and land management in rural China underwent profound changes, the most impor­tant of which was that the production team became the lowest-­level collective land management unit and the most ba-

Introduction     5

sic administrative unit to which the vast majority of the rural population was administratively bound from 1955 to 1983 (Chan, Madsen, and Unger 1992; Friedman, Pickowicz, and Selden 1991; Oi 1989; Potter and Potter 1990; Ruf 1998; Selden 1993a; Siu 1989). In examining the campaigns and movements initiated by the state, as well as the new social and po­liti­cal structures imposed on rural society, the existing lit­er­a­ture reveals very well the power and strategies of the Chinese state in creating a new socialist land own­ership system. However, ­little scholarly attention has been paid to the role played by another equally impor­tant social organ­izing force in this transformation—­the “natu­ral villages” (zirancun), at least two million of which are estimated to exist in China’s vast rural areas.1 What then is a “natu­ral village”? It is a settlement community, the most basic rural residence unit in China. For the rural populace, it refers to local residents’ sense of what is “local and long-­standing” (Feuchtwang 1998) and therefore embodies long-­established relationships that govern settlements, territories, agricultural production, ancestral graves, kinship, and the worship of local deities. Historically, neither the bound­aries nor the membership of a natu­ral village have been set by the state. This is why the current Chinese government uses the term “natu­ral villages” to define ­these communities and to convey that t­hese communities ­were formed spontaneously out of settlement choices over long historical periods. But the formation of t­ hese communities was of course ­shaped by many complex social and economic ­factors; therefore, they are not “natu­ral” at all. The local terms for t­hese communities vary in dif­fer­ent regions. The most common term is cun; ­others include tun, ying, zhaizi, zhuang, wanzi, and bang, all of which can be roughly translated as “village” or “hamlet.” In this book, however, I do not use the word “village” to refer to ­these communities, ­because the “administrative village” (xingzhengcun) or “village committee” (cunweihui), which is a unit in the current rural administrative structure, is also often referred to as “village” for short by many scholars and the government. In other words, in the social and po­liti­cal context of the ­People’s Republic of China, the concept of village encompasses the dual meanings of administrative villages and natu­ral villages. Yet my fieldwork experience made clear that differentiating between ­these two kinds of villages is crucial to understanding rural land own­ership and social relations of ­labor and income distribution. Natu­ral villages/rural settlements have been a major focus of several generations of anthropologists and historians of China. The first surge of

6     Introduction

rural community studies occurred from the 1920s to 1950s and produced many impor­tant works (Fei 1939; Fei and Zhang 1945; Fitzgerald 1941; Fried 1953; G ­ amble 1963; Hsu 1948; Lin 1947; Yang 1945). Their studies have demonstrated that from the late imperial period to 1949, rural settlements not only functioned as the fundamental orga­nizational node of interaction and exchange in rural areas but also exhibited stable and distinct identities in vari­ous ways, the most impor­tant of which included restricted community membership, exclusive control over community land, and distinguishable social and economic organ­izations. In his study of the rural economy in Jiangsu and Yunnan Provinces, Fei Xiaotong (1939, 1945) is especially explicit about the exclusiveness of the community identity. He reveals a series of phenomena defining the social and economic bound­aries between community members and outsiders: restrictions ­were imposed on who could be considered a community native resident; only community members ­were permitted to use, lease, or buy the public lands of the village; outsiders customarily did not participate in impor­ tant voluntary organ­izations that ­shaped the po­liti­cal and religious life in the village; and so on. The situation is also described by Sidney ­Gamble in his book North China Villages: In north China before 1933, the land was dotted with thousands and even tens of thousands of villages. Although they lay fairly close together, they ­were separate and distinct communities. ­There ­were only a few ­instances where two or more villages united for po­liti­cal or economic reasons. No two villages w ­ ere alike in the sample groups we studied in Hopei, Shansi, Shantung, and Honan. They differed in size, in the number of families living within their bound­aries, in the number of clans and name groups, in the amount of land they controlled, in the number and organ­ization of their leadership groups, in the qualifications demanded of their leaders, in the po­liti­cal development, in their finances, in the amounts and methods of levying and collecting their assessments, and in their religious activity. (1963, 1)

­ fter Fei, other scholars have addressed how natu­ral villages’ social and A economic identities w ­ ere maintained. In the area of popu­lar religion, for ­example, Arthur Wolf (1974) shows how local deities ­were worshipped as officials holding territorial posts and thus defined the community bound­ aries. In his study of rural communities in north and south China during

Introduction     7

the first half of the twentieth ­century, Philip Huang emphasizes the importance of taking the village as “a unit worthy of analytical attention” (1985, 27). Huang argues that the “supra-­k inship territorial bonds” that existed in village communities made ­these communities have greater stability and continuity (1990). More importantly, Huang points out that while many scholars assume that “the villages ­were completely integrated into larger systems ­either through an intrusive state apparatus or through the pervasive influence of the gentry,” historical data prove that “the village was left intact as a basic unit of Chinese society” in the reconstruction of rural China in the twentieth ­century (1985, 27). Prasenjit Duara (1988) similarly concludes that although the natu­ral village in late imperial society was not the sole, or perhaps even the dominant, node of coordination in the cultural nexus, it was an impor­tant one. For instance, the community managed dif­fer­ent collective activities, the most prominent being religious ceremonies barring outsiders. Furthermore, Duara discusses the interaction between the rural settlements and the modern state. With the advent of the late Qing reforms and state-­building attempts during the Republican period, a formal village government with taxing power emerged. As a result, the village leadership’s territorial jurisdiction over land was strengthened during the Republic, although the disarticulation of local po­liti­cal brokers from the cultural nexus in rural society weakened their moral authority and created a less cohesive community identity. From the extensive research of the historians and anthropologists, it is safe to say that an impor­tant feature of rural Chinese society before 1949 was the exclusivity and solidarity of the natu­ral village, which maintained power­ful control over both social and physical domains. Yet we know relatively l­ittle about what happened to ­these communities during the pro­cess of transforming the “old” private land property relations into new, socialist ones ­a fter 1949. Many critical questions arise. For example, as socialism emerged in the rural areas, what kind of relationship existed between natu­ ral villages and production teams, the lowest-­level collective land management units created by the state? Did the pro­cess of setting up new collective land management units change or disrupt the previous bound­aries among natu­ral villages? Did ­these communities try to maintain their social identities and long-­held domains during this dramatic pro­cess and thereby shape the structure of the new land property regime? This book aims to explore ­these impor­tant questions. My research on natu­ral villages is based on field data from Fuyuan County, which contains a total of 1,788 natu­ral villages. I argue that while

8     Introduction

the existing lit­er­a­ture reveals very well how the state-­imposed rural administrative and economic structure of the commune-­brigade-­production team had transformed land property relations in rural China, the role played by natu­ral villages in forming the current collective land own­ership system has largely been overlooked. In fact, the state is only one of the major forces involved in forming this land property regime; natu­ral villages constitute another one. The histories of natu­ral villages in Fuyuan prove the tenacity with which ­these communities have pursued control over their long-­held physical and social bound­aries during the ­People’s Republic. Certain traditional ele­ments, such as restricted community membership, ancestral graves, kinship bonds, and territorial deities, have continued to play impor­tant roles in maintaining the identity and territory of each natu­ral village, even in a socialist context. However, a community’s social identity and physical bound­a ries are maintained not merely by the resilience of ­these ele­ments and long-­held cultural patterns; more importantly, it is through the interaction between natu­ral villages and the state-­initiated collectivization program that ­these communities continue to lay claim to land within their territories. During collectivization, natu­ral villages in Fuyuan per­sis­tently resisted collectivist approaches that aimed to disrupt the traditionally held bound­aries defining ­these communities. The enduring identity of each community limited collectivism and land re­distribution to its bound­aries and prevented strict egalitarian land re­distribution among communities. Facing such resilience and per­sis­tence, the state retreated from its most ambitious attempts to override the social and physical bound­aries of ­these communities in the pro­cess of establishing a collective land own­ership system; it not only acknowledged the land rights of natu­ral villages but also incorporated ­these communities into its administrative and economic structure. Since most natu­ral villages in China’s southwest are small or medium-­sized, often with several hundred ­people, they functioned as the basis for the production teams, the lowest-­ level collective land management unit, the primary locus of collective l­abor and income distribution, and the most basic rural administrative units. This incorporation into the state administrative structure provided natu­ral villages with new social, economic, and po­liti­cal mechanisms to lay claim to land within their traditional borders and reinforce solidarity among their members. A landholding arrangement that I term “bounded collectivism” was formed as a result. In the post-­Mao reform period, the production team was turned into the villa­gers’ group. With deep social and cultural roots in

Introduction     9

local communities, ­these new administrative units are not arbitrary units created for administrative con­ve­nience; rather, their control over land has made them fundamental, stable components of the rural po­liti­cal structure. To conclude, embedded in a tenacious traditional culture and dominated by state penetration, bounded collectivism is not simply a static property regime imposed from above by the state—it is a landholding structure that has adapted to, and even strengthened, key ele­ments that have traditionally maintained the social and economic exclusivity of natu­ral villages. Data from Fuyuan and other parts of rural China lead me to conclude that bounded collectivism exists at least in south China. This landholding arrangement has impor­tant implications for how the two current levels of village administration—­namely, the administrative village and its constituent villa­gers’ groups—­share land rights in the post-­Mao era, how the current controversial land market w ­ ill evolve in the near ­future, and how village cadres frame local politics and the state-­society nexus at the village level.

The Rural ­Family: In­de­pen­dent ­Family Farming and a Key Framework for Constructing Property Relations Before the CCP victory in 1949, the major ­owners of rural land ­were families, as well as private corporate groups, which include patrilineal ancestral associations, schools, ­temples, guilds, religious socie­ties, and sworn brotherhoods (Cohen 1976; Freedman 1966; Potter 1970). Land own­ership could be freely created, negotiated, and transferred among families and corporate groups through private contracts (Cohen 2005e; Shepherd 1993). The prevailing pattern of landholding and farm ­labor was one of small freeholders and tenants. This system remained essentially unchanged ­until 1949 (Huang 1985; Perdue 1987; Rawski 1972). During the land reform in the ­later 1940s and early 1950s, the CCP used the strategy of mass mobilization to confiscate land and all property from landlords, including h ­ ouses and other belongings. The extra land of rich peasants was also taken away. The expropriated land was then distributed to the rural poor. As a result of this program, a roughly equal landholding among farmers was established. Shortly ­after the land reform, the CCP leadership started to push for collectivization, for the purpose of controlling a larger share of the agricultural surplus to invest in industry and feed China’s rapidly growing cities. In the pro­cess, private land own­ership was gradually abolished in ­favor of collective land own­ership and collective ­labor, and the vast majority of rural residents ­were administratively bound to their local collective units. Extensively studied by scholars,

10     Introduction

this turbulent socialism-­building pro­cess tends to overshadow the under­ lying power of the f­ amily in defining property relations in a socialist context, and it also makes land own­ership appear to be a one-­sided arena in which the socialist state dominated. This book demonstrates that the collectivization movement never destroyed the ­family as a social unit within the community, and ­family-­centered values have continued to shape state policies regarding land use and management from two aspects. First, throughout the ­People’s Republic, the long-­held logic of the ­family farm economy remains a key source of farmers’ proclivity for in­de­pen­dent ­family farming and a range of h ­ ouse­hold enterprises. Rural ­house­holds never stopped struggling with the government for production freedom in the Maoist era, which, in the context of collective land own­ership, meant more land-­use rights or production freedom. ­A fter Mao’s death in 1976, farmers’ re­sis­tance to forced collective ­labor culminated in secret experimentation with an underground lease system in some poverty-­ridden regions, which eventually resulted in the House­hold Responsibility System (HRS) in the early 1980s. ­Under the HRS, rural families reemerged as the primary units of agricultural production. This ethnography shows that in­ de­ pen­ dent ­family farming has become irreversible in the new po­liti­cal and economic contexts of the post-­Mao era. Although local governments in southwest China have often tried to administrate agriculture in order to obtain more revenue, farmers have per­sis­tently demanded less interference in agricultural production. By struggling with local governments on what to grow and how to grow it, rural families influence the direction of agricultural development in the southwest. The f­amily’s status as the primary unit of production has been confirmed by two actions by the government: (1) farmers ­were warranted a new land contract term of seventy years in 2008 (and most rural experts in China expect that the term ­will be an indefinite one)2 and (2) starting in 2012, the central government deci­ded it would spend the next five years completing the pro­cess of issuing land-­use rights certificates to rural ­house­holds across the country. With formal land certificates, farmers can better defend their land use rights in many circumstances.3 Second, this ethnography reveals that the ­family has always functioned as a key framework for constructing property relations even in a socialist context. Historians generally agree that the traditional Chinese property rights regime “operated within a complex of institutions that included partible patrilineal inheritance, weak inheritance rights to ­women, own­ership vested in the h ­ ouse­hold and not the individual, the widespread use of con-

Introduction     11

tracts to establish and transfer rights of property, and the existence of state and para-­state institutions to the enforcement of ­these rights” (Zelin 2004, 32). Despite tremendous social and economic changes throughout the long period from the late Qing to the Maoist era, the h ­ ouse­hold had always maintained its property-­holding status. For example, even during the Maoist era, work point earnings of individuals w ­ ere considered to be f­amily property and paid directly to the f­amily head (Cohen 2005c). My research focuses on the domestic property relations ­a fter the implementation of the HRS in the early 1980s. Data from Fuyuan County and other rural regions show that land allocation ­under the HRS was calculated in terms of individual entitlement, but made to ­house­holds. Moreover, domestic property relations continue to be an arena where long-­held norms regarding property rights between genders and generations reign, and one in which the state generally refrains from intervening. In other words, just as natu­ral villages ­were able to demand relatively exclusive own­ership rights over land within their territories and formed bounded collectivism, rural families also exerted impor­tant influence on which aspects of land property relations w ­ ere ­under the control of the f­ amily and which were ­under the state. As a result, ­family property, including land, continues to be effectively held by h ­ ouse­holds, despite the property law, inheritance law, and land laws that all promote the individual’s rights and equality between genders; the land rights of the individual are thus abstract. When the ­family divides, land is always divided equally only among sons; d ­ aughters are excluded from inheriting f­amily property. Meanwhile, this ethnography shows that changes also occurred. The increase in off-­farm employment, the expansion of wealth and consumerism, the emergence of a youth culture, and new ­legal institutions available to ordinary p ­ eople for settling disputes have begun to erode the deep roots of the traditional customs.

Examining an Evolving System at the Grassroots Level The rapidly changing land property relations in post-­Mao China have drawn considerable scholarly attention since the 1980s. To date, key areas that have been carefully studied include the evolution of China’s land management institutions over the past six de­cades (Ding and Song 2005; Ho 2005a; Huang Xiaohu 2006; Wen 2000; Zhou Qiren 2004a; Zou 1998); rural land-­ holding arrangements across China (Chi 2000; Ho 2005b; Kung and Liu 1997; Liao 2008; Liu 2002; Rozelle, Li, and Brandt 2005; Wang 2001, 2005; Zhang Hongyu 2002); the implications of post-­Mao land laws and policies

12     Introduction

on rural society (Chen 2004, 2012; He 2010; Zhao 2000); compulsory land requisition and the establishment of a land market in China (Cai 2003; ­Chuang 2014; Ding 2004; Guo 2001; Ho and Lin 2003, 2004; Hsing 2010; Liu 2005; Sargeson and Song 2010, 2012; Zhang, Mao, and Xu 2004; Zhao, Verstappen, and Kolkman 2014; Zhou 2004b); and the interplay among land rights, identity ­shaped by gender and kinship, and politics in small rural communities (Judd 1996; Oxfeld 2010; Yang 2006; P. Zhang 2002; Zhu and Wu 2006). The above works provide essential information on the implications of major land policies; the general trends at the national level caused by institutional change; and specific land issues such as land requisition, the land market, local landholding arrangements, and land disputes in local communities. However, t­ here has yet to be a study that describes the operation and change of the current rural land own­ership system at the grassroots level in the post-­Mao era. My study reveals the operation of rural land own­ership by disaggregating the notion of property into three kinds of rights—­use, income, and transfer rights (Demsetz 1967)—­and then I examine how each kind of right is exercised and competed for in the economic spheres of agricultural production and the land market. Using the above framework of property as a “bundle of rights,” the current study seeks to answer a series of impor­tant questions: How do the local government, village communities, and rural ­house­holds share and divide land use rights in agricultural production? ­A fter reemerging as the primary unit of agricultural production a­ fter the implementation of the HRS in the early 1980s, does the f­ amily obtain full production freedom or does it still face the government’s intervention in local agricultural production? When land reemerged as a commodity in the reform era, who had the rights to assign land own­ership to other parties and who benefitted more from the newly established land market? How did local governments and village cadres respond to the central land policies, and how did each form new po­liti­cal and economic interests in controlling land resources? What traditional strategies and new social resources and channels are available to farmers for defending their land rights? By examining ­these questions, I aim to provide a more complete picture of the operation and change of rural land own­ership in the reform period at the grassroots level. The commodification and commercialization brought by post-­Mao reforms have constituted new social, economic, and po­liti­cal contexts in which social groups form new motivations, resources, and strategies in their competition for land resources. At pres­ent, land has

Introduction     13

taken on the essential ele­ments of a commodity, but it is a commodity whose par­ameters are ­shaped by the contestation among local governments, dif­fer­ ent levels of village administration, and rural families. This research reveals why and how such contestation and negotiation have caused changes in the structure of the current rural land own­ership. ­Because of the ever-­changing nature of the system, it is impor­tant to be cautious about defining rural land property relations in China according to simplistic and ideological labels.

Research Site and Data Sources This study is based on my field research in Fuyuan County, which is located in eastern Yunnan, a frontier province in southwest China that shares borders with Vietnam, Myanmar, and Laos (see map 1.1). I chose Fuyuan ­because my personal and f­amily connections made close observation of local life and events pos­si­ble, and b­ ecause the social and economic conditions and land resources in Fuyuan are representative of China’s less-­developed interior regions. Fuyuan County has eleven townships, ­under which ­there are 161 administrative villages and 1,788 natu­ral villages.4 In 2013 Fuyuan’s population was 804,600. The majority of Fuyuan’s population is Han nationality, with ethnic minority groups making up less than 9 ­percent of the population. B ­ ecause of its rich natu­ral resources, Fuyuan is often called “the home of eight trea­sures” (babao zhi xiang). Corn, tobacco, rice, and buckwheat are the major crops. Mineral resources such as coal, lead-­zinc, fluorite, gypsum, copper, and gold are rich in this region. Its coal resources are especially large; ten of its eleven townships have coal resources. The proven reserves are more than six billion tons and the projected reserves are estimated at more than twenty billion tons, making Fuyuan’s coal reserves the highest in the province. Despite its rich natu­ral resources, Fuyuan has long been a poor agricultural county. The majority of Fuyuan’s residents depend on farming for their basic livelihood. The agricultural yield t­ here is generally low, b­ ecause, as a mountainous area, more than 80 ­percent of Fuyuan’s farmland consists of sloping fields, most of which have very restricted access to ­water resources. ­Until 1993, more than 200,000 ­people in Fuyuan had an annual income of 300 yuan or less.5 In 1994 the State Council designated Fuyuan as one of 592 poverty-­stricken counties among the more than 2,000 counties in the country.6 ­These poverty-­stricken counties regularly receive financial subsidies from the central government. However, in the late 1990s, Fuyuan’s economy made an upward turn due to its rich coal resources. With the increasing demand for energy amid

Map 1.1  Fuyuan County’s location in southwest China. Map by Carol Zuber-­Mallison.

Introduction     15

China’s rapid economic development, the local coal industry began to boom in 1997, stimulating the local economy. B ­ ecause coal prices in China have remained high for more than a de­cade, Fuyuan is in an advantageous position to develop its economy. But the pressure for economic growth and industrialization along with the rapidly increasing population have posed a serious challenge for the management and conservation of Fuyuan’s limited land resources. Fuyuan’s population was 447,769 in 1978 and increased to 804,600 in 2013. As Fuyuan has a total area of 3,251 square kilo­meters, its population density was 201 ­people per square kilo­meter in 2003 and 248 ­people in 2013.7 The competition for land resources among dif­fer­ent social interests therefore is very intense. In this sense, Fuyuan exhibits the social and land resource conditions of most of China’s rural areas. I began my research in Fuyuan in 2002. Between 2002 and 2004, I conducted twenty months of dissertational fieldwork in Fuyuan. During the fieldwork, I visited seven of Fuyuan’s eleven townships and was able to observe how the township branch offices of the County Bureau of Land and Resources worked with village cadres to manage land. For data on community life and everyday agricultural work and land use, the most detailed research was conducted in the administrative villages of Yizuo, Huangnihe, and Desheng. Land disputes and conflicts also constitute an impor­tant aspect of my data. I observed land disputes handled privately within the village, where kinship members and village cadres mediated. I also observed land disputes handled formally in the courts. The Fuyuan County Court ­handles between ten and fifteen land cases a year. In 2003 I was able to sit in on ten land disputes and take detailed notes on the court proceedings. In addition, I obtained l­egal materials on ninety-­six land disputes, dating from the early 1990s to 2002, from the county court, township ­legal assistance offices, township land management offices, and the county archive. Fi­nally, data on Fuyuan’s land management policies over the past half-­century ­were collected from the county archive. Between 2004 and 2007, a­ fter I completed the fieldwork, a total of twenty-­six telephone interviews ­were conducted with local farmers, village cadres, and officials of the county government for further information on Fuyuan’s land resources and agricultural history. In the summer of 2005 I returned to Fuyuan for follow-up research. In the summer of 2010 I returned to China to gather information on local changes brought about by two major policy breakthroughs since 2008: (1) rural h ­ ouse­holds ­were warranted a contract term of at least seventy years and (2) village collectives’ right to

16     Introduction

participate in the land market was acknowledged at the national level (see note 2 for the explanation of ­t hese two changes). Between 2012 and 2015 I conducted twenty-­one telephone interviews with local officials and farmers to gather information on local migration and agricultural development. In addition, local data has been annually gathered from the Yearbook of Fuyuan since 2002.

Aim and Or­ga­ni­za­tion of the Book This book explores how contestation and negotiation among the government, village communities, and rural families at the grassroots level have transformed the structure of rural land own­ership in China. It focuses on two areas to explore this question: (1) the role played by each of t­ hese groups in shaping the structure of the current rural collective land own­ership system over the past six de­c ades as revealed by their historical backgrounds, ­motivations, strategies, and social resources; (2) the operation of two major economic spheres—­agricultural production and the land market—in the post-­Mao era. I reveal how the par­ameters of current rural land own­ership have changed in the reform period by examining how t­ hese contenders compete for land use rights in agricultural production and transfer rights in the land market. Part One of the book, Chapters 2, 3, and 4, focuses on the roles played by two kinds of villages—­natu­ral villages and the state-­imposed administrative units—in shaping the structure of rural land own­ership. In Chapter 2 I discuss the first kind of village—­natu­ral villages in Fuyuan and many other rural areas in southwest China, which are often called zhaizi. I show that the identity of e­ very zhaizi, reinforced by such f­ actors as restricted membership, ancestral graves, and territorial deities, has been instrumental in maintaining the social and physical bound­aries of each community. ­These identities have persisted over long historical periods and continued to exist in a socialist context. In Chapter 3 I demonstrate that while state-­imposed administrative structures have had significant impacts on rural society, zhaizi communities in Fuyuan have played an equally impor­tant role in framing rural life. The interaction between the state-­initiated collectivization program and zhaizi communities with per­sis­tent identities brought into being a landholding arrangement that I term “bounded collectivism.” In Chapter 4 I focus on the second kind of village, the state-­imposed administrative structure. By examining the current two levels of village administration—­ the administrative village (xingzheng cun) and its constituent villa­gers’ groups

Introduction     17

(cunmin xiaozu)—­I show that ­because of the legacy of “bounded collectivism,” a villa­gers’ group often overlaps a zhaizi community and thus enjoys relatively exclusive own­ership rights over land within its territory. This situation has resulted in land rights shared between the administrative village and its villa­gers’ groups, as well as a more complex po­liti­cal mechanism at the village level than previous studies have shown. Bounded collectivism has also resulted in changes in the current land market in China, as more and more natu­ral villages have demanded the right to participate in the land market that has long been monopolized by the government. In Part Two, Chapters 5 and 6, I examine rural families’ practices, perceptions, and attitudes in everyday land use and management. In Chapter 5 we see how the ­family has continuously constituted a framework for constructing property relations during the ­People’s Republic period, which was manifested in the creation of the House­hold Responsibility System in the early 1980s across China’s countryside and the grassroots land allocation princi­ples ­under the HRS. The under­lying power of the f­amily also lies in the fact that domestic property relations are constructed through long-­held norms regarding the rights and responsibilities of genders and generations, instead of state laws. In Chapter 6 I discuss the economic resilience of the small ­family farms and the constraints that ­these farms faced in the post-­Mao era. I focus on the government’s land management system in Part Three, Chapters 7 and 8. Chapter 7 provides background for the national reform of land management since 1986. In Chapter 8 I discuss how the Fuyuan government and its newly established land management institutions control local land resources in the context of the decentralization of China’s fiscal system. I analyze why the recent po­liti­cal and fiscal reforms set up a contradictory incentive structure for local governments’ land management, as well as why local governments’ agendas in land management have decisively diverged from that of the central government, resulting in constant policy adjustments on the part of the central government to bring local governments u ­ nder control. In Part Four, Chapters 9 and 10, I explain the pro­cesses by which the major rural alignments have competed for essential component rights of land own­ership (use, income, and transfer rights) in the reform era, and I show why and how the current rural land own­ership system is changing. Chapter 9 reveals that, while farmland was contracted to rural ­house­holds ­under the HRS in the early 1980s, farmers in the southwest ­did not enjoy

18     Introduction

full production freedom due to local governments’ attempt to administrate agricultural production and obtain more revenue. Using changes in Fuyuan’s agricultural production in past three de­cades as an example, I explore how the local government, village collectives, and rural ­house­holds compete for land use rights, as well as the unequal distribution of agricultural income between the government and farmers. The power interplay among ­these alignments not only makes Fuyuan’s agricultural production a complex pro­cess of contestation and negotiation but has also changed the direction of Fuyuan’s agriculture. In Chapter 10 we look at the operation of the land market to reveal the competition for transfer rights of rural land and the unequal distribution of land sale proceeds between the government and rural residents. I describe the new apparatuses and discourses ­adopted by the government for coping with land conflicts, rural residents’ strategies for resisting the government’s land expropriation, the ambivalent role played by village cadres, and the major policy adjustments brought about by the rural populace’s re­sis­tance over the past de­cade. The conclusion summarizes the impacts of the socialist state, village communities, and rural families on the rural land own­ership system in China. I argue that ­because of the combined impacts of ­these driving forces, China’s rural collective land own­ership is not just a static property regime imposed by the state from above, but a hybrid embedded in China’s broad social, historical, and po­liti­cal contexts. It is a system still evolving, and a system that defies simplistic and ideological labels like “socialism,” “postsocialism,” or “capitalism.”

PART I

TWO KINDS OF VILLAGES

Throughout China’s long history, multiple organ­izing forces have si­mul­ta­ neously structured the social and economic life in rural society. Among ­these forces, two are fundamental—­the administrative structures imposed by the Chinese state throughout dif­fer­ent historical periods and the traditional rural ­settlements. State-­imposed administrative structures have long been studied by Chinese historians and po­liti­cal scientists. A centralized bureaucratic apparatus was established over two thousand years ago, in the Qin Dynasty. Since then, state administrative control over rural society evolved throughout the rise and fall of vari­ous dynasties u ­ ntil the early 1900s. It is generally thought that rural administration took an impor­tant turn in the Song Dynasty (Ray Huang 1996). Before the Song, the township (xiang) was the lowest level of state administration; in the Song period the county (xian) became the lowest level. ­Under the county level, a baojia system was devised by Wang Anshi for the purpose of law enforcement and civil control. Over the next nine hundred years the county remained as the lowest state administrative unit and the baojia system was employed intermittently during periods of civil unrest. During the mid-­nineteenth ­century, the Qing government (1644– 1911) revived the baojia system to cope with growing unrest and rebellion. ­A fter the Qing was dismantled, the state of the Republic of China (1911– 1949) made strenuous efforts to broaden and deepen its control over rural society. While the baojia system remained in place in the majority of rural areas, a new administrative level, the township, was added ­under the county level for further state control.1

21

22     Two Kinds of Villages

Transformation of this po­liti­cal system began in 1949, when the Chinese Communist Party took power. Dif­fer­ent administrative structures ­were developed and implemented to cope with the changing and turbulent social, economic, and po­liti­cal realities in rural areas. Thus the second half of the twentieth ­century witnessed such subcounty structures as the district-­township system, the commune-­production brigade-­production team system, and the current township system. In general, due to accelerated state penetration into rural society during the twentieth ­century, the rural populace has been subject to increasingly complex administrative control at the subcounty level. The other major force organ­izing rural life is the rural settlement, which has been the most stable unit of settlement, production, and other social activities for the rural populace throughout China’s long history. Although the physical bound­a ries and population composition of each community could change over long historical times, ­these ­factors have been generally stable within a specific historical period. ­Today ­these rural settlements are referred to as “natu­ral villages” (zirancun) by the Chinese government. It is estimated that ­there are currently more than two million such communities in China’s rural areas. The size of t­hese communities varies considerably across the country. Topography has played a decisive role in the pattern and size of the traditional rural settlements. In most cases, the number of ­house­holds in a rural community falls between one and several dozen. However, much smaller communities also exist in the mountainous areas. For example, in Guizhou and Yunnan Provinces a rural residential community is often a small hamlet consisting of fewer than ten ­house­holds and several dozen p ­ eople. In the northern plains extremely large communities with more than one thousand ­house­holds and ten thousand ­people can be found. This part of the book uses zhaizi, the rural settlements in Fuyuan, to show that while the state-­imposed administrative structures during the ­People’s Republic appear to have had a more obvious and direct impact on rural society, zhaizi communities played an equally significant role in framing rural life. Moreover, t­ hese two forces have interacted to produce complex social and economic o­ rders in rural society, including the land tenure system.

CHAPTER 2

Zhaizi, the Per­sis­tent Natu­ral Village in Fuyuan

­ ere are 1,788 natu­ral villages in Fuyuan (see map 2.1). As elsewhere in Th China, ­every natu­ral village in Fuyuan has a specific name, such as Xiaopulizhai, Huangnihe, Chenjiazhai, Dapingzi, or Guojiacaozi. But the general term used by local p ­ eople to refer to natu­ral villages is zhaizi. Translated literally into En­glish, zhaizi means a village protected by a line of strong posts. This usage prob­ably derives from southwest China’s history as a frontier region, where self-­defense and protection was of ­great concern to ­every community. Zhaizi is in fact a term used widely by ethnic communities in southwest China; many Han Chinese a­ dopted this term as they settled in the region. The word zhaizi, along with terms used in other regions to address a natu­ral village, such as wanzi in Hubei and bang in Jiangsu, have long been part of everyday language in local communities. When local ­people need to address the rural administrative structure imposed by the government from above, they say the “village committee” or the “administrative village,” which usually consist of a number of zhaizi. When talking to el­derly ­people in Fuyuan and when referring to the county gazetteers written in the Kuangxi and Guangxu period during the Qing Dynasty, I found that the history of most zhaizi in Fuyuan can be traced back to the early Qing or even earlier when a large number of Han ­people originally living in the northern regions immigrated to Yunnan. Fuyuan’s zhaizi have shown remarkable stability and continuity over long historical periods. The names, locations, population compositions, and distinctive identities of most zhaizi have remained constant throughout at least the past ­century. But this, of course, ­does not mean ­these communities

23

Map 2.1  Distribution of rural settlements and towns in Fuyuan County. Map by Carol Zuber-­Mallison. Source: Fuyuan Xianzhi (Fuyuan County Gazetteer).

Zhaizi, the Per­sis­tent Natu­ral Village in Fuyuan     25

are absolutely static; changes, especially changes in population composition and zhaizi bound­aries, can occur ­under certain circumstances. Fuyuan is a mountainous area. The valleys between mountains attracted early Han immigrants who established larger communities in t­hese areas. The largest zhaizi in Fuyuan have several hundred ­house­holds and populations of more than three thousand. Very small zhaizi, with fewer than ten ­house­holds and several dozen residents, are often scattered among the high mountains. ­Because the distribution of Fuyuan’s zhaizi is deci­ded by the local topography, the distance between zhaizi varies. Some zhaizi are several miles apart in the deep mountains; o­ thers share borders or are too close for an outsider to distinguish between their borders. Most zhaizi communities in Fuyuan are agnatically mixed communities, that is, they are composed of lineages with dif­fer­ent surnames. But a few single-­lineage zhaizi do exist in Fuyuan. Th ­ ese single-­lineage zhaizi are often named a­ fter the surnames of their residents, such as Chenjia zhai (Chen ­family zhaizi), Guojia caozi (the Valley of Guo ­family), and Wangjia tun (Wang Village). Compared with lineages in the southeast region, most lineages in Fuyuan tended to be limited and possessed small common holdings in the pre-­Communist era. Due to the relatively short history of Han Chinese settlement in Yunnan Province, strong lineages with large corporate estates and pronounced lineage segmentation do not characterize the majority of lineages in Fuyuan. When I started fieldwork in Fuyuan County in 2002, I had planned to study rural land disputes. To understand why and how disputes occurred in local communities, I first interviewed several dozen rural families. From the responses, I noticed an in­ter­est­ing phenomenon: many villa­gers ­were unsure w ­ hether their zhaizi should be called an elementary cooperative, a production team, or a villa­gers’ group. For instance, when asked about their administrative unit, a seventy-­year-­old might say that he/she was from the Fifth District; a m ­ iddle-­aged person might claim that he/she was from a certain production team; and a young village cadre might tell me that he/she was from a specific villa­gers’ group in a specific administrative village in a specific township. Th ­ ese answers reflect exposure to vari­ous rural administrative structures ­adopted at dif­fer­ent times during the ­People’s Republic. Facing rapidly changing administrative arrangements, many villa­gers ­were confused; some w ­ ere not even aware of the name, much less the bound­aries of their administrative unit. However, I never met a villa­ger who was unsure about which zhaizi he/she belonged to.

26     Two Kinds of Villages

I began to won­der what had sustained the identities of ­these settlement communities throughout the socialist era. My subsequent field investigation revealed that, despite radical po­liti­cal movements and campaigns that have swept over rural areas since 1949 to remove “feudal remnants,” certain traditional ele­ments and mechanisms have shown remarkable resilience and continue to play an impor­tant role in sustaining the social and physical bound­aries of ­every zhaizi. ­These ele­ments include, but are not limited to, restricted community membership, ancestral graves, kinship and lineage, ­labor invested in agricultural fields, and territorial deities. My field data allow me to examine three of ­these ele­ments in detail, as described below.

Restricted Community Membership Historians and anthropologists have shown that throughout China’s late imperial period and the Republican period, local communities w ­ ere not open to all p ­ eople and had rules that determined who would be accepted as a native. In his study of the Kaixuangong village in Jiangsu Province in the 1930s, Fei Xiongtong noted that “not all t­ hose who reside in the village are indiscriminately considered as villa­gers” and that “the distinction of natives and outsiders is significant ­because it has been translated into social relations” (1939, 22–24). Restrictions on community membership resulted in a series of social and economic consequences in Kaixuangong. Outsiders residing in the community w ­ ere invariably engaged in special professions such as barbers, millers, shoe­makers, grocers, silversmiths, or medicine dealers. None of ­these ­people possessed land. ­People from other villages ­were not allowed to fish in the rivers or lakes belonging to Kaixuangong. Similarly, in his study of village communities in northern China during the period 1900–1942, Prasenjit Duara described how villages set up conditions for gaining village membership (1988, 207–214). Villa­gers in the northern plains tended to define their members as t­ hose who owned a piece of land, a h ­ ouse, or ancestral graves in the local community. Such criteria defining village membership had long been used to exclude outsiders from utilizing the community’s public resources. Most rural communities had restrictions prohibiting outsiders from owning property in a community. For instance, when real property, such as a piece of land or a h ­ ouse, was to be sold, the owner first had to check if any of his or her lineage members or fellow villa­gers wanted to buy it. Only when ­these ­people declined could the property be sold to an outsider (Cohen 1976 and 2005c; Potter 1970). Lineage member-

Zhaizi, the Per­sis­tent Natu­ral Village in Fuyuan     27

ship also helped confirm settlement rights in a community (Cohen 2005c; Duara 1988; Faure 1986; Huang 1985). When the Chinese Communist Party initiated land reform in the late 1940s and the early 1950s, it aimed at transforming the old feudal land property relations in rural areas. However, during this radical social and po­liti­ cal pro­cess, the allocation of land was deci­ded not only by the amount of land the person owned before the land reform, but also by w ­ hether he/she was considered a native of the local community. In Fuyuan, ­those who had small businesses such as a grocery or barbershop and who did not own land ­were not considered members of zhaizi communities. Although the government had deci­ded to allocate land to all landless p ­ eople in the zhaizi, ­including ­these “outsiders,” other zhaizi members simply thought the outsiders got lucky through the “good policy” of the government, as an el­derly villa­ger commented to me. On the other hand, certain p ­ eople who did not live in the zhaizi before the land reform ­were nevertheless considered to be zhaizi members. ­These ­were often ­people whose ­family had lived in the zhaizi for generations and had ancestral graves in the zhaizi. The ­people themselves usually ran vari­ous small businesses in the city or other regions. When they returned to their native zhaizi at the time of the land reform, they w ­ ere still regarded as zhaizi members and ­were given a share of land even if they pre­ ere recogviously owned minimal or no land in the zhaizi, that is, if they w nized as belonging to the revolutionary classes including poor peasants and landless ­house­holds. Along with the land reform, a new, tighter administrative structure was gradually set up in rural areas. Eventually the administrative structure of the commune-­production brigade-­production team bound the rural population to their collectives. E ­ very villa­ger was a member of a production team ­under a brigade in a commune. However, this administrative structure also incorporated the traditional zhaizi communities as its lowest-­level units, the production teams.1 Together with the hukou system (the House­hold Registration System),2 the overlapping of the lowest-­level rural administrative unit and zhaizi reinforced the local community’s insularity, making moving in or out of a community extremely difficult, if not impossible. In this new socialist context, the definition of community membership became even stricter. New rules ­were added to old customs, including a person’s residence, how one obtained one’s grain, and w ­ hether one had income other than from farming.

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­These new rules w ­ ere emphasized to the strictest extent when land was contracted to individual rural h ­ ouse­holds ­under the 1982 House­hold ­Responsibility System (HRS), the first major post-­Mao reform in the rural areas. The collective perception of membership played a crucial role in deciding who could be considered a village member and therefore eligible to receive a share of land in the village. Land distribution ­under the HRS took place within the bound­aries among teams/zhaizi formed according to the 1962 “Four Fixed” Policy.3 Since teams owned dif­fer­ent amounts of land, the per capita amount of land that could be distributed also differed among the teams. Therefore, one’s membership deci­ded not only one’s eligibility for receiving a share of land, but also the amount of land one could receive. For example, ­every member in Pingdi, a team/zhaizi in South Fuyuan, received 0.6 mu of rice paddy and 0.6 mu of dry land, while in Guojiacaozi, a small mountain zhaizi in central Fuyuan, the per capita share of land was 0.4 mu of rice paddy and 1.6 mu of dry land. ­These facts illustrate the significant social and economic consequences arising from membership in a zhaizi community. In Fuyuan the following criteria ­were used to define membership for the 1982 land allocation: (1) the person did not hold an urban residence registration and could not buy subsidized grain,4 (2) the person did not depend solely on a government salary for his/her living, and (3) the person lived in the zhaizi and was born in or before 1982. Once established as a team member, a person could receive a share of land regardless of gender or age. ­These criteria w ­ ere generally accepted and supported by the overwhelming majority of villa­gers in Fuyuan. The strictness and refinement of membership definition was also manifested in the detailed local regulations on the land rights of p ­ eople in “special categories.” Th ­ ese p ­ eople lived in the team/zhaizi at the time of land allocation and ­were divided into four types. First, the three major cadres in the production team—­the team head, the accountant, and the clerk—­were eligible to receive land. Although charged with the work of planning and managing the team’s production, ­these three cadres ­were not released from agricultural work and did not receive any salary from the government. Instead, they ­were awarded three hundred work points annually. Like their fellow villa­gers, they could not buy subsidized grain and ­were therefore considered legitimate members of the team and w ­ ere given their shares of land. Second, the brigade cadres also received land shares in the teams/zhaizi where they lived. Brigade cadres ­were only partially released from agricul-

Zhaizi, the Per­sis­tent Natu­ral Village in Fuyuan     29

tural production. Instead of receiving a formal salary from the government to buy subsidized grain, they received fifteen yuan of government subsidies ­every month. In addition, they could be rewarded around one hundred work points e­ very year for their management work. Third, cadres in the communes w ­ ere divided into two categories. The first was formal government employees who received full salaries, lived as urban residents, and ­were eligible for subsidized grain. ­These cadres ­were not given any land even if they lived in a team/zhaizi. The other type of commune cadre, similar to the brigade cadres who did not receive formal salaries and could not buy subsidized grain, was eligible for land allocation. They usually received piecemeal payments from the government for their work. For example, the commune’s film projectionist often received a certain amount of money for e­ very movie he projected in local communities, but he did not have a stable monthly salary. He would thus receive land from the team/zhaizi where he lived. Fourth, employees of the county’s Supply and Marketing Cooperative, employees of the county’s Credit Cooperative, and formal schoolteachers ­were not eligible for land allocations. ­Family members of ­those in special categories could receive land just as ordinary villa­gers did if their social and economic status complied with the allocation criteria. The only exception was the c­ hildren of w ­ omen who held urban residence registration and received subsidized grain. According to the policy of that time, ­children’s residence registration followed their ­mother’s, so the c­ hildren of ­these ­women also held urban residence registration, even though the ­children lived in the zhaizi and did not hold urban jobs. For example, as a formal teacher in a village elementary school, a ­woman would be considered a formal government employee. Her ­children would thus be ineligible for land allocation, even though they w ­ ere born in the team/zhaizi and did not have access to urban jobs. To be sure, gender is also a ­factor affecting one’s membership and thereby one’s entitlement to land within such restricted communities. ­Because of the age-­old custom of patrilocal residence in rural China, a bride ­will move to the groom’s place of residence. Therefore, the overwhelming majority of ­women in rural China ­will change both their ­family and com­ ill leave their munity memberships when they get married.5 Most of them w natal communities to live with their husbands’ families and move their hukou ­house­hold registration to their husbands’ communities. Most natu­ral villages, including t­ hose in Fuyuan, w ­ ill no longer consider the out-­marrying

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­ omen as members of their communities. Out-­marrying ­women ­will have w to e­ ither leave their shares of land in their natal families or return their shares of land back to their natal communities.6 The practice of patrilocal residence deprives out-­marrying ­women both their membership and entitlement to land in their natal communities. In the new millennium, some natu­ral village communities in suburban areas where the market value of rural land surged even a­ dopted compulsory patrilocal residence to prevent their land from being taken away by out-­marrying ­women. All young ­women, ­unless they are the only child in the ­family, ­were required to marry out and live with their husbands’ f­ amily, and they would not be allocated land (International Symposium 2003, 18–42). ­In Kong and Unger’s research (2013) on 476 villa­gers’ groups in Anhui Province, they found that 13.9  ­percent of the groups established a rule that young ­women awaiting marriage should not be counted when land is redistributed. This “marital expatriation” of w ­ omen (Sargeson and Song 2010) in effect ensures that a community’s land remains in its territory and reinforces the bounded communities. Meanwhile, scrupulous rules are set up for families who intend to arrange uxorilocal marriages for their d ­ aughters. Usually only families with one girl can have uxorilocal marriage. For families with no son but several ­daughters, only one ­daughter is allowed to live in her natal community and have a “married-in” husband. In her study of Lu Village in central Yunnan Province, Laurel Bossen found that h ­ ouse­holds with no son may bring in an uxorilocal son-­in-­law but must pay a low fee in order for the son-­in-­law to become a registered villa­ger in the community. For a h ­ ouse­hold that already had a son but still wanted to bring in an uxorilocal son-­in-­law to marry their ­daughter, the ­house­hold must pay at least 5,000 yuan to ­handle the registration of the son-­in-­law (see Bossen 2002, 96). ­Women with uxorilocal marriage are normally entitled to a share of community land. If not holding an urban h ­ ouse­hold registration, their husbands would be allocated a share of land as well. For most out-­marrying ­women, w ­ hether they can obtain membership in their husbands’ communities depends on several ­factors, including ­whether they can maintain their marital relationships and w ­ hether they have c­ hildren. Brides who are long-­distance marriage mi­grants are especially subject to scrutiny. In order to become a member entitled to community resources including land, t­ hese brides are required to demonstrate marital fidelity by

Zhaizi, the Per­sis­tent Natu­ral Village in Fuyuan     31

fulfilling a three-­year probationary period of marriage or giving birth to a child (Sargeson and Song 2010, 29). In Fuyuan and other mountainous regions, redistributing land equally among rural ­house­holds was difficult ­a fter the initial land allocation in the early 1980s, b­ ecause of the complicated local topography. As a result, relatively stable land tenure has been maintained since the beginning of the HRS, and ­there is no land re­distribution among community ­house­holds. Out-­marrying ­women in ­these regions have to rely completely on the land held by their husbands’ families. In regions where rural communities have engaged in periodic land reallocation to ensure ­every community member an equal share of land, in-­marrying ­women ­will receive an equal share of land in their husband’s communities during the next round of land reallocation. However, in any region, w ­ omen’s membership in their husbands’ communities and land use rights will be in jeopardy if their marriages break down, especially for ­t hose young ­women without ­children. Th ­ ese gendered criteria for membership are instrumental to the maintaining of a restricted, patrilocal community (see Chapter 5 for a detailed discussion). Mi­grant workers constitute another special category. When the P ­ eople’s Commune System was abolished in 1984, the rural populace was f­ ree to move and earn a living in other areas. Eco­nom­ically more advanced regions soon attracted large numbers of p ­ eople from poorer areas, both t­ hose who worked the land and ­others who went to work in factories, ser­vices, and shops. As a poor mountainous county, Fuyuan never attracted many mi­ grants. But it is impor­tant to point out that, in the wealthy regions, mi­grants remain a separate population category. Although living and engaging in farming in a community, mi­grants generally d ­ o not enjoy the same access to land rights as native residents. To sum up, data from zhaizi communities in Fuyuan, as well as from natu­ral villages in other regions, show that the specific criteria defining community membership has varied at dif­fer­ent times or among dif­fer­ent communities during the ­People’s Republic. Community membership is ­shaped by many dif­fer­ent social and economic ­factors and is up to negotiation. Despite ­these variations, however, we can see the tendency of most natu­ral villages to use vari­ous membership criteria to set up invisible but nevertheless effective bound­aries between insiders and outsiders, therefore forming a relatively exclusive community.

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A Zhaizi  ’s Territory and Its Landmarks While definitions and conditions for being a community member might change from one community to another and over dif­fer­ent historical periods (in other words, they could be malleable and subject to negotiation) a zhaizi’s territory shows much less flexibility. The negotiation about bound­ aries among communities is much more difficult. Local residents are well aware of what land belongs to their zhaizi. It is not rare for several zhaizi to share common land in which firewood is gathered or sheep and c­ attle are allowed to graze, yet this should not lead one to believe that each zhaizi’s bound­aries are not clearly maintained. Even ­under the special circumstance of an exclave—­a plot of land owned by one zhaizi but within the territory of another—­owner­ship of the land, ­whether a plot of farmland or an ancestral graveyard, has always been acknowledged by local residents over the centuries. However, unlike the territory of a modern administrative unit such as the pres­ent administrative village, the township, or the county, a zhaizi’s territory cannot always be verified by topographical marks set up by the government. Rather, it is often through both vis­i­ble and invisible landmarks such as ancestral graves and localized deities that villa­gers have per­sis­tently maintained own­ership of their zhaizi’s land. Territorial Deities As elsewhere throughout China, popu­lar religions in Fuyuan have played a significant role in regulating community life and in shaping local identity. Deities worshipped in Fuyuan are “localized” b­ ecause they define the bound­ aries of zhaizi communities and are treated as if they ­were officials holding territorial posts. ­Every zhaizi has its earth god, usually called “the earth god of seedlings” (qingmiao tudi), suggesting the impor­tant link between place and agriculture. The earth god is usually worshipped in a shrine about one meter high, in which a small statuette of the god is placed. The shrine is always located in a place of good feng shui.7 Dotting the Fuyuan landscape, the earth gods are usually worshipped and offered sacrifices on the second day of the Lunar New Year. However, this is not a social event; rather, on the day of sacrifice each f­ amily goes to the shrine separately. The food for the earth god is called “offered rice” (gongfan). Another localized deity worshipped in the Fuyuan area is the mountain god (shanshen), who is believed to be in charge of the weather and is petitioned for favorable conditions. As a mountainous region, Fuyuan ex-

Zhaizi, the Per­sis­tent Natu­ral Village in Fuyuan     33

periences vari­ous natu­ral disasters throughout the year. In the spring ­there are often cold fronts a­ fter the onset of warm spring weather that damage newly planted crops. Droughts occur regularly in the spring and early summer. Summer is also the time of floods and hailstorms. Autumn frosts may also damage crops. Since the weather is of such ­great concern for Fuyuan farmers, the mountain god is worshipped as “the god of five grains”8 (wugushen).9 In China the dragon is often thought to be in charge of weather, so the mountain god in most zhaizi is conceived of as a white dragon, and re­spect for it is called “worshipping the white dragon” (  ji bailong). ­Because the mountain god is conceived of as a dragon flying in the sky and roaming the mountains, local p ­ eople do not make a statue of it as they do for the earth god. However, each mountain god is viewed as administering its own territory, as the earth gods do. A local anecdote I heard during fieldwork illustrates well the view of mountain gods as territorial deities: ­people in Faxiang zhaizi did not offer a sacrifice to their mountain god in 2002, and heavy hail fell as a result, damaging much of their summer crop. Nearby zhaizi that dutifully conducted their annual worship ritual did not experience the disaster. Worship rituals for the mountain gods are often held on the top of the mountain where the zhaizi is located or on a nearby hill if the zhaizi is on flat land. The time for offering sacrifices varies from zhaizi to zhaizi. In some it is on the third day of the third lunar month, while in ­others it is the sixth day of the sixth lunar month. The way organizers are chosen also varies from place to place. In some zhaizi each f­amily in turn serves the entire zhaizi. In zhaizi in the valleys of south Fuyuan the or­ga­nizer is often the person who happens to eat a pig’s tail at the banquet ­after the worship ritual.10 In some mountainous zhaizi the or­ga­nizer is the leader of the villa­gers’ group. In the spring of 2003 I observed the worship ritual in the zhaizi of Xiaopuzi. In this zhaizi two or three families are usually responsible for preparing and organ­izing the event. One month before the day of sacrifice each zhaizi ­family contributes two to three yuan to the organizers, who then purchase incense, a goat, vegetables, tofu, and wine. The ritual I observed was held on the fifteenth day of the third lunar month (April 16, 2003). In the morning the organizers climbed to the top of a small hill to the north of the village, where they built a mud stove, slaughtered the goat, stewed it in a wok with a dia­meter of at least three feet, and cooked vegetables and tofu in two other woks of the same size. When every­thing was ready in the late after­noon, zhaizi families climbed up the hill one ­after another, bringing

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bowls, pots, and basins of all sizes. As the sun began to set, the p ­ eople assembled in front of a temporary altar, kowtowing and praying for good weather. Incense was burned on the altar. The head of the goat, together with other dishes, was offered to the mountain god. ­A fter worship and sacrifice, ­people began to use the vari­ous containers they had brought to scoop food from the large woks. Usually two to three families formed a “­table” of guests ( yizhuo xi). In fact, e­ very “­table” consisted of p ­ eople sitting on the ground for the meal. As a guest, I was welcome to observe the entire worship pro­cess, but as an outsider, I was not invited to participate in the rituals. Likewise, p ­ eople from other zhaizi ­were also excluded. This situation is similar to what Prasenjit Duara describes in his research on the religious activities in villages in the northern plains during the first half of the twentieth ­century. The village community was an exclusive unit for many collective religious ceremonies (Duara 1988, 118–158). Although popu­lar religion was attacked by the government as “superstition” during the Maoist era, religious rituals w ­ ere vigorously revived in the post-­Mao era. As I observed in Fuyuan County, government propaganda continues to criticize popu­lar religion, but villa­gers can continue their activities with ­little government intervention as long as ­these activities are not considered to be po­liti­cally motivated. More in­ter­est­ing is the fact that, in the Maoist era, village cadres generally avoided participating in religious activities. T ­ oday ­these cadres, especially the leaders of the villa­gers’ groups, frequently or­ga­nize worship rituals of local deities. In this new social and po­liti­cal context, local deities such as the earth gods and mountain gods once again function as a princi­ple focus of local identity based on the village communities, or “natu­ral settlements.” ­These collective worship activities annually reconfirm a zhaizi community’s territory. Ancestral Graves In Fuyuan, as elsewhere in China, villa­gers of the same lineage bury their dead in a common graveyard. Most lineage graveyards in Fuyuan are located on land unsuitable for agriculture, such as woodland, hillsides, or wasteland. Depending on the lineage’s size, a graveyard can have as many as several dozen graves or just a few. Isolated graves are for t­ hose who w ­ ere ­widows without offspring, unmarried ­daughters, or ­people of bad reputation or who committed crimes. Most lineage graveyards are not fenced; graves are simply clustered together. When the original graveyard fills up, p ­ eople usually build a new graveyard at a dif­fer­ent place in accordance with feng shui princi­ples.

Zhaizi, the Per­sis­tent Natu­ral Village in Fuyuan     35

In China’s cultural and historical context, lineage graveyards are “a key ele­ment in the symbolic and ritual assertion of common descent” (Cohen 2005c, 168). As such, they play an impor­tant role in defining identity in the zhaizi and binding the villa­gers to their native communities. As an el­derly villa­ger told me, “Graves tell who you are and which zhaizi you live in.” The Qingming Festival is a time when p ­ eople pay re­spect to their roots and when the major symbols of agnatic affiliation are on public display. At this time, p ­ eople of dif­fer­ent lineages, w ­ hether p ­ eople living in the zhaizi or ­those who left for school or urban jobs, go to sweep their ancestral graves and offer sacrifices. Believed to be where ­people’s spirits rest ­after they die, lineage graveyards are of g­ reat importance to most villa­gers. Being buried in one’s lineage graveyard is called “returning to the ancestors’ estates” ( gui zuye). It is common to see very old ­people refuse to leave their zhaizi when they feel they have ­little time left. Their greatest desire is that they die in their zhaizi and be buried in their lineage graveyard so that their spirit ­will rest in peace and not be a wandering wild ghost. However, only a person with proper social status can be buried in the common graveyard. ­Widows without offspring, ­those with bad reputations, unmarried ­daughters, or criminals are often excluded. ­These criteria of exclusion protect the sacredness and efficaciousness of the ancestral graves. Carefully built according to feng shui guidelines, graves are believed to protect and bring good fortune to the offspring of the dead. The Wu ­family on my paternal side was a major lineage in Huangnihe Town, Fuyuan County, during the Republican period (1912–1949). The Wus’ graveyard is regarded as one of the most efficacious in the area. During my fieldwork I was often told that the Wu ­family’s fortune and high status before 1949 derived from our lineage graves. At that time t­here was even a local ditty relating the Wus’ high status to the good feng shui location of its graveyard: “With the Green Dragon Mountain on the left, the White Tiger Mountain on the right, the T ­ emple of Buddha in the m ­ iddle, [the Wu graveyard] w ­ ill produce e­ ither a civil or a military official” (zuo qinglong, you baihu, zhongjian yige zushiguan, buchu wenguan chu wuguan).11 For ­these reasons, any attempt to damage a grave has always been considered both a severe insult and a threat to the related f­ amily and the entire lineage. Even ­today, ­these beliefs regarding ancestral graves continue to have a power­ful influence on ­people’s be­hav­ior and perceptions. At the very beginning of my fieldwork in Fuyuan, I ran into a serious conflict over ancestral graves. This case involved the Zhang and the Song lineages in Foggy

36     Two Kinds of Villages

Hill zhaizi in F Township.12 The Zhang lineage graveyard is at the edge of ­ eople claimed that this gravethe zhaizi in a tract of wasteland. The Zhang p yard was built by their ancestors during the Ming Dynasty and they have used it ever since. In the 1970s some members of the Song started to reclaim a forage plot from the same wasteland and planted trees around the Zhang’s graveyard. Over the years the Zhang’s concerns over their graveyard turned into a grudge against the Song, fi­nally causing a clash between the two lineages on April 5, 2003, during the Qingming Festival. The Zhang claimed that trees ­were planted on their graves, an act considered a serious insult. More than thirty members of the Zhang then cut down all the trees (about fifty) planted by the Song in the wasteland. However, the Song ­were well prepared: several dozen members of the Song lineage brought journalists and l­awyers to the scene and videotaped the incident. The journalists wrote about the incident and sent it with the videotape to the prefectural and provincial governments. The national policy of returning farmland to woodland (tuigeng huanlin) had just been implemented that year. Aimed at alleviating severe soil erosion in China’s rural areas, this policy required that sloping fields be returned to forests. In this context, the journalists’ report immediately drew high-­level governmental attention. The Fuyuan government was pressed to investigate and resolve the incident. Meanwhile, the members of each lineage in the zhaizi as well as t­ hose living outside the zhaizi ­were mobilized to seek po­liti­cal connections in order to outmaneuver the other lineage. The issue was still unresolved when I left the field in 2004. At first, I was surprised that a dispute over a few graves could involve so many p ­ eople and excite such passions. However, as I observed part of the mediation pro­cess, the strong feelings of the disputing parties and the difficulties confronting the local officials trying to resolve this dispute ­were made evident, and I began to understand the impor­tant role played by ancestral graves in binding villa­gers to their native communities. My field investigation also led to an in­ter­est­ing and impor­tant finding: ancestral graves have the status of quasi-­private property, despite the fact that China’s rural land is by law collectively owned, and private land own­ership is prohibited. In the minds and practices of local ­people—both ordinary villa­gers and officials—graves are owned by a specific lineage or ­family. Throughout the history of the ­People’s Republic, the Fuyuan government never challenged local lineages’ control over their graves ­unless the locations of the graves and the practices of local ­people conflicted with na-

Zhaizi, the Per­sis­tent Natu­ral Village in Fuyuan     37

tional proj­ect requirements. First, the 1950s land reform did not involve graves. At the height of collectivization in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the issue of f­ amily graves did not arise, although most death-­ritual practices ­were criticized as “feudal superstitions.” In 1962 the Fuyuan government issued basic regulations regarding graves when the Four Fixed Policy was implemented: a grave located in collective farmland should have an open space of 1.5 zhang 13 on all sides, and o­ wners of graves should not use them as a pretext for claiming rights to the land where the graves are located. During the Cultural Revolution, certain traditional death rituals w ­ ere prohibited, and some graves belonging to families of landlords, rich peasants, or bad ele­ments ­were damaged. Sometimes landlords and other class enemies ­were humiliated by being forbidden to bury their dead in their lineage graveyards. However, even then most graves ­were left untouched. The fact that both the government and villa­gers acknowledge graves as quasi-­private property can be illustrated by another local conflict. In winter 1997 a dispute over graves almost led to a fight involving several hundred ­people. Two zhaizi ­were involved: White Mud in D Township and Deep Pound in Z Township. White Mud is to the southwest of Deep Pound; they are separated by about two miles and have another zhaizi between them. In both zhaizi, Li is a major lineage. What makes the situation more complicated is that the White Mud Li originally moved from Deep Pound, although nobody recalls exactly when. Due to this agnatic tie, at some point the White Mud Li offered the Deep Pound Li land on a wooded hill within their zhaizi as a graveyard. The White Mud villa­gers have always honored this arrangement made by their ancestors and allowed the Deep Pound Li to bury their dead in this woodland. The graveyard has an area of about ten mu and contains more than seventy graves. During the 1950s land reform, the Deep Pound Li w ­ ere even issued a land own­ership certificate by the Fuyuan government, which permitted them to continue to use the graveyard. Despite all the social and po­liti­cal changes since then, they have maintained their rights to the graveyard. The conflict between the two Li lineages was caused by White Mud’s reclamation work around the graveyard since the 1980s. Several White Mud Li families had continued to reclaim the woodland for private use and gradually encroached on the Deep Pound Li’s graves. When the Deep Pound Li’s resentment became unbearable, they conducted a surprise assault on ­those in White Mud. Divided into three groups, eighty Deep Pound Li went to White Mud at dawn and took away five pigs belonging to three Li families.

38     Two Kinds of Villages

Four pigs ­were immediately butchered in Deep Pound, with the meat divided among the villa­gers; the fifth was quickly sold on the local market. Enraged by this assault, the White Mud Li or­ga­nized several hundred p ­ eople and prepared to march to Deep Pound that after­noon to demand the return of the pigs. Considering this a po­liti­cal emergency, the county government stepped in and sent out a work team, led by a deputy county mayor (  fu xianzhang) and comprising more than twenty cadres from the Forest Bureau, the Land Management Bureau, the D and Z township governments, and the County Office of Conflict Resolution. Although a violent clash between the two lineages was avoided, subsequent negotiation was difficult. It took almost a year before the county government convinced the two lineages to reach the following agreement: first, the Deep Pound Li w ­ ere determined to be the sole ­owners of the graveyard and the White Mud Li had to give up all reclaimed land around it; second, the Deep Pound Li had to compensate the three White Mud Li families for the five pigs. What interested me most about this case is the fact that both the local ­people and the government had acknowledged the lineage graveyard as a form of private property over several de­cades. The status of quasi-­private property, as well as the sacredness and efficaciousness associated with ancestral graves, have led to a even more complicated situation that has affected land property relations among local ­communities: ancestral graves give villa­gers a sense of entitlement to the land where the graves are located, not just to the graves themselves. Very often “our ancestors’ graves are over t­ here” has been used as a strong argument for claiming a zhaizi’s land own­ership rights, even during the socialist period. In a single-­surname zhaizi, the overwhelming majority of villa­ gers belongs to the same lineage and shares a common graveyard. Whenever ­there is a dispute, villa­gers can easily adopt collective action to defend their graveyard and claim the land around the graveyard. Since most Fuyuan zhaizi are multilineage communities, graves defining the zhaizi are owned by dif­fer­ent lineages and located in dif­fer­ent places, yet each grave constitutes a landmark of the zhaizi’s territory. Lineage graveyards and the land surrounding them w ­ ill thus be vigorously defended not just by members of the lineages that own the graves, but also by villa­gers throughout the zhaizi if outsiders try to take them over. In 1958 when the rural administrative structure of the commune-­ production brigade-­production team was established in Fuyuan, produc-

Zhaizi, the Per­sis­tent Natu­ral Village in Fuyuan     39

tion teams w ­ ere largely formed on the basis of zhaizi. With the issuance of ­ ere formally acknowledged as the the 1962 Four Fixed Policy, zhaizi/teams w lowest level collective land-­owning units (see Chapter 3 for a detailed discussion). Due to the strongly held tradition of relating ancestral graves to land own­ership, the Fuyuan government tried to allocate plots containing graves to the zhaizi that owned them. If land surrounding the graveyard was ­later reclaimed as farmland, as often happened in Fuyuan due to g­ reat population pressure, it was the original zhaizi/team owner that had access to it. When the House­hold Responsibility System was implemented in 1982, this land was only allocated to zhaizi/team families. However, some zhaizi ­were denied own­ership rights to land where their lineage graveyards ­were located, usually for reasons of administrative con­ ve­nience, especially if the land involved was an exclave. Zhaizi denied such own­ership rights w ­ ere not convinced by the logic of management con­ve­ nience, and many continued to use land they considered theirs, ignoring government-­made bound­aries. Since the 1950s the Fuyuan government has repeatedly criticized and prohibited the “superstitious and backward” custom of “using graves to occupy mountains and land” ( yifen zhanshan, yifen zhandi). However, despite local government efforts, zhaizi repeatedly used graves to claim land own­ership rights, thus causing conflicts between dif­ fer­ent zhaizi or between zhaizi and state organ­izations. Another dispute between two zhaizi, Foggy Hill and Mellon Valley, clearly reveals how local ­people associate graves with land own­ership. Foggy Hill and Mellon Valley ­do not share borders; two other zhaizi are between them. Foggy Hill had a stretch of land, an exclave, at the edge of Mellon Valley. On this land is a graveyard owned by a Foggy Hill f­amily that has been in use for more than a ­century. In 1962 this land was allocated to Mellon Valley by the county government for administrative con­ve­nience. Over the de­cades, Foggy Hill villa­gers have felt that Mellon Valley had inappropriately taken their land and that it should be returned to the Foggy Hill ­people and be farmed by them. A clash occurred in 2000 when Foggy Hill villa­gers claimed that Mellon Valley villa­gers had damaged several graves as they farmed surrounding land. Foggy Hill villa­gers seized an ox belonging to a Mellon Valley ­family that had been farming near the graveyard; the villa­gers butchered the ox and divided the meat among members of their zhaizi. The aggrieved Mellon Valley f­ amily sued the Foggy Hill villa­gers at the county court. In court, the Mellon Valley villa­gers provided official documents issued in 1962 proving their own­ership of the land. The Foggy

40     Two Kinds of Villages

Hill villa­gers used the old custom concerning graves to defend their land rights. In the end, the Foggy Hill villa­gers lost the lawsuit and ­were ordered by the court to pay the plaintiff the price of an ox. However, seeing this conflict as Foggy Hill’s attempt to restore own­ership over the exclave, an old village cadre told me during my interview, “Such a court order can never ­settle the issue, ­because Foggy Hill villa­gers simply do not accept it in their hearts, and this ­will surely lead to more trou­ble ­later.” Throughout the era of the ­People’s Republic, some traditional practices, such as restricting community membership, maintaining ancestral graves, and worshipping local deities, have shown considerable continuity with the past and thus continue to play impor­tant roles in maintaining each zhaizi’s identity and territory. To be sure, the identity of a zhaizi is certainly not sustained solely by ­these ele­ments; more ­factors and mechanisms, such as ­labor invested in farmland, kinship, mutual dependence among community members, and many ­others, also help forge the distinctive identity of a community. It is also true that a zhaizi is not a static unit immune from any outside influences. What I want to highlight through examining t­ hese ele­ments and mechanisms is the tendency of a zhaizi to maintain itself as a social and physical exclusive community and the general stability of a zhaizi in terms of its population composition and geographic location and bound­a ries. Moreover, it is impor­tant to keep in mind that, in the socialist context, a zhaizi’s social and physical bound­aries are maintained not merely by the resilience of traditional ele­ments. It is through the interaction between ­these communities and the state-­initiated collectivization program that zhaizi have been able to continue to lay claim to land (especially farmland) within their territories and reinforce solidarity among their members. As Chapter 3 ­will show, this was done through the formation of a unique rural land own­ership system—­“bounded collectivism”—in which most zhaizi communities have become the basis for the lowest-­level collective land-­management unit, the production teams in the collective era and the villa­gers’ groups in the reform period.

CHAPTER 3

Zhaizi and the Making of Bounded Collectivism

Since the establishment of the P ­ eople’s Republic of China, one result of the socialist state’s efforts to broaden and deepen its authority and control over rural society has been frequent changes in rural administration. In contrast to the ever-­changing rural administrative arrangements, zhaizi communities experienced ­little change, in terms of population composition, location, distinctive identities, and property relations among the communities. Such stability and continuity have been maintained by a series of mechanism and practices, as illustrated in Chapter 2. However, natu­ral villages are not static, passive entities. Historical research on the rural society in northern China has revealed that during the late Qing period and the Republican period the interaction between the village communities and the modern, dominating state resulted in the creation of formal village governments with taxing power, which strengthened village leaders’ territorial jurisdiction (Duara 1988). Similar interaction between natu­ral villages and the socialist state also took place through the ­People’s Republic. My field research in Fuyuan reveals that the per­sis­tence of zhaizi identity has forced the state to incorporate zhaizi into its po­liti­cal and economic structure. As a result, zhaizi have generally served as the basis for forming both the lowest rural administration units and the lowest-­level collective land management units for most of the ­People’s Republic period. This incorporation has provided zhaizi communities with new social, economic, and po­liti­cal mechanisms to reinforce their claims over land within traditional territories. A unique rural land own­ership system, “bounded collectivism,” was formed as a result. To illustrate the formation of bounded collectivism, I trace the histories of three zhaizi through the dif­fer­ent stages of transforming land 41

42     Two Kinds of Villages

own­ership in China’s rural areas, beginning with the land reform period, followed by collectivization, the G ­ reat Leap Forward campaign, the ­People’s Commune period, the ­Great Cultural Revolution, the House­hold Responsibility System in the early 1980s, and further administrative reforms thereafter. The three zhaizi are: (1) Guojiacaozi, a small zhaizi in the ­middle of Fuyuan, with 53 ­house­holds and a population of about 290; (2) Pingdi, a medium-­sized zhaizi, with 127 h ­ ouse­holds and about 600 ­people in south Fuyuan; and (3) Huangnihe, a very large community next to Pingdi, with 680 h ­ ouse­holds and more than 3,000 ­people.

The 1952 Land Reform: Zhaizi as the Basic Unit of Land Re­distribution In 1950, soon ­a fter the Communist victory, the new government restructured the subcounty administration and a­ dopted a district-­township structure (see figure 3.1). Fuyuan County had seven districts (qu), with fifteen to twenty townships (xiang) each; each township could contain anywhere from five to twenty zhaizi. This administrative structure did not change ­until 1958. However, u ­ nder the county, districts and townships w ­ ere frequently dissolved and reestablished, and their names and territories ­were subject to change at the ­will of the higher level of administration (see ­table 3.1). From 1950 to 1958 what remained unchanged w ­ ere zhaizi, al-

Figure 3.1  Fuyuan’s administrative structure, 1949–1952

Zhaizi and the Making of Bounded Collectivism     43

­Table 3.1  Fuyuan’s Administrative Changes, 1950–1957 Year March 1950 September 1950 1952 1954 1955 1957

Districts (qu)

Townships (xiang)

4 6 7 7 7 4

12 33 149 142 99 76*

Source: Fuyuan Xianzhi (Fuyuan County Gazetteer) (1993), 44–49. *Of the seventy-­six townships (xiang), sixteen ­were directly ­under the county government and not administrated by the districts. Their size was relatively large, and they ­were known as “the large townships” (daxiang).

though they ­were frequently assigned to dif­fer­ent districts and townships. In 1950 Guojiacaozi was in Desheng Township, Fifth District, while both Pingdi and Huangnihe w ­ ere in Pinghuang Township, Sixth District. In 1952 Guojiacaozi was moved to Nanchong Township, Songzishan District, and Pingdi and Huangnihe to Pinghuang Township, Huangnihe District. In 1955 Guojiacaozi was transferred back to Desheng Township, Songzishang District, while Pingdi and Huangnihe remained where they had been. Following the reconstruction of the subcounty administration, the land reform started, which initiated an even more profound change in rural areas. As a poor, mountainous county in the frontier province of Yunnan, Fuyuan was in one of the last regions to come ­under the control of the ­People’s Liberation Army. The land reform in Fuyuan thus started rather late, in January 1952, and ended in eleven months. As was the case throughout rural China, this reform program in Fuyuan was a po­liti­cal campaign initiated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Aiming at restructuring the basic social and economic relations in rural society, the campaign involved four stages of mass mobilization. First, work teams, sent by the new county government and composed of CCP members, worked with poor rural activists to disseminate the party’s land reform policies in rural communities. Peasant associations ­were set up in all zhaizi. The second stage was called “dividing the classes.” Every­one in the villages was divided into the following categories: landlords, rich peasants, ­middle peasants, and poor peasants. The criteria used for dividing the classes ­were the “three rulers” (sanba chizi), which included t­ hese mea­sures: (1) the amount of land owned by a person, (2) w ­ hether the person worked for a living, and (3) how much of this

44     Two Kinds of Villages

person’s income was derived from exploitation. The term “exploitation” ­here refers to making a living through renting land or practicing usury. If a person owned a large quantity of land, did not work for a living, and obtained 30 ­percent or more of his or her income through exploitation, that person was categorized as a landlord. If a person owned some land, worked for a living, and obtained 25 ­percent of his or her income from renting land and other forms of exploitation, then this person was defined as a rich peasant. ­Middle peasants owned land and lived by their own ­labor. Poor peasants ­were often ­those who, with l­ittle or no land, relied on renting land from ­others. The third stage of the restitution pro­cess involved land confiscation. Not all land within a zhaizi was subject to re­distribution during the land reform, however. The majority of ­middle peasants’ land remained unchanged. The land and all property, including ­houses and other belongings of ­landlords, ­were confiscated, and extra land (not including ­houses or other property) of rich peasants was also taken. The fourth stage was the allocation of land to the poor members of communities. A total of 155,100 mu, which accounted for 27.7 ­percent of all farmland in Fuyuan, was confiscated from landlords, rich peasants, t­emples, schools, and lineage associations. The confiscated land was then redistributed (Fuyuan Xianzhi [Fuyuan County Gazetteer] 1993, 104). In addition, 6,535 ­houses, 5,473 farm animals, and 25,900 tools, as well as gold, silver, and other property, ­were also confiscated and redistributed (115). Before land reform, a poor peasant ­house­hold in Fuyuan held an average of 4.9 mu, a ­middle peasant ­house­hold 12.3 mu, a rich peasant 21 mu, and a landlord 56 mu. ­A fter the land reform, the average amount of land that a rural ­house­hold owned was roughly 8.5 mu (104, 113). The landlords and their families also received their shares of land and housing, although the land and ­houses ­were not ­those they had previously owned, but land of poor quality and ­houses of previously poor peasants. The hallmark of the completion of the land reform was the issuance of land certificates to rural ­house­holds. As a result of this program, a roughly equal private land own­er­ ship was established in China’s vast rural areas. This was a period of violent conflict, with many landlords and so-­called counterrevolutionaries being executed.1 Previously marginalized families replaced the old elites to become the new village leadership. In short, a new social, po­liti­cal, and economic order was established. Within this context, one could conceive of the newly established rural land property relations as a volte-­face from t­ hose in the “old society.” But in

Zhaizi and the Making of Bounded Collectivism     45

the pro­cess of land reform, the bound­aries of zhaizi communities sanctioned over centuries of tradition remained unchanged. Serving as the basic units of land re­distribution, most zhaizi maintained the integrity of their land. In 1952 each of Fuyuan’s 149 townships or­ga­nized land reform within its territory. Local cadres could have a­ dopted an egalitarian method by which land owned by dif­fer­ent zhaizi in a township would be pooled and divided into equal shares for e­ very farmer in the township. In real­ity, however, land re­distribution took place within the bound­aries of each zhaizi and left intact unequal landholding among communities. The land resources of each zhaizi thus determined the quantity and quality of land distributed to ­every community member. For example, an average h ­ ouse­hold of four to five ­people in the small zhaizi Guojiacaozi received around ten mu of farmland. Not far away from Guojiacaozi, a h ­ ouse­hold of the same size in an even smaller mountainous zhaizi Chenjiazhai received fifteen to twenty mu of land, albeit with sloping fields with low agricultural yields. In the fertile valleys in south Fuyuan, ­house­holds in the zhaizi of Huangnihe received three to four mu of fertile fields.2 The same situation can be found in many other rural areas throughout China. In Hubei Province, for instance, land reform proceeded in a way similar to that of Fuyuan, that is, egalitarian land distribution took place within each wanzi, the local equivalent of the zhaizi. The average land owned per capita among wanzi communities, therefore, differed (Zhu and Wu 2006). On a few occasions, local cadres in Fuyuan did try to alter long-­held bound­aries among zhaizi. ­These readjustments often took place ­under two circumstances. First, for the con­ve­nience of management and irrigation, the local government ordered some exclaves owned by certain zhaizi to be transferred to the zhaizi where they ­were located without compensation for the zhaizi that originally owned the land. Second, if significant in­equality in landholding existed among neighboring zhaizi communities in a township, cadres sometimes ordered farmland-­rich zhaizi to transfer land to farmland-­poor ones. As no compensation was offered to the farmland-­rich zhaizi, ­t hese transfers caused g­ reat discontent and tension among zhaizi. In Desheng Township, for example, village cadres had to persuade fellow villa­gers to follow the ­orders of the government. In the end, in most cases, no major adjustments w ­ ere made; the majority of zhaizi kept most of the land that belonged to them.3 It is impor­tant to know that the lower Yangtze Valley, including Jiangsu Province and part of Anhui and Zhejiang Provinces, is one region where

46     Two Kinds of Villages

bound­aries among village communities w ­ ere disrupted to achieve a more egalitarian land distribution among rural ­house­holds. Villa­gers’ re­sis­tance to this land readjustment has been examined in Zhang Peiguo’s historical and anthropological research on the land tenure system in the lower Yangtze Valley (Zhang 2002). Zhang confirms that the villa­gers’ territory consciousness led to their conflict with the local governments during the land reform. In the lower Yangtze Valley land was distributed on the basis of a township (xiang), which often consisted of a dozen traditional village communities. ­Under the ­orders of local governments, farmland-­rich communities had to ­either give some of their land to poorer ones or allow ­house­holds in the farmland-­poor communities to migrate into their communities in order to achieve a more egalitarian land distribution among rural ­house­holds in the ­whole township. Villa­gers in farmland-­rich communities ­were strongly opposed to transferring their land to other communities and used vari­ous strategies to sabotage land transfers. For instance, they would purposely give the land-­poor villages plots that ­were too far away for villa­gers in other communities to farm, thus forcing other villages to give up the plots, or they would give up only land of poor quality or exclaves located in other villages. As one village cadre commented during the land reform, “Although we have come around to the decision, we cannot help but feel heartache to see our own land transferred to other villages” (Zhang 2002, 93). Facing strong discontent, the local governments made some compromises. Farmland-­rich villages ­were allowed to keep more land so that their average per capita farmland was slightly higher than the average per capita of the w ­ hole township. A similar situation occurred in Shaanxi Province. Villa­gers of farmland-­rich communities tried to cover up the amount of land owned by landlords in their communities so that their village’s land would not be transferred to other villages (Qin and Su 1996, 65). In brief, data from Fuyuan and other parts of China show that the land reform was to varying degrees based on the new socialist state’s ac­know­ledg­ ment of and acquiescence to the traditions and rules governing property relations among natu­ral villages. Throughout the ­People’s Republic, the long-­ held bound­aries among zhaizi confirmed by land reform have generally been upheld by local governments. This ac­k now­ledg­ment is especially evident when a land dispute occurs. If a zhaizi engages in a dispute with another zhaizi or other social institution over a piece of land, the ultimate evidence of the own­ership of the disputed land is often the land own­ership

Zhaizi and the Making of Bounded Collectivism     47

certificates issued during the land reform to individual ­house­holds in the zhaizi. The logic followed, not only by zhaizi communities and rural ­house­holds but also by the government, is that if a f­ amily in a zhaizi received title to the land during land reform, the land belongs to this community. In 1994, for example, a dispute broke out between two zhaizi, South Village in Fuyuan County and Bamboo Valley in Zhanyi County. Although the two zhaizi administratively belong to dif­fer­ent counties, they share borders. Both zhaizi claimed own­ership over a mountain rich in mineral resources that was located between them. Their dispute culminated in a clash involving several hundred p ­ eople from both zhaizi on the disputed hill in July 1994. P ­ eople ­were injured, and ten thousand tree saplings planted by South Village w ­ ere pulled out. When the Fuyuan County government stepped in to adjudicate, the key evidence it presented to Qujing Prefecture was eighty-­three land own­ership certificates issued to families in South Village during the 1952 land reform, which proved that the disputed land was owned by t­ hese families. And the key argument of the Fuyuan County government was that they had always managed the land within the bound­aries set up during the land reform.

Early Collectivization (1953–1957): The Integrity of a Zhaizi   ’s Land and the Initial Or­ga­ni­za­tion of Rural ­Labor China embarked on its first Five-­Year Plan for national development from 1953 to 1957. The primary goal of the plan was to develop capital-­intensive heavy industry. The CCP leadership tried to advance industrialization through the institutional transformation of both agriculture and industry. Thus, soon ­a fter land reform was implemented, the central government began to push for “three major socialist transformations” (sanda shehui-­zhuyi gaizao): in agriculture, handicrafts, and industry and commerce. Rural collectivization and nationalization of industry and commerce in the cities began at roughly the same time. The purpose of rural collectivization was to stimulate rural productivity and, in conjunction with market controls, to facilitate the government’s access to a larger share of the agricultural surplus to invest in industry, obtain foreign exchange, and feed China’s rapidly growing cities (Selden 1993a). Starting in 1953 rural collectivization took three successive forms—­mutual aid teams, elementary agricultural cooperatives, and advanced agricultural cooperatives. In the pro­cess, private land own­ership was gradually abolished in ­favor of collective land own­ership and

48     Two Kinds of Villages

collective l­abor. In spite of t­ hese drastic changes, which in most communities ­were telescoped into a three-­year period or less, zhaizi bound­aries remained essentially intact. In Fuyuan, shortly a­ fter the land reform, the county government encouraged the formation of mutual-­aid teams among farmers. Involving only ­house­holds in the same zhaizi, the teams ­were to be “voluntary, mutually beneficial, and demo­cratic” (ziyuan, huli, minzhu). From 1952 to 1954, 4,905 mutual-­a id teams ­were formed that included 67 ­percent of all farmers in Fuyuan. Th ­ ese teams could be temporary, seasonal, or operating on a year-­ round basis (Fuyuan Xianzhi 1993, 115–116). In 1954 the Fuyuan County government began to experiment with their first two elementary producers’ cooperatives (chuji nongye hezuoshe). Each cooperative usually comprised ten to fifteen h ­ ouse­holds from the same zhaizi. By the spring of 1955, seventy-­six elementary cooperatives had been formed. A rush to form elementary cooperatives took place in Fuyuan a­ fter Mao Zedong’s July 1955 speech on agricultural cooperation. Mao proclaimed that an upsurge in the socialist mass movement was imminent throughout the countryside, and he characterized leaders who w ­ ere cautious about the timely formation of rural cooperatives as tottering along like a w ­ oman with bound feet. Given this pressure, by the spring of 1956 Fuyuan had formed a total of 463 elementary cooperatives. Within the framework of the elementary cooperative, individual cultivators still privately owned land, but all land was put together for collective use and management. Despite the fact that 90 ­percent of the farmers in China had joined ele­ mentary cooperatives by April 1956, China’s agricultural per­for­mance had not caught up with the ambitious industrialization goals of the first Five-­Year Plan. Considering large-­scale, rapid cooperation to be critical to accelerated economic growth, Mao pressed for further cooperation. Nationwide, the transition from elementary to advanced cooperatives was completed within a year. By the end of 1956, 87.8 ­percent of the entire rural population had joined advanced cooperatives (Zou 1998, 47). In Fuyuan the transition took place from November 23, 1956, to January 5, 1957, a stunningly rapid pro­ cess of only forty-­t wo days (Fuyuan Xianzhi 1993, 116). Three hundred and nineteen advanced cooperatives ­were established, accounting for 99.1 ­percent of the rural population in Fuyuan. Th ­ ese advanced cooperatives ­were composed of 51,300 rural h ­ ouse­holds, including members of elementary cooperatives and mutual-­aid teams, in­de­pen­dent cultivators, and former landlords and rich peasants.

Zhaizi and the Making of Bounded Collectivism     49

Both elementary and advanced agricultural cooperatives ­were formed by merging a number of small-­to-­medium-­sized zhaizi with advanced ­cooperatives generally incorporating more zhaizi than an elementary cooperative. Most zhaizi first became a production team of an elementary cooperative and then of an advanced cooperative. Each zhaizi/team labored on and obtained income from its own land. Pingdi joined several neighboring zhaizi to form an elementary cooperative and then joined additional zhaizi to form an advanced cooperative. Located deep in the mountains, Guojiacaozi formed an elementary cooperative on its own. Three years ­later it joined other nearby small mountainous zhaizi to form an advanced cooperative. ­Because of its large size, Huangnihe was always a cooperative by itself, first an elementary cooperative and then an advanced cooperative. And it was always divided into a number of teams. The cooperative head could adjust land among its constituent teams, but not beyond the bound­a ries of Huangnihe. At the stage of the advanced cooperative, however, a fundamental change took place. In contrast to elementary cooperatives in which land own­ership rights ­were preserved by ­house­holds whose income depended in part on the amount of land invested in the cooperative, advanced cooperatives inaugurated the collective own­ership of rural land. Private land own­ ership by individual ­house­holds was abolished, and zhaizi land formed the collective land of the production team. Remuneration was based exclusively on return on l­abor. The formation of advanced cooperatives enabled the government to exert stricter control over the rural economy through the planning of agricultural production, compulsory purchases, and market control. The stage was set for the egalitarian allocation of land and harvest among zhaizi and therefore for the disruption of zhaizi bound­aries. Another impor­tant change that took place during early collectivization was the organ­ization of collective ­labor. Within the framework of the elementary cooperative, individual h ­ ouse­holds still owned land, but all land was pooled for collective use and management. Or­ga­nized as a team in an elementary cooperative, residents of e­ very zhaizi worked year-­round on their land and ­were provided remuneration on the basis of both land investments (accounting for 30 ­percent of remuneration) and ­labor inputs (accounting for 70 ­percent of remuneration). At the stage of the advanced cooperatives, the relationship between private own­ership of land and income was eliminated. L ­ abor became the only yardstick of income. Individual h ­ ouse­holds could legally withdraw from both types of cooperatives, but in real­ity it was

50     Two Kinds of Villages

nearly impossible to do so. In other words, when ­every zhaizi was turned into a rural collective unit, all rural residents w ­ ere obligated to participate in collective ­labor.

Disruption of Zhaizi  Bound­aries (1958–1960): The ­Great Leap Forward Although China achieved high economic growth rates from 1953–1957, averaging 8.5 ­percent annually, the huge population and a lower level of technological development still constituted two major obstacles to China’s industrialization. When the Chinese leadership announced the drive to “catch up with ­Great Britain in fifteen years” in 1958, the critical question was how to further accelerate an already strained economy. Mao started to experiment with China’s own unique development model with the G ­ reat Leap Forward campaign (1958–1960). With this background, the government began to press for the merging of advanced cooperatives to form even larger cooperatives (xiaoshe bing dashe).4 The purpose of creating ­these superlarge cooperatives was to build all-­embracing units that would turn small-­scale farming into modernized, hyperefficient production. An upsurge of cooperative mergers (each with approximately 20,000 to 25,000 members) took place throughout the countryside as a result. ­These large cooperatives ­were given dif­fer­ent names in dif­fer­ent regions. Some ­were called collective farms, o­ thers cooperative farms, and still ­others ­were called Communist communes. In 1958 Mao Zedong first called ­t hese large cooperatives “­People’s Communes,” and this name remained ­until 1984. With the creation of the commune system, the previous district-­township system (see figure 3.1) was replaced by the new ­People’s Commune System. ­Under this new system, e­ very county in China contained a number of communes, each of which was composed of production brigades, which in turn ­were composed of production teams. The number of production brigades within a commune, like the number of production teams within a brigade, varied from region to region (see figure 3.2). Fuyuan County’s first commune, the Longhai ­People’s Commune, was established on October 15, 1958. Within only twenty days, twenty-­t hree communes w ­ ere set up throughout the county (Fuyuan Xianzhi 1993, 116). In 1959 the number increased to twenty-­five. In the pro­cess, a total of 1,267 production teams ­were created (see ­table 3.2). While most zhaizi became production teams, several very small adjacent zhaizi frequently formed one production team, and some very large zhaizi ­were divided into several brigades. Medium-­sized Pingdi became a production team in Pulizhai Brigade,

Zhaizi and the Making of Bounded Collectivism     51

Figure 3.2  Fuyuan’s administrative structure, ­Great Leap Forward * From 1958 to 1959, the level below the commune was the management district (guanli qu). The name was changed to production brigade in 1959.

­Table 3.2  Fuyuan’s Administrative Changes, 1958–1982 Year

Districts (qu)

Communes

Brigades

Production Teams

1958 1959 1961 1962 1963 1970 1979 1982

Abolished Abolished 7 9 9 Abolished Abolished Abolished

23 25 31 33 138 9 9 10

335 335 436 417 Statistics not available 138 149 149

1,267 1,275 1,621 Statistics not available Statistics not available Statistics not available 2,616 2,987

Source: Fuyuan Xianzhi (Fuyuan County Gazetteer) (1993), 44–49, 114–188.

Huangnihe Commune. The large Huangnihe was divided into three brigades—­Dongmen, Ximen, and Nanmen—­with each further divided into two to three production teams. Guojiacaozi formed a production team in the Deshengping Brigade in Songzishan Commune. During the ­Great Leap Forward, the government tightened control over agricultural production through the communes. Communes directly managed agricultural and sideline production and coordinated income distribution on a commune-­wide scale. As a result, land, ­labor, implements, farm animals, and grain harvest w ­ ere subject to egalitarian allocation among

52     Two Kinds of Villages

brigades and production teams within a commune or even among several communes. The management practice at the commune level transcended long-­held zhaizi bound­a ries even though the zhaizi ­were not completely eliminated. This caused g­ reat distress among many zhaizi communities. In Huangnihe Commune, for example, a zhaizi called Da’aozi was ordered to give part of its farmland to a neighboring zhaizi called Faxiang. One retired cadre in Da’aozi complained to me, “Our high-­quality rice paddy and dry land ­were taken away and given to Faxiang.” In Desheng Commune, an el­derly village cadre recalled, “The hardworking teams produced more grain, but their harvest had to be given to other teams with food shortage prob­ lems. Nobody in the hardworking teams was happy about that. The hardworking teams ­were also given more land to till. The extra land often came from the less productive teams. And the less productive teams w ­ ere not happy e­ ither ­because they feared that their land would be taken away perma­ reat Leap Forward collapsed, with disastrous economic and nently.”5 The G social consequences. A nosedive in agricultural production occurred as well as a severe famine that took the lives of an estimated twenty million to thirty million p ­ eople nationwide.6 In Huangnihe Commune alone, 690 persons perished.7

The 1962 “Four Fixed” Policy: Reconfirming Zhaizi Bound­aries In the face of the economic and po­liti­cal disasters caused by the G ­ reat Leap Forward, the CCP central leadership had to re­adjust its course of action. In 1961 it issued the Sixty Articles on the Work of the ­People’s Communes. Both the communes’ authority and sizes ­were significantly reduced, even though the communes continued to provide the basic institutional framework for rural production. Moreover, to tighten control over the communes, a new administrative level of district was placed between the county and the commune (see figure 3.3). The 25 communes existing in Fuyuan in 1959 ­were dissolved, and 138 smaller communes w ­ ere created in 1963 (see ­table 3.2). The Fuyuan county government also reduced the sizes of some production teams and divided large teams into smaller ones. The number of production teams thus increased to 1,621 in 1961 (Fuyuan Xianzhi, 117). The most impor­tant result of the new policy, nevertheless, was not administrative, but the reorganization of rural property relations and production. The 1962 readjustments established “three levels of own­ership, with the production teams as primary o­ wners” (sanji suoyou, duiwei jichu).8 This

Figure 3.3 THE ADMINISTRATIVE STRUCTURE OF FUYUAN COUNTY, 1962–1970

Zhaizi and the Making of Bounded Collectivism     53

County

Districts

Communes

Production brigades

Production teams (zhaizi)

Figure 3.3  Fuyuan’s administrative structure, 1962–1970

means that each of the three levels of rural administration—­commune, production brigade, and production team—­managed part of the rural land, with the production team controlling the major part and as the unit of income distribution. ­A fter 1962, 90 ­percent of China’s rural land was managed by production teams, each assigned land with specific bound­aries; team ­house­holds worked on this land and divided the income from collective farming and sideline activities. The production brigades controlled around 5 ­percent of the land, much of it used as collective forests and for industry. The communes managed less than 5 ­percent of rural land, much of it designated for public use, such as agricultural machinery stations, fisheries, large collective forests, livestock farms, irrigation systems, health clinics, schools, and local industry (Wang 2001, 15–16). In the early 1980s, when collective agriculture gave way to h ­ ouse­hold contracting, communes ­were typically turned into townships, brigades into administrative villages,

54     Two Kinds of Villages

and production teams into villa­gers’ groups. The management of rural land continued to be divided among the newly established townships, administrative villages, and villa­gers’ groups. As a result of the Sixty Articles, the land rights of the production team ­were considerably expanded. Targeting the egalitarian policies in the ­Great Leap Forward period, the twenty-­first article of the Sixty Articles stipulated that, “All the land within the production teams belongs to the production teams. Land owned by the production teams, including the commune members’ private plots, private hills, and residential land, cannot be rented, sold, or purchased. . . . ​The own­ership of and the managing rights to land, draft animals, implements, forest, w ­ ater surface, and grassland belong to the production teams, and this w ­ ill not change for a long period” (Selden 1979, 521–525). ­Because land, ­labor, farm animals, and tools ­were assigned to the teams by this article, the 1962 policy is often referred to as the “Four Fixed” Policy (siguding). The implementation of this policy ended egalitarian allocation at local officials’ discretion. ­Because t­ here are 1,788 zhaizi/natu­ral villages in Fuyuan, we can say that most of the 1,621 teams created in 1962 coincide with average-­sized zhaizi.9 During the ­People’s Commune period, Guojiacaozi remained a production team but was placed ­under the Desheng Commune (previously the Desheng Brigade) in Fucun District. Pingdi and Huangnihe ­were assigned to the new Huangnihe Commune, now only a fourth of the size of the previous Huangnihe Commune, in the Huangnihe District. Pingdi remained a production team and Huangnihe continued to have three production brigades, with each further divided into three teams. Although Huangnihe and Pingdi share borders, Pingdi’s land would never become part of Huangnihe’s. The teams ­under the three Huangnihe brigades could only use land belonging to the Huangnihe zhaizi as a ­whole. As the production team became the most basic unit of agricultural production, income distribution, and accounting, the traditional zhaizi bound­aries ­were not only reaffirmed but also formally acknowledged. The same situation took place in other rural areas of China as well. In her study of marriage arrangements in rural areas in Beijing, Nanjing, and Guangdong, Elisabeth Croll noticed that ­after 1949 natu­ral villages “tend to coincide with the orga­nizational level of ­either the production team or the production brigade. Production teams many consist of from 30 to 150 ­house­holds, and most scholars have concluded that their bound­aries may coincide with the territorial villa­gers” (1981, 175). In their study of the rev-

Zhaizi and the Making of Bounded Collectivism     55

olutionary experience of villa­gers in Zengbu, a production brigade in Dongguan County, Guangdong Province, Sulamith Potter and Jack Potter similarly found that the three lineage villages and two multisurname villages that constituted Zengbu had owned unequal amounts of land before 1949. However, the landholdings of t­hese natu­ral villages w ­ ere never redefined and equalized ­after 1949, leading to unequal land holdings among the production teams within dif­fer­ent natu­ral villages. Each production team in Zengbu Brigade “had exclusive rights over its share of land, and it owned the instruments and means of production—­tractors and other agricultural machines and implements, fishponds, orchards, drying floors, storage buildings, and team headquarters” (1990, 94, 107–108). The implications of the 1962 Four Fixed Policy w ­ ere profound. Its ac­ know­ledg­ment of traditional bound­a ries among natu­ral villages differed from that of the land reform in the early 1950s. During land reform, the state acknowledged the bound­aries among natu­ral villages by conducting land re­distribution within each community. But the state d ­ id not formally acknowledge the exclusive control of each natu­ral village over its domain. During the 1962 readjustment period, zhaizi/natu­ral villages in fact received official recognition as the lowest-­level collective land management units as well as the most basic rural administrative units, at least in south China. In other words, facing the resilience and per­sis­tence of ­these communities in the course of the national crisis associated with the G ­ reat Leap collapse, the state retreated from its attempts to reor­ga­nize the fundamental structure of rural land own­ership and productive relations. It acknowledged the zhaizi’s status as a relatively exclusive social unit by incorporating the zhaizi into its administrative and economic structure. As a result, the control of each community over its traditionally held land was recognized and given institutional expression. L ­ abor was or­ga­nized and income distributed on the basis of the zhaizi as well. During the ­Great Leap Forward, a zhaizi’s l­abor was subject to allocation at the w ­ ills of commune leaders or even higher authorities. One team/zhaizi might be ordered to till the land of another, as ­discussed previously. From 1962 to the abolition of the P ­ eople’s Commune System in the early 1980s, however, the leader of e­ very production team had the power to or­ga­nize agricultural production and distribute income within the team, thereby significantly strengthening the solidarity and insularity of each community. It is impor­tant to note that, during this period, just as during the land reform in the early 1950s and the G ­ reat Leap Forward, t­ here ­were cases in

56     Two Kinds of Villages

which territorial relations among zhaizi ­were adjusted. In Desheng Commune, for instance, some teams that had performed extra work by tilling other teams’ land during the ­Great Leap Forward ­were permitted to keep that land. As an elder cadre recalled, “Hardworking teams earned more land, which indeed became a g­ reat advantage l­ater on.” Land readjustment among zhaizi could also be caused by considerations of management con­ve­nience. Exclave land owned by some zhaizi was sometimes allocated to the zhaizi in which the exclave was located. However, the importance of the 1962 Four Fixed Policy remains the same even for the zhaizi in which land was taken away in the interest of achieving more egalitarian landholding among communities or for management con­ve­nience, ­because this policy allowed ­t hese zhaizi to restore their relatively exclusive control over the land still remaining in their territories as well. Since few readjustments w ­ ere made on the bound­a ries between teams/zhaizi in subsequent de­cades, zhaizi prerogatives ­were reinforced. The 1962 Four Fixed Policy has been widely supported by villa­gers and village cadres. They resort to official documents issued in 1962 whenever an own­ership dispute occurs. As noted, the ultimate evidence of the own­ership of disputed land is often the land own­ership certificates issued during land reform to individual ­house­holds in the zhaizi. But the official documents that directly prove the bound­aries of a team/zhaizi are ­those issued during the Four Fixed Policy period. Only when such documents are not available or c­ annot be applied to solve a land own­ership dispute ­will villa­gers and the local government use as evidence the land own­ership certificates of individual ­house­holds issued during land reform.10 Fuyuan’s population grew rapidly, from 260,000 ­people in 1962 to 435,000 in 1977 (Fuyuan Xianzhi [Fuyuan County Gazetteer] 1993, 84). When the members of a team exceeded a few hundred, management became difficult. The team would then be divided into smaller teams. As a result, the number of production teams in Fuyuan increased from 1,621 in 1962 to 2,616 in 1980 (Fuyuan Xianzhi [Fuyuan County Gazetteer] 1993, 117). But the long-­held territorial relations among zhaizi communities remained unchanged. A team/zhaizi might be divided into more teams, but its bound­aries ­did not change. Land could be adjusted among the teams within the original zhaizi only. Some zhaizi took this opportunity to split with other zhaizi with whom they previously formed a production team. In Fucun Commune, for example, Xiaopuzi and Shuijingshan ­were two small

Zhaizi and the Making of Bounded Collectivism     57

Figure 3.4  Fuyuan’s administrative structure, 1970–1984

zhaizi that formed a production team from 1958 to 1973. As their populations grew, they agreed to split into two teams in 1973. Land was divided not equally but according to long-­held zhaizi borders. In 1970 the subcounty administrative structure changed again. In Fuyuan, the previous nine districts ­were turned into nine communes and the previous 138 communes into 138 brigades (see figure 3.4). However, the production teams, most of them zhaizi, remained unchanged. During yet another profound social change—­the radical phase of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1970)—­the bound­aries among teams/zhaizi that w ­ ere set in 1962 ­were not altered. From 1970 to 1984, Guojiacaozi was a production team in Desheng Brigade, Fucun Commune. Pingdi and Huangnihe w ­ ere in the new large Huangnihe Commune. B ­ ecause of population growth, Pingdi now had three teams—­t he first, second, and third team of Pingdi. Huangnihe remained divided into three brigades, but each brigade now had five to six teams.

Implementing the House­hold Responsibility System in 1982: Egalitarian Land Distribution within the Bound­aries of a Zhaizi The first major rural reform of the commune-­brigade-­team order, the House­ hold Responsibility System (HRS), was implemented in the early 1980s.

58     Two Kinds of Villages

Both production and land management relationships among ­house­holds and production teams changed dramatically in the wake of the HRS. The new system was characterized by two features: (1) the separation of own­ership and usage rights and (2) land management by both the village collective and rural ­house­holds. Although still collectively owned, agricultural land was allocated to individual ­house­holds through contracts. Freed from the forced collective ­labor of the Maoist era, rural ­house­holds have again become the major units of agricultural production. While village collectives continue to manage the collectively owned land through land allocation, land exchange, and the planning of agricultural production, rural h ­ ouse­holds are responsible for cultivating the land, maintaining soil fertility, providing stipulated quantities of grain to the government, and paying rural taxes and fees. My fieldwork reveals that, in Fuyuan, land allocation u ­ nder the HRS generally took place within the borders of each zhaizi, although very large ­ andling land or small zhaizi tended to have more complicated methods for h allocation. For a large zhaizi such as Huangnihe, which had sixteen teams, or Pingdi, which had three teams, land allocation took place within each constituent team ­because cadres and villa­gers felt that a team was a manageable size for fair and efficient land allocation. For a team that was formed by several very small zhaizi, each constituent zhaizi formed a group within which land allocation took place. ­These methods allowed the maintenance of zhaizi bound­aries in the land distribution pro­cess. As in the earlier land reform, egalitarianism and a survival ethic ­were the major moral bases for land distribution ­under the HRS. ­Every person, regardless of gender or age, was eligible for an equal share of farmland, as long as this person lived in the community at the time of allocation, was defined ­ ecause land resources as a team member, and was born in 1982 or earlier.11 B differed among zhaizi, per capita farmland also differed from one zhaizi community to another. E ­ very villa­ger in Guojiacaozi received about two mu of land in the mountains. In Huangnihe each person received less than one ­ very member in the second team of Pingdi remu of fertile valley land. E ceived 0.6 mu of rice paddy and 0.6 of dry land. In the zhaizi of Da’aozi, which is two miles away from Huangnihe, e­ very member received one mu of dry land and 0.8 mu of rice paddy. With land now managed by ­every team/zhaizi ­house­hold, zhaizi bound­a ries have been even more strictly maintained.

Zhaizi and the Making of Bounded Collectivism     59

Changes to the Rural Administrative System in the Post-­Mao Era (1984–2015): Further Overlap between Zhaizi and the Villa­gers’ Groups In 1984, only a c­ ouple of years a­ fter the implementation of the HRS, the ­People’s Commune System was dismantled. A new rural administration system, the township system, was established. Communes w ­ ere replaced by townships, brigades by village committees, and production teams by villa­ gers’ groups. Moreover, the government proclaimed village committees to be self-­governing organ­izations, with village cadres elected by villa­gers. In Yunnan Province slow po­liti­cal reform led to a slightly dif­fer­ent subcounty administrative structure from other parts of rural China ­until 2000. As a result, Fuyuan’s production teams w ­ ere first made into agricultural cooperatives instead of the pres­ent-­day villa­gers’ groups. Agricultural Cooperatives (1984–2000) Yunnan’s first po­liti­cal reform took place in 1984, with the district-­town system (quxiang zhi) replacing the commune system: Fuyuan’s ten communes became ten districts, the brigades became 163 xiangs and (its urban equiva­ ere made into agricultural lents) zhen,12 and the 2,987 production teams w cooperatives. Moreover, an intermediate level of village committees13 was set up between the xiang and the agricultural cooperatives (see figure 3.5). In 1988 Yunnan took the second reform step and ­adopted a township system (xiangzhen zhi) that still differed from that implemented in most parts of China. Fuyuan’s districts became townships and the xiang became “village offices” (cungongsuo), below which the village committees and the agricultural cooperatives remained unchanged (see figure 3.6). Between 1984 and 2000 a zhaizi that had been a production team now became a cooperative; a zhaizi previously consisting of several production teams now had the same number of cooperatives. In 1988 Guojiacaozi became an agricultural cooperative in Desheng Village Office, Fucun Township; Pingdi had three cooperatives and was u ­ nder Huangnihe Village Office, Huangnihe Township; Huangnihe, with its fourteen cooperatives, was in the same village office and the same township. Villa­gers’ Groups (2000–2015) In 2000 the Yunnan government fi­nally ­adopted the same rural administrative structure already in place elsewhere in China (see figure 3.7), with

60     Two Kinds of Villages

Figure 3.5  Fuyuan’s administrative structure, 1984–1987

the lowest-­level unit now the villa­gers’ group.14 In Fuyuan most small-­to medium-­sized teams/zhaizi ­were turned into villa­gers’ groups. Guojiacaozi thus became a villa­gers’ group in Desheng Administrative Village, Fucun Township. Production teams that had been formed within a zhaizi ­were generally dissolved. The ­whole zhaizi then formed a villa­gers’ group. The previous first, second, and third teams of Pingdi, for example, ­were dissolved, and the zhaizi of Pingdi became a villa­gers’ group. For a very large zhaizi such as Huangnihe, the consideration of administrative con­ve­nience led to a dif­fer­ ent arrangement. Instead of turning Huangnihe into a superlarge villa­gers’ group, each of its previous three brigades was turned into a villa­gers’ group. The zhaizi of Huangnihe, comprising three villa­gers’ groups, is now in the Huangnihe Administrative Village, Huangnihe Township.15 ­There w ­ ere close to three thousand production teams in Fuyuan in 1980. Since most production teams formed within a zhaizi ­were dissolved

Zhaizi and the Making of Bounded Collectivism     61

Figure 3.6  Fuyuan’s administrative structure, 1988–2000

and the overwhelming majority of zhaizi became villa­gers’ groups a­ fter 2000, the number of villa­gers’ groups in Fuyuan is very close to that of zhaizi. As of 2012 the number became 1,782 (Yearbook of Fuyuan 2013, available on http://­w ww​.­q jfy​.­gov​.­cn​/­f ynj​/­gaikuang​/­20130802​/­114400​.­shtml). Given that ­there are 1,788 zhaizi in Fuyuan, we may say the recent administrative change has caused a greater overlap between the zhaizi and the new basic administrative unit of the villa­gers’ group.

Defining Bounded Collectivism Establishing the socialist land own­ership system in China’s vast rural areas over the past half ­century involved dual pro­cesses. On the one hand, the CCP launched a two-­stage pro­cess of egalitarian redistributive land reform followed by collectivization of land and l­abor. During the collective era, all villa­gers ­were administratively bound to village collectives and ­were obligated to participate in collective l­abor. On the other hand, the state

62     Two Kinds of Villages

Figure 3.7  Fuyuan’s administrative structure, 2000–2015

was not the only force determining the nature and par­a meters of rural land own­ership, ­labor, and income distribution. While individual rural ­house­holds’ land rights ­were transferred to the collective, the second half of the twentieth ­century also witnessed the resilience of natu­ral villages in maintaining their position in determining issues of land rights, status as resident, ritual, and identity. Using zhaizi, the natu­ral villages in Fuyuan and other southwest rural areas, as an example, I have been able to reveal that natu­ral villages have maintained their social identities and physical bound­aries in a socialist order through restricted community membership, vis­i­ble landmarks such as ancestral graves and agricultural fields, and invisible ele­ments such as lineage bonds and worship of territorial ­deities. Long-­held cultural patterns and practices, however, are by no means static or fixed; they have interacted with broader historical pro­cesses to reinforce themselves and metamorphose in a context of rapid social change. As a result of the interaction between state-­initiated land reform and collectivization on the one hand, and the enduring identities of natu­ral villages on the other, both land re­distribution and collectivism took place within the borders of e­ very natu­ral village, placing limits on the egalitarian thrust of the era while embracing equal distribution among t­hose recognized as community members. Facing such resilience and per­sis­tence, the state re-

Zhaizi and the Making of Bounded Collectivism     63

treated from attempts to override the social and physical bound­aries of ­these communities. It not only acknowledged natu­ral villages’ land rights but also incorporated t­ hese communities into its administrative and economic structure by making natu­ral villages the basis for forming the most basic rural administrative and land management units. With the majority of natu­ral villages becoming the lowest-­level collective land management units (teams), the exclusivity of each traditional settlement community’s land rights was institutionalized. Furthermore, e­ very natu­ral village’s control over its land had been strengthened by several de­cades of collectivization, during which team/natu­ ral village members labored on the same land and received remuneration based on the harvest of the land. Even for t­hose communities whose land integrity was partially compromised at dif­fer­ent times for management con­ ve­nience or to achieve more egalitarian landholding among communities, relatively exclusive control over their remaining land was also restored through the 1962 Four Fixed Policy. As few adjustments ­were made on the bound­ aries between teams/zhaizi from 1962 to the pres­ent, basically the same natu­ral villages have managed the land for over half a ­century. The insularity and solidarity of each natu­ral village has been reinforced as a result. For ­t hese reasons, I have coined the term “bounded collectivism” to describe such a unique landholding arrangement, which is not simply an eco­nom­ ically costly and po­liti­cally alienating system imposed by the socialist state from above, but a structure that has adapted to or even strengthened key ele­ments that have traditionally maintained the social and economic exclusivity of natu­ral villages. To conclude, I see four layers of meaning in the concept of bounded collectivism. The first is collective own­ership. This is a land property regime premised on replacing the previous private, unequal land own­ership with public own­ership that allows equal distribution of land rights within ­every natu­ral village. Except for a brief period ­after the land reform in the early 1950s, during which land was privately owned by rural ­house­holds, formal own­ership rights to rural land have been vested in three levels of the rural collective from the 1950s to the pres­ent. Although rural ­house­holds obtained land use rights through contracts ­under the House­hold Responsibility System in the early 1980s, rural land has remained collectively owned. The second layer is egalitarianism. During the two major land distribution epochs in the ­People’s Republic period—­the land reform program in the early 1950s and the House­hold Responsibility System in the early

64     Two Kinds of Villages

1980s—­egalitarianism within ­every settlement community was the guiding princi­ple for land allocation.16 This princi­ple has been supported both by the socialist ideology emphasizing equal social and economic rights among society members and by a long-­held survival ethic at the grassroots level. The third layer is boundedness. The tenacity with which natu­ral ­villages have pursued control over their long-­held physical and social bound­aries during the ­People’s Republic places specific limits on egalitarianism. Equal land allocation among farmers occurred within the natu­ral village, not among natu­ral villages. Throughout the socialist period, t­hese rural settlements maintained relatively exclusive control over land within their territories through mechanisms for defining community membership, distributing land only to community members, and defending their domains whenever a dispute occurred. This social and territorial exclusivity of natu­ral villages has been acknowledged and institutionalized by the state in vari­ous ways, most impor­tant of which was to make the natu­ral village the lowest-­ level collective land management unit and the primary locus of l­ abor organ­ ization and income distribution. With deep social and cultural roots in local communities, ­these units—­whether the previous production teams or the current villa­gers’ groups—­are not arbitrary territorial units, created for administrative con­ve­nience, but fundamental, stable components of the rural po­liti­cal structure in China. The fourth layer is state domination. Although bounded collectivism resulted from a contestation between the socialist state and natu­ral villages, power relations between the state and ­these communities have been unbalanced. The state has exerted strong control over essential rights associated with rural land own­ership (including, at vari­ous times, use, transfer, and income rights), manifested mainly in its intervention in agricultural production (the 1950s to the early 1980s) and the land market (1950s to the pres­ent).17 Due to strong state control, natu­ral villages often have difficulty in engaging in major social and economic activities in­de­pen­dently and predicated on their own interests. Nevertheless, what is most striking is the tenacity of local communities to assert rights, including land own­ership rights within historically sanctioned borders of the zhaizi. As the contestation continues, it remains to be seen how the par­ameters of bounded collectivism ­will change. Data from Fuyuan and other parts of rural China lead me to conclude that bounded collectivism exists, at least in south China. Understanding bounded collectivism is crucial to understanding con­temporary rural Chi-

Zhaizi and the Making of Bounded Collectivism     65

nese society, ­because this landholding structure has profound implications for how the current two levels of village administration—­namely, the administrative village and its constituent villa­gers’ groups—­share land rights. Differentiation between cadres at ­these two levels of village administration has given rise to complex po­liti­cal prob­lems and defined the state-­society nexus at the village level. The sharing and division of land rights between the two levels of village administration w ­ ill also affect the evolution of the land market in the ­future. ­These topics ­will be examined in Chapter 4.

CHAPTER 4

The Administrative Village Power Differentiation and Land Rights Shared between Its Two Administrative Levels

China’s current village administration involves two levels—­the administrative village and its constituent villa­gers’ groups. As of 2013, Fuyuan County had 11 townships, ­under which ­there ­were 161 administrative villages and 1,770 villa­gers’ groups. On average, an administrative village in Fuyuan consists of about a dozen villa­gers’ groups. A small administrative village may have fewer than one thousand ­people, while a very large one can have more than six thousand. This chapter examines how the legacy of bounded collectivism has ­shaped the ways in which rural land rights have been shared and divided between the two current levels of village administration. I also explore the effects of bounded collectivism on local politics and the development of the land market. Before discussing ­these issues, I ­will pres­ent data collected from Fuyuan County to illustrate the po­liti­cal structure of the current village administration in southwest China. It is impor­tant to note that the majority of administrative villages in the southwest comprise a number of natu­ral villages/zhaizi, each of which is a villa­gers’ group. I h ­ ere focus on this kind of administrative village. Only a few administrative villages in this region are formed by a single, large natu­ral village, in which case its constituent villa­gers’ groups are not individual natu­ral villages/zhaizi but part of the large zhaizi.

The Po­liti­cal Structure of the Current Village Administration In China’s current social and po­liti­cal context, an administrative village and a villa­gers’ group have dif­fer­ent po­liti­cal capacities, are charged with dif­fer­ 66

The Administrative Village     67

ent social and economic duties, and connect with the government and local communities in dif­fer­ent ways. The Power and Duties of the Administrative Village At pres­ent, two organ­izations exist si­mul­ta­neously within an administrative village—­the village party committee (cun dangzhibu) and the village committee (cunweihui). The village party committee consists of a party secretary, deputy secretary, and several committee members. The village committee includes the committee head, deputy head, and committee members who are known as the “eight big members” (badayuan) ­because they work in eight major areas: public safety, agricultural technology, land management, birth control, forest management, w ­ omen’s organ­izations, local militia, and the Communist Youth League. However, many administrative villages in Fuyuan lack a full set of eight members due to the difficulty of finding ­people with suitable knowledge or skills. Within an administrative village, po­liti­cal power is in the hands of the village party committee, with the party secretary as the most power­ful figure and the village committee head as the second. ­There is in fact ­little differentiation between the work of the village party committee and that of the village committee. The party committee and the village committee are integrated into a single po­liti­cal entity. Many cadres hold two posts concurrently. For example, without exception, the deputy party secretary also serves as the village committee head. Village party committee members are frequently chosen from among village committee members. The village cadres I interviewed in Fuyuan describe this situation as “the same personnel working for two organ­izations” ( yitao renma, liangge banzi). When a major po­ liti­cal and economic task must be addressed, cadres in both organ­izations work on it together. For instance, when village land is expropriated by the government, the land management committee member is not the only person involved. Rather, ­under the leadership of the party secretary, all village cadres work to resolve the issue. Compared with cadres leading the production brigades during the Maoist era, cadres in the current administrative village have far less social and po­liti­cal power. They are no longer regarded as government officials or state employees with guaranteed salaries. They receive no retirement pensions, and their income is now regarded as a subsidy and compensation provided by the county government for time spent on village management. This kind of income varies from county to county, depending on each

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county’s economic situation. In Fuyuan, the party secretary and the village committee head received a monthly subsidy of 400 yuan in 2005 and around 1,500 yuan in 2014.1 The amount of 1,500 yuan is roughly three to five times as much as an ordinary Fuyuan villa­ger engaging solely in farming earned in 2014, but it is quite small compared to the incomes of many villa­gers who run private businesses or are mi­grant workers in the cities. The other village committee members received between 200 and 300 yuan in 2005 and around 500 yuan in 2014.2 Despite greatly reduced privileges, administrative village cadres continue to play an impor­tant role in the social and po­liti­cal life of rural communities. One village party secretary I interviewed vividly described his work situation as “a thousand threads g­ oing through the tiny eye of the needle.” ­Here, “a thousand threads” represents the numerous social, economic, and po­liti­cal tasks imposed by the higher levels of government, and the “eye of the needle” is the office of the administrative village. Generally, the “thousand threads” fall into three categories of work. First, administrative village cadres are charged with such major tasks as organ­izing agricultural production,3 collecting agricultural taxes and other fees,4 birth control, and maintaining social order, whose fulfillment is crucial to the local government. For this reason, administrative village cadres maintain close connections with and receive strong support from their local government at the township. Second, cadres are responsible for public ser­vices in the village, including maintaining electricity networks and public drinking ­water cisterns,5 introducing new agricultural techniques, maintaining or building local roads, and more. Taking care of m ­ atters crucial to the lives and livelihood of fellow villa­gers provides cadres with social status as well as power in the local community. Third, the administrative village office h ­ andles diverse issues associated with everyday life. For example, ­people planning to marry must obtain an approval letter from the office of the administrative village in order to get a marriage certificate from the township government; ­those with newborns need to report to the office to obtain their child’s ­house­hold registration; any f­ amily needing a new site for a h ­ ouse requires the approval of the office; and fi­nally, the office is the first administrative site for vari­ous kinds of conflict resolution, such as f­ amily and marital disputes, land disputes, and disputes related to agriculture. If the administrative village office cannot ­handle the dispute, or if the villa­gers do not accept its decision, then it can

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be taken to a higher level of administration such as the township ­legal assistance office, the county petition bureau, or the county court. However, villa­gers cannot bypass the administrative village and pres­ent their appeals to higher levels of government without first ­going through their administrative village office. If they attempt to do so, the higher level of administration usually asks villa­gers to return to their village office and let local cadres try to h ­ andle the case. The Villa­gers’ Groups: A Loose Unit with Shrinking Administrative Power In contrast to the administrative village, the villa­gers’ groups have been entrusted with less po­liti­cal power and fewer administrative responsibilities by the government, and their formal orga­nizational ability is also weaker than the previous production teams, although most villa­gers’ groups ­were derived from the production teams.6 The production teams, composed of a team leader, deputy leader, accountant, and storekeeper, functioned as an in­de­pen­dent collective unit of production, accounting, and income distribution, that is, it or­ga­nized the economic and social life of the community, including the l­abor pro­cess. Most Fuyuan villa­gers’ groups, with a population of a few hundred, have only one group leader (cunmin xiaozuzhang), although a group with more than five hundred ­people may have one or even two deputy leaders. It is often difficult for a single leader to provide adequate administrative ser­vices to several hundred ­people. Moreover, the group leader has neither an office to ­handle village ­matters nor even an official seal ( gongzhang) to represent the group as a ­legal entity. Consequently, he or she cannot decisively resolve many group-­related ­matters. When villa­gers need a letter to serve as l­egal confirmation of marital status, birth control, or a housing site, for example, they must obtain it from the administrative village. Since the implementation of the HRS in the early 1980s, rural ­house­holds have been restored as the primary unit of agricultural production and are ­free to arrange their ­labor. Group leaders no longer or­ga­nize agricultural production as the previous production team leaders did. Instead, their primary work is to assist the administrative village in vari­ous tasks, including maintaining public order, assigning social and economic tasks or quotas to ­house­holds in their groups, and mediating minor disputes. Despite ­these limitations, as discussed below, the villa­gers’ groups have continued to have certain exclusive rights over land within their territories due to

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the legacy of three de­cades of bounded collectivism, and politics within villa­ gers’ groups tend to follow nonofficial mechanisms such as lineage, marriage, sworn brotherhood, religion, and so on.

Land Rights Shared between the Administrative Village and Its Constituent Villa­gers’ Groups Land Rights of  Villa­gers’ Groups within the Administrative Village During the commune era, zhaizi, the natu­ral villages in Fuyuan, constituted the basis of the lowest-­level collective land management units—­production teams. ­Today, borders among zhaizi/teams remained unchanged, although production teams w ­ ere renamed villa­gers’ groups, and a total of 1,770 villa­gers’ groups ­were formed in Fuyuan. Given that ­there are 1,788 zhaizi in Fuyuan, we may say that most of the 1,770 groups coincide with average zhaizi, and that zhaizi communities continue to constitute the most basic rural administrative and land management units in the reform era.7 With deep social and cultural roots in zhaizi communities, the current villa­gers’ groups continue to enjoy certain exclusive rights over land within their territories, and their rights consist primarily of distributing land and related benefits to zhaizi/group members. When land cultivation rights w ­ ere allocated to rural h ­ ouse­holds through contracts u ­ nder the HRS in 1982, the basic unit of land distribution was the former production team. No team/zhaizi could obtain extra land from another team/zhaizi. The per capita land allocation in each team was determined by the amount of team-­owned land, which differed in quantity and quality from team to team. A villa­ger, regardless of gender and age, was eligible to obtain a share of team land cultivation rights only when confirmed as a zhaizi community member.8 In Fuyuan and most rural areas of southwest China, no major land reallocation occurred a­ fter the implementation of the HRS in 1982; however, small adjustments did occur before 1999, when farmers’ land contracts w ­ ere renewed for another thirty years. The way ­these readjustments ­were carried out varied among teams/zhaizi. In most cases the readjustments involved ­people who had left rural areas for urban jobs ­after they received their land in 1982. Th ­ ese included young p ­ eople born in or before 1982 who ­later went to college or professional schools, village cadres who l­ater became formal government employees in the township or county government, and p ­ eople who obtained urban jobs such as factory workers. Teams/zhaizi with relatively

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abundant land resources tended to allow the families of ­these ­people to keep their shares of land. Teams/zhaizi with scarce land often took back this land for re­distribution. The re­distribution could take several forms. First, with certain fees, the land could be contracted to anyone willing to cultivate it; the fees collected would then be used for the team’s public welfare such as improving local roads or w ­ ater cisterns. Second, the land could be directly used for public welfare, such as building an elementary school, road, or small w ­ ater conservation fa­cil­i­ty. Third, the land could be given to ­house­holds with a special need for more land. ­These w ­ ere often families who had given birth to too many c­ hildren ­after the 1982 distribution.9 The administrative village seldom makes intergroup land readjustments. If a villa­gers’ group loses a large amount of land due to government land requisition for industrial proj­ects, roads, or urban development, the administrative village can rarely compel other groups to give up land to a group whose land has been requisitioned. As a result, that group alone bears the burden of the land shortage. Meanwhile, land requisition benefits and compensation are distributed only within the group whose land has been taken. Two cases from Fuyuan illustrate this well. One involves a villa­gers’ group called Pingdi. In 1997 almost half of this group’s farmland was acquired by the government for the construction of the Nanning-­Kunming railway. During construction, a railroad station was built close to Pingdi. ­A fter much negotiation, all Pingdi ­house­holds received cash compensation determined by state norms. More impor­tant, ­every ­house­hold received the right to send a person to work for five days a month at the railway station, unloading coal from the trains. The monthly salary was about 300 yuan in 2003, roughly the same amount as a villa­ger engaging solely in farming would earn in a month. As this was a stable job, t­ here was envy by ­people in other groups. The other case involves Waishankou Administrative Village in Zhong’an Township, where Fuyuan’s county seat is located. Recent economic development has caused large-­scale land development in the Zhong’an area.10 In 2014 close to 1,000 mu of land was expropriated from a number of villa­ gers’ groups in Waishankou and was used for developing commercial districts. In previous de­cades the government usually offered meager cash compensation to rural ­house­holds whose land was taken away. This predatory practice has brought about massive protests nationwide.11 During the past de­c ade dif­fer­ent regions have been experimenting with new ways to compensate farmers. In Waishankou’s case, instead of cash, roughly 10 ­percent of the developed land was returned to the villa­gers’ groups whose land

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was taken away. Equipped with power, ­water, roads, and other infrastructure, the returned land is located in f­uture commercial districts. Villa­gers can easily build stores, restaurants, or ­hotels on it. Each group deci­ded how to manage and utilize the returned land. One group, for example, may receive twenty mu back. It could divide the area into smaller plots. All ­house­holds whose land was taken away would be eligible to obtain a plot to build their own stores or restaurants. If the land expropriated from another group was a small piece of wasteland, and if it only received a few mu back, the group could decide to build a store or restaurant on this plot. Profits from the store or restaurant would then be distributed equally among group members. Another villa­gers’ group might have lost a large part of its land to land requisition. The group could decide to reallocate the remaining land among all h ­ ouse­holds and build stores or h ­ otels collectively on the returned land, with profits from the stores and h ­ otels distributed equally among families in the group. Waishankou Administrative Village d ­ id not intervene in such arrangements of its villa­gers’ groups. In eco­nom­ically more developed regions, huge profits associated with land development led to setting up rigorous criteria for defining membership within a natu­ral village community. In Zhejiang Province, for example, the standing committee of the provincial ­People’s Congress issued a regulation in 2007 to delineate the criteria for defining membership in a rural economic cooperative, which was derived from the previous production team. According to this regulation, a person could be defined as a member of the community if (1) he or she has a h ­ ouse­hold registration proving that he or she currently lives in the team/natu­ral village; and (2) the person lived in the community when the HRS was implemented in the early 1980s, the person’s parents w ­ ere members of the cooperative, the person is married to a member of the cooperative, or the person was ­adopted by a member of the cooperative. The Rural Development Bureau of Chongzhou, a city in Sichuan Province, issued membership certificates to villa­gers designating them as members of the current rural cooperative (i.e., the previous production team) (see Zhang Xiaoshan, “Top Priorities in Specifying Rural Land Owner­ship Rights,” Dongfang zaobao [The Eastern Morning Times], February 5, 2013). As the amount of farmland owned by a zhaizi/production team/ villa­gers’ group determines its per capita land, villa­gers’ sense of entitlement to their collective land is very strong, and competition among dif­fer­ent communities for land is keen. If villa­gers feel that their land has been taken

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unfairly, they could take strong action to defend their interests. Both villa­gers and group leaders show considerable solidarity whenever a dispute over land own­ership occurs between natu­ral villages, between a natu­ral village and a government organ­ization, or between the administrative village and its constituent villa­gers’ groups. Even when faced with pressure from the township government, a natu­ral village ­will not necessarily give up land easily. Rather, ­there is often protracted negotiation, as shown by a dispute between a local government organ­ization and a production team in Fuyuan. This dispute dates back to 1956. The parties involved ­were the Fujiacun Production Team in X Township and the X Township Handicraft Cooperative ­under the County Industrial Supply and Marketing Com­pany (xian gognye gongxiao gongsi). The handicraft cooperative was established in 1956, following the central government’s policy of developing rural industry. The cooperative tried to use land from the Fujiaocun Production Team to build a workshop. Both team leaders and villa­gers opposed this, but succumbed to pressure from the then district government. The district head persuaded the team leaders by pointing out that villa­gers would not need to travel far to buy agricultural tools once the cooperative was set up, and that the cooperative would provide the team with f­ ree plows. Ultimately, the team agreed to lend its land to the cooperative, but insisted on retaining own­ership rights. Since its establishment, the handicraft cooperative believed it had county government approval and thus legally owned the workshop as well as the land on which it was built. It offered no benefits to Fujiacun Production Team in return; however, the team insisted that it owned the plot. This deadlock continued ­until 1995 when the handicraft cooperative declared bankruptcy and sold the workshop and the building site to the X township Grain Trading Com­pany for 236,000 yuan. By then, the Fujiacun Production Team had become the Fujiacun Villa­gers’ Group. Insisting that their land had been sold without their permission and without any compensation, the Fujiacun Villa­gers’ Group filed an administrative complaint preparatory to taking the case to court. The county government responded by ordering all related organ­izations to solve the prob­lem. In addition to the two disputing parties, the resolution pro­cess involved the County Urban Construction Bureau, the County Bureau of Land and Resources, the County Judiciary Bureau, the X Township Land Management Office, and the X Township Grain Trading Com­pany. ­A fter two years of negotiation, the county government declared the land transaction between the handicraft cooperative

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and the X Township Grain Trading Com­pany ­legal. Meanwhile, the villa­ gers’ group’s own­ership rights ­were partially if indirectly acknowledged through compensation in the form of one room in the workshop. This room, declared the township government, would serve as the group’s office. In Fuyuan, however, administrative units at the level of the villa­gers’ groups had no offices, as noted previously. The workshop, a large eight-­room building on the main street of X Township, was an ideal place to establish a business. The Fujiacun Villa­gers’ Group could use this room as a store. In southeast China, most natu­ral villages are single-­lineage villages, which often became production teams during the commune era and became villa­gers’ groups in 1984. As lineage villages, ­these communities tend to defend the land rights within their borders even more vigorously than natu­ral villages consisting of multiple lineages. In his anthropological study of land disputes in an administrative village called Tangcun in Guangdong Province, Yang Fangquan (2006) reveals that ­every production team/villa­gers’ group has maintained its physical bound­aries throughout the period of the ­People’s Republic. Yang also reports a several-­decades-­long conflict between two lineage villages/villa­gers’ groups in Tangcun over a small hill, which eventually led to a fight between two villa­gers’ groups, resulting in the death of one villa­ger and the injury of two ­others in 2004. The numerous land own­ership disputes that occurred whenever the Fuyuan County government conducted land surveys for making local maps or for issuing land use rights certificates to rural ­house­holds also illustrate the tenacity with which zhaizi/villa­gers’ groups maintain their territories. When the first national land survey took place between 1984 and 1996, for example, the Fuyuan government or­ga­nized a special work team to conduct a systematic survey of Fuyuan’s land resources. During the pro­cess, 512 land own­ership disputes occurred, the majority of which involved border disputes between dif­f er­ent zhaizi/production teams, or between a zhaizi and a government entity (Fuyuan Xianzhi (1986–2000) 2006, 95). In 2009, as elsewhere in China, Fuyuan began the reform of land use rights to collective forest land, whose main purpose was to contract all collectively owned forests and hills to rural ­house­holds. At this time, a total of 106,000 forest land use rights certificates w ­ ere issued to rural ­house­holds. Meanwhile, the County Forest Bureau handled 1,100 forest disputes, and its main job was to mediate border disputes among zhaizi communities or between zhaizi and other social entities (Yearbook of Fuyuan 2010, 209). Faced with the tenacity and per­sis­tence of zhaizi communities, on most occasions higher levels

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of administration, including the administrative village, township government, or the county government, try not to interfere with the land rights of each natu­ral village/villa­gers’ group. The Collective Land Owner­ship Certificate Yet to be Issued A new development ­will make the relationship between an administrative village and its constituent villa­gers’ groups even more complex: in recent years, more and more villa­gers’ groups have been obtaining formal collective land own­ership certificates (  jiti tudi suoyouquan zhengshu). When the production teams ­were designated the lowest-­level collective land management units in 1962, according to the Four Fixed Policy, their land rights ­were formally acknowledged by the state, and many teams possessed documents proving the bound­aries of their land. However, ­these are not ­legal land own­ership certificates. When the reform of China’s land management system started in the mid-1980s, issuing ­legal certificates to acknowledge the land rights of the three levels of rural collectives—­namely, the township, administrative village, and villa­gers’ group, became a focus of the reform. For instance, the Land Management Law issued in 1986 stipulated that the three levels of ­owners of rural land be issued formal land own­ership certificates. The pro­cess of issuing own­ership certificates, however, proved to be long and arduous. Several f­ actors contributed to slowing the pro­cess. First of all, ­legal certificates would give villa­gers’ groups formal rights over their land and make land requisition by vari­ous levels of government difficult. The villa­gers’ group could then readily act as an in­de­pen­dent social and economic unit in the event of a land dispute. Secondly, surveying and marking the land of villa­gers’ groups is a costly pro­cess and requires both funding and qualified government personnel. Third, administrative villages have been concerned about losing control over rural land once villa­gers’ groups obtain formal status as landowners through the certificates. In Fuyuan, some administrative village cadres told me that they would hold the land own­ership certificates for their villa­gers’ groups if the certificates w ­ ere issued, rather than allowing each group to hold its own certificates. Their explanation was that the certificates should be kept by the administrative village to prevent loss or damage. Some cadres proposed that a certificate be issued directly to ­every administrative village, listing the land owned by its constituent villa­ gers’ groups. In 2011 the Ministry of Land and Resources, the Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry of Agriculture jointly issued a Notice for Speeding up the

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Issuing of Rural Collective Land Owner­ship Certificates, which urged local governments to assist and provide funding for local land management institutions to survey local land conditions and issue land own­ership certificates to all villa­gers’ groups. By the end of 2014 many regions had finished the work. As of January 2015, however, the work was still in pro­cess in most Yunnan counties, including Fuyuan. How the certificates w ­ ill affect the relationship between the administrative village and its villa­gers’ groups and between t­ hese groups and the government or other social organ­ization awaits research. The Land Management Power of the Administrative Village Although the administrative village generally refrains from interfering with land distribution within its constituent villa­gers’ groups and from readjusting land among the groups, it exerts direct control over four major aspects of land management. First, by assisting the township government in organ­ izing and supervising local agriculture, administrative village cadres have substantial control over how farmland in e­ very administrative village is used, even ­a fter farming passed to individual ­house­holds ­under the HRS. In Fuyuan and other rural areas of southwest China, most rural ­house­holds are required to grow tobacco on at least a portion of their land. Other cash crops such as gingko and konjac are strongly recommended by local governments as well. The burden of persuading or even forcing farmers to grow ­these cash crops falls mainly on the shoulders of ­these cadres.12 Second, an administrative village committee member is specifically appointed to be the land management officer (tuguanyuan) with the main responsibility of supervising private housing construction. When a ­family wants to build a new ­house in its original compound or on wasteland, it must apply to the land management officer, who then ensures that the planned ­house site is not on good farmland and is in compliance with vari­ ous laws and regulations. The officer also needs to mea­sure the site. Only ­after this preparatory work is completed ­will the officer approve the application, thereby granting the permission of the administrative village. The officer then forwards the application and fees to the County Bureau of Land and Resources, which makes the final decision to provide a construction permit. Third, when land requisition takes place, the assistance of administrative village cadres is crucial to the government. As they are knowledgeable about local land and population conditions, they can confirm bound­aries

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among natu­ral villages, mea­sure land area, negotiate compensation fees, and help to resettle families who have lost land. Fourth, the administrative village’s power over land management is reinforced through government allocation of compensation fees for land acquisition. In Fuyuan, within a township, villa­gers’ groups own over 90 ­percent of rural land, the administrative villages own less than 5  ­percent, and the township owns about 5 ­percent. However, as of 2014, roughly 25 ­percent of the fees for land acquisition still goes to the administrative village, and 75 ­percent goes to individual ­house­holds in a villa­gers’ group.

Po­liti­cal Differentiation between Administrative Village Cadres and Group Leaders Bounded collectivism not only provided a foundation for sharing land rights between the two levels of village administration, but also led to power differentiation between administrative village cadres and leaders of the villa­gers’ groups. Such differentiation reflects differences in po­liti­cal background, social resources, or personal capacities among individuals, and more importantly, the dif­fer­ent social and economic ties with the local communities and dif­fer­ent sources of po­liti­cal legitimacy of ­these two groups of rural cadres. Administrative Village Cadres as Government Agents An impor­tant ele­ment of China’s rural po­liti­cal reform since the 1980s was to introduce village elections. According to China’s Organic Law of Village Committees (cunmin weiyuanhui zuzhifa), issued in 1988 and revised in 1998 and  2010, the village committee is no longer the lowest level of the  government administrative hierarchy, but is the foundation of self-­ government. Committee members are to be elected by villa­gers and are in charge of village management. The elections ­were designed primarily to rid village administration of incompetent, corrupt, and unpopular village cadres; to increase party grassroots support; and to strengthen party control (Pieke 2004; O’Brien and Li 2000). In Yunnan Province, village-­level reform did not begin u ­ ntil 2000, much ­later than in other parts of China. Before 2000, both the head and members of the village committee w ­ ere directly appointed by township governments. ­A fter 2000 the village committee head and other members of the village committee w ­ ere reportedly elected directly by villa­gers. However, the township government still exerted considerable influence over the elections, and elections ­were often simply a formality.

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Despite ­these changes, it is impor­tant to keep in mind that the appointment of the village party secretary, the top figure in the current administrative village, has always been controlled by the township government. This has been an effective mechanism to subordinate the administrative village to the local government. A party secretary may come from a natu­ral village that does not belong to the administrative village that he or she works in, and administrative village cadres generally derive social and po­liti­cal power from the work they perform for the local government. Leaders of  Villa­gers’ Groups as Community Representatives Unlike administrative village cadres, the leader of a villa­gers’ group is always elected directly by fellow villa­gers, and is invariably a native resident of his or her natu­ral village/villa­gers’ group. Anyone older than eigh­teen can be chosen as the leader. With a very meager monthly subsidy of less than 100 yuan in 2004 and 100 to 150 yuan in 2014, and with far less formal po­liti­cal power than administrative village cadres, this is not a position that ­every villa­ger desires. When no one is willing to accept the position, the administrative village simply appoints a leader. However, this does not mean that the position can be filled by just anyone. In most cases, it is held by individuals with some social, po­liti­cal, or economic resources. The leader can be one of the few high school gradu­ates in the natu­ral village, can belong to a member of a prominent lineage in the community, can run a prosperous private business, or can be a f­ amily member of someone who works in the township government or a higher level of administration. Only with such resources can the group leader gain support in the community; other­wise, “no one in the zhaizi would listen to him,” as one villa­ger explained. Closely related to their native communities and with certain social resources, leaders of villa­gers’ groups tend to see ­things in terms of the interests of their communities. On key village m ­ atters, they may behave differently from administrative village cadres, who tend to be more vis­i­ble in the local po­liti­cal scene and are often regarded by villa­gers more as agents of the government than representatives of their local communities. Group leaders often play a leading role in collective actions to defend their groups’ interests. The case of West Paddy is a good example of ­t hese dynamics. West Paddy is a village group/zhaizi in the ­middle of Fuyuan. In 1999 a private mining com­pany obtained a mining permit from the county government and planned to mine lead and zinc in a mountain at the edge of West Paddy.

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The zhaizi accepted the operation of the mining com­pany in their domain, and many zhaizi members became workers at the mine. Villa­gers ­were also enthusiastic about the com­pany’s promises: (1) to pay the zhaizi 50,000 yuan annually if it made profits and 5,000 yuan if it made none; (2) to pay villa­gers for the loss of crops caused by local road construction; and (3) to pay the agricultural taxes for the zhaizi. ­A fter two years of operation, however, the com­pany was unable to make any profits, and it had fulfilled none of its promises. Worse yet, it did not even have money to pay the villa­gers who worked at the mine. By 2001 the com­pany owed villa­gers a total of 13,000 yuan in wages. Villa­gers in West Paddy w ­ ere outraged, but the com­pany simply ignored their complaints. Fi­nally, the zhaizi deci­ ded to act. Or­ga­nized by the group leader, villa­gers in West Paddy ­adopted ­effective strategies. First, since the mining com­pany had obtained its permit from the county government, villa­gers felt that they would trust higher-­level authorities more. So they appealed to the provincial government in April and May of 2001. Second, led by the group leader, villa­gers twice cut the power lines that transmitted electricity to the mine. As an outlying mountain zhaizi, West Paddy only obtained electricity in 1994 when all the zhaizi families pooled their money (each h ­ ouse­hold paid roughly 300 yuan) and asked the local power com­pany to connect them to the grid. When the com­pany started building mining facilities, it chose not to set up separate power lines so as to save money and time; instead, it linked to the power lines that had been built by West Paddy. Frustrated by the com­pany’s faithlessness, villa­gers felt justified cutting the power. As the villa­gers commented, “We sold our ­cattle, chickens, and eggs to pool money to have the power lines set up. It is ­legal and reasonable that we ­don’t want outsiders to utilize the power lines.” ­A fter their power lines w ­ ere cut, the com­pany simply had them repaired and resumed its operations, ignoring villa­gers’ demands for payment. In July 2001, however, villa­gers took an even stronger action: led by the group leader, over forty villa­gers cut the power lines again and damaged some power facilities, causing over 2,000 yuan of damage. The com­pany called the local police and had the group leader and two other villa­gers arrested. The zhaizi, outraged, submitted a petition with more than one hundred signatures to the provincial government. From that time, the villa­gers refused to pay any agricultural taxes or do any work assigned by the administrative village or the township government.

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The provincial government twice dispatched a work team composed of officials from both the county and township government to West Paddy to ­settle the dispute. Fi­nally, an agreement was reached ­a fter protracted ­negotiation among the mining com­pany, the zhaizi, and the work team. First, the group leader and two other villa­gers who had been arrested ­were released. Second, the com­pany was ordered to pay villa­gers their wages as well as 7,000 yuan to cover the loss of crops caused by road construction. Third, villa­gers ­were ordered to obey the law, focus on agricultural production, and pay outstanding agricultural taxes. Although this settlement did not address all the prob­lems that the mining com­pany had caused the zhaizi, the villa­gers would have surely been much worse off if no collective action had been taken. The case of West Paddy is just one of many local disputes in which group leaders played critical roles in organ­izing collective action. As pointed out earlier, the first national land survey in 1990 and the contracting of forest to rural ­house­holds in 2009 gave rise to many land own­ership and border disputes. The p ­ eople who represented and defended zhaizi communities ­were often the leaders of the villa­gers’ groups. Concerning the key role played by group leaders, a township land management officer commented, “The key to solving land own­ership disputes between village collectives lies in the local cadres. Generally speaking, a dispute ­won’t occur if the cadres ­don’t give it the nod; a dispute ­can’t be solved if the cadres ­don’t agree with the solution.” The local cadres referred to in this comment are villa­gers’ group leaders. Selected, legitimized, and supported by local township governments, cadres of the administrative village are more often government agents than representatives of their local communities. In contrast, current villa­gers’ group leaders, unlike their pre­de­ces­sors (the leaders of production teams), are less vis­i­ble in the formal po­liti­cal scene. Nevertheless, they still have a ­great deal of po­liti­cal leverage. Such power needs to be understood through two facts: first, villa­gers’ groups are not arbitrary units created merely for administrative con­ve­nience in the reform era; rather, their control over land and their historical legacy as communities make them fundamental, stable components of the rural po­liti­cal structure; second, their power lies in their embeddedness in their native communities. Elected by fellow villa­gers and with close ties with their native communities, leaders of the villa­gers’ groups tend to see ­things more from the perspective of their communities than do cadres at the administrative village or higher levels. Better trusted and sup-

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ported by their fellow villa­gers, they often have considerable influence in organ­izing collective actions to defend their communities. Not easily discernable in the formal administrative system, such power suggests a more complex po­liti­cal mechanism and a more nuanced state-­society nexus at the village level than previous studies have shown.

Bounded Collectivism and the Changing Land Market Fuyuan is a hinterland county, located about two hundred miles from the provincial capital. Agriculture is a central economic pillar for most of this county’s 1,770 villa­gers’ groups. When land is used mainly for farming, an administrative village and its constituent villa­gers’ groups share land rights as described above. The administrative village and the government at all levels refrain from interfering with the land rights of a villa­gers’ group. Fuyuan’s situation may be representative of many poor, interior regions of southwest China and beyond. However, ­things are quite dif­fer­ent for administrative villages in suburban areas or eco­nom­ically dynamic regions, where much, if not most, rural land f­aces the possibility of being developed. The passive stance of the higher administration often changes completely when the financial stakes are high. When it needs rural land for urban proj­ects, the government simply takes away the land owned by a villa­gers’ group and offers very low compensation. Depending on the circumstances, the administrative village could comply with and assist the government in land requisition; alternatively, they could take control over the land within their territories and become underground land developers themselves. During the pro­cess, the administrative village could aggressively usurp the land belonging to its constituent villa­gers’ groups or cooperate with their groups to develop the land together. To understand the land rights of t­hese two levels of village administration in booming areas, we need to first look at how the land market in China operates. (Chapter 10 offers a detailed discussion of the operation of the land market.) According to the Chinese Constitution and the Land Management Law, the country’s land is categorized into two types: urban land owned by the state and rural land owned by the village collectives. B ­ ecause of the government’s mono­poly of the land market, a piece of rural land can be put on the market only when it is requisitioned by the government and its own­er­ ship changes from the collective to the state. Once the state owns the land, it can sell its use rights to developers for up to seventy years at a very high

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price. The government and officials at all levels have obtained huge profits from land sales, but villa­gers and their collectives are basically excluded from the benefits brought about by land development. By 2011, forty to fifty million farmers had lost their contracted farmland to development over the previous four de­cades, and compulsory land requisition had generated fierce conflicts and nationwide popu­lar protests, seriously challenging China’s social stability.13 Meanwhile, re­sis­tance to the government’s compulsory land requisition and its mono­poly of land sale profits has taken another form—­the development of an underground land market. Rural Collectives as Land Developers: From Underground to Above Ground When rural land is to be expropriated and put on the market, administrative villages usually comply with the government and provide vari­ous types of assistance.14 However, in some instances, especially in suburban areas or eco­nom­ically developed regions, they may have dif­fer­ent ideas than the government about how the collective land of their communities should be used or developed. In 2004, when I interviewed cadres in H Administrative Village in Fuyuan, the village committee head talked about their hopes of developing the village’s land, including the construction of a commercial housing complex and local rural market. “If we are allowed to develop our land, our village could become a strong economic entity and you would not recognize it when you return in five years,” the committee head told me. While administrative villages in a hinterland such as Fuyuan w ­ ere just beginning to contemplate the possibility of developing their collectively owned land in the new millennium, cadres in coastal Guangdong Province had gone much farther in their experiments—­they have been actively involved in a grey market for rural collective construction land since the 1980s. According to the Land Management Law, rural land is divided into three categories: farmland, collective construction land, and nonagricultural land that includes wasteland, hills, grassland, and rivers. While the use and maintenance of farmland have always been closely monitored by the government to guarantee the nation’s grain production, collective construction land and wasteland are not closely supervised. As a result, cadres in the coastal region frequently engage in secret land transactions to sell the use rights of their construction lands to outside developers. Profits from this grey market not only enrich village cadres but also stimulate the local economy. Such grey markets for rural construction land have expanded so rapidly in

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the new millennium that local governments in the coastal region simply cannot control them. In 2005 Guangdong became the first province to issue regulations on the circulation of village collectives’ construction land, showing its ac­k now­ledg­ment of the rights of village collectives to participate in the land market. In 2008 such rights ­were acknowledged at the central government (Chapter 10 provides a detailed discussion on how this grey land market came into being and fi­nally became ­legal). Conflict and Cooperation between the Administrative Village and Its Villa­gers’ Groups in the Land Market ­Because the majority of rural land belongs to individual villa­gers’ groups, two questions naturally arise when land is to be developed by rural collectives: (1) Who may represent the villa­gers to develop their collectively owned land, the administrative village or the individual villa­gers’ groups? (2) How should the proceeds of land sales be divided among individual ­house­holds, villa­gers’ groups, and administrative villages?15 As of 2015 no uniform policy or regulation regarding the respective rights of the administrative village and its villa­gers’ groups in the land market, as well as regarding the division of land sale proceeds between the two levels of village administration, exists at the national level. Local governments and their rural collectives simply work out their own rules. Most of Fuyuan’s administrative villages are not yet prepared to enter the land market. Several f­ actors have contributed to their inactivity. First of all, most administrative villages lack funds, and villa­gers’ groups are in an even more precarious financial situation. Second, located deep in the mountains and far from any major city, Fuyuan is not in a location where outsiders would be interested in renting land to build factories or residential complexes. Local residents alone are not able to produce sufficient demand for developing land. The slim chance of obtaining profits demotivates village collectives in Fuyuan to become land developers themselves. Currently land development remains in the hands of the local government. My discussion of the relationship between the administrative village and its villa­gers’ groups in the land market, therefore, relies mainly on data from more rapidly developing rural areas in Yunnan Province, as well as from the coastal regions. The data suggest that, when attracted by the g­ reat profits brought about by land development, many administrative villages seek to take over the land of their constituent villa­gers’ groups, resulting in conflicts between the two levels of village administration. But the tenacity with

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which natu­ral villages defend their land rights also leads to compromises and collaboration between ­these two levels. The case of Baodu Administrative Village versus its eighth villa­gers’ group illustrates very well the conflict that can break out between the two levels of village administration. Located sixty kilo­meters away from Fuyuan, Baodu is a suburban administrative village in the city of Qujing. The administrative village attempted to replace its villa­gers’ groups as the owner and l­egal representative of the collectively owned land. This resulted in serious conflicts in 2003. I learned about this case from local newspaper reports and from contacts in Qujing.16 In the early 1990s cadres in Baodu Administrative Village set up the Baodu Industry and Commerce Com­pany, a com­pany collectively owned by the administrative village, with the village party secretary serving as its ­legal representative. In 1992 the com­pany formed a partnership with Yunnan Blue Arrow Automobile Manufactory to build a die-­casting factory. Lacking capital, the Baodu Com­pany offered land to build the factory while the Blue Arrow Automobile Manufactory provided the major funding for equipment and technical expertise. In 1992, 26.5 mu of land was taken from the eighth villa­gers’ group of Baodu Administrative Village to build the factory. In 1995 the com­pany built another auto parts factory. Another eight mu of land was taken from the eighth group. Villa­gers in the group received no compensation. Instead, the village party secretary promised that villa­ gers could use their land to become shareholders in the factories, and that the factories would share profits with the villa­gers; however, the villa­gers never received any dividends from the factories. In 2002, seven years ­after their land was taken, the entire village group, led by seven villa­gers, demanded return of their land. First, they submitted repeated collective appeals to the district government. When the district government failed to respond to their requests, they or­ga­nized a demonstration at the main gates of the two factories and two sit-in demonstrations in front of city hall. Involving more than two hundred villa­gers, each demonstration was well or­g a­nized. In the end, however, not only did villa­gers not recover their land but the seven organizers ­were prosecuted by the local Procuratorate (  jianchayuan) and sentenced to three-­year prison sentences, with two years of probation. This case is a typical one, revealing the conflict and competition between an entrepreneurial administrative village and its constituent villa­gers’ groups in a rapidly changing economic context.

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Similar conflicts ­were found by Yang Fangquan (2006) in his study of land disputes in Tangcun Administrative Village in Guangdong Province. With the surge in land prices in Guangdong since the 1990s, Tangcun Administrative Village required individual villa­gers’ groups to turn their land rights over to the administrative village so that it could rent out their land to commercial agricultural companies and enterprises. As the ­legal representative of the collectively owned land, the administrative village attained the lion’s share of the profit from land renting. Individual villa­gers’ groups resented this encroachment upon their land rights and demanded the right to manage the renting of their own land. Such conflict even gave rise to keen competition over leadership positions in both the administrative village and the villa­gers’ groups. ­There are also cases in which the administrative village did not interfere with the land development arrangements of its villa­gers’ groups. P Administrative Village, for example, is located in suburban Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province.17 A large part of land in P Administrative Village has been expropriated by the government for urban development over the past two de­cades. It became a “village-­in-­the-­city” (chengzhongcun) and was no longer called a village, but named P Neighborhood Community. “Neighborhood community” is the new term for the lowest urban administrative unit, formerly titled Residents’ Committee (  jumin weiyuanhui). None of the villa­gers’ groups in P Neighborhood Community still engages in farming; they have all found ways to develop their remaining land. P Neighborhood Community has largely ­adopted a stance of noninterference with its villa­ gers’ groups’ activities and focuses on h ­ andling vari­ous administrative m ­ atters such as h ­ ouse­hold registration, ­house­hold welfare, dispute resolution, public security, and the like. Its only requirement for the villa­gers’ groups is that they turn in a certain amount of land development profits to the neighborhood community. Each of P Neighborhood Community’s villa­gers’ groups found its own way to profit from its remaining land. Xiaopu Villa­gers’ Group, for instance, has around 1,500 members, and deci­ded to rent the remaining 300 mu of their land to outsiders to build factories. Over two hundred small factories ­were built on their land and more than thirty thousand workers work in ­these factories. Rent from t­ hese factories is distributed equally among group members. Each member, regardless of gender and age, including marryingin ­women, receives between 4,000 and 6,000 yuan in dividends annually.

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Dapu Villa­gers’ Group ­adopted a share-­holding system in 2006. The group pooled the land of all individual rural h ­ ouse­holds and transformed villa­ gers’ land use rights into shares. E ­ very person who was defined as a group member in 2006 was entitled to land shares. The group then built factories, restaurants, h ­ otels, or offices for lease or for their own use. Profits obtained from the premises are divided among shareholders. In this community, marrying-in w ­ omen ­do not receive shares. When a shareholder dies, he or she can pass the shares to his or her ­children, but the shares ­cannot be sold ­under any circumstance. Him Chung and Jonathan Unger (2013) describe the ways in which land rights and profits ­were divided and shared between four administrative villages and their villa­gers’ groups in Guangdong Province. Chen Village is a large lineage village, that is, a natu­ral village with the strongest solidarity among members ­because of their common patrilineal ancestry and surname. It was a production brigade and had five production teams in the Maoist era. In the reform era Chen Village became an administrative village with five villa­gers’ groups. In the 1990s all five villa­gers’ groups combined their land and formed the Chen Village Shareholding Com­pany. The com­pany built factories on their land and obtained huge profits that ­were distributed among members of Chen Village. In contrast, Longtou is an administrative village formed by fifteen natu­ral villages. Each natu­ral village forms a villa­gers’ group. During the urbanization pro­cess over the past few de­cades, the villa­gers’ groups w ­ ere not willing to give up their collective land by pooling it in the administrative village. Rather, each natu­ral village/villa­gers’ group created its own shareholding com­pany that gained ­legal own­ership of its land. Longtou Administrative Village has its own land property and therefore also formed its own shareholding com­pany. The companies formed by individual groups come ­under the purview of the administrative village’s com­pany, forming “a very loose sort of nested conglomerate with dif­fer­ent sets of shareholders and a considerable degree of autonomy for the hamlet companies” (Chung and Unger 2013, 36). Each of the two other administrative villages, Xinxiang and Leide, formed a single shareholding com­pany, managing land development for their villa­gers’ groups. The companies built ­hotels and restaurants on their collective land. Profits obtained from t­hese urban premises are distributed among villa­gers. In Xinxiang, however, villa­gers’ distrust of the administrative village in managing land development brought about disputes. Villa­

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gers pushed the com­pany to clarify how collective assets w ­ ere managed and to publicize its financial rec­ords. When the Xinxiang Shareholding com­ pany failed to respond, villa­gers demonstrated at the entrance of the Xinxiang Administrative Village. As the conflict escalated, the Guangzhou city government intervened. ­Under pressure from both the city and villa­gers, the shareholding com­pany released the demanded information and agreed to amend their redevelopment plan according to villa­gers’ opinions. As we have seen, g­ reat profits from land sales have strongly motivated local governments, administrative villages, and villa­gers’ groups to develop rural land. In the absence of a uniform policy or law defining the respective rights of ­these entities in the land market, a variety of local practices exist, and the relationship between the administrative village and its villa­gers’ groups can be conflictual or collaborative. The development of t­ hese rights is sure to be a significant area of study in the ­future.

PART II

RURAL FAMILIES

CHAPTER 5

What Is ­under the Control of the ­Family?

When considering rural families in the pro­cess of building collective land own­ership, researchers often focus on the fact that collectivization took away privately owned land from individual ­house­holds and that the ­family ceased to be a primary unit of agricultural production when all rural residents ­were forced to participate in collective l­abor. As land own­ership could appear to be a one-­sided arena in which the socialist state dominated, what is often overlooked is the under­lying power of the ­family in defining property relations in the socialist context. My field data demonstrate that the collectivization movement never destroyed the f­ amily as a social unit within the community and that ­family-­centered values have continued to exist and have often ­shaped state policies regarding land use and management during the P ­ eople’s Republic period. Just as zhaizi communities w ­ ere able to demand relatively exclusive own­ership rights over land within their territories, families also exerted impor­tant influence on which aspects of land property relations w ­ ere ­under the control of the f­ amily and which ­under the state. Moreover, land policies during the ­People’s Republic reinforced egalitarianism among rural ­house­holds in regard to such critical life resources as land. The best example to illustrate ­these points is the first major post-­ Mao rural reform—­the House­hold Responsibility System, the creation and implementation of which reveals exactly the resilience and the power of the rural ­family as an economic unit.

In­de­pen­dent ­Family Farming and the House­hold Responsibility System A new institution that significantly changed the social and economic relationship between rural h ­ ouse­holds and their production teams, the House­hold 91

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Responsibility System (HRS) came into being as a result of farmers’ long-­term strug­gle for production freedom.1 In the late 1970s more than two de­cades of collectivization had made the vast majority of rural residents administratively bound to their local collectives. They experienced poverty, severe famine, and economic stagnation. Out of dire need, villa­gers in some poverty-­ridden regions, especially ­those in Anhui Province, secretly experimented with a private lease system. Villa­gers did not demand land own­ ership, but individual ­family farming, and they also guaranteed a certain percentage of their harvest to the government, their production teams, and their production brigades. Th ­ ese underground practices laid the seeds for a new h ­ ouse­hold contract system that would l­ ater transform rural China. The death of Mao in 1976 also provided an opportunity for some po­liti­cal leaders to reform the rural land tenure system. Persuaded by the significant increases in productivity, local government, especially the county and provincial governments, gradually recognized this underground lease system. In the early 1980s the social and economic realities of China pushed the central government to recognize and legalize this new system, which was then officially named the “House­hold Responsibility System” and promoted nationwide. The HRS ended forced collective ­labor and started a new social and economic relationship between rural collectives and their members. ­Under the HRS farmland remains collectively owned, but has been allocated to rural ­house­holds through contracts. Having obtained the use rights of farmland, h ­ ouse­holds emerged as semiautonomous producers operating within a collective framework. In the first few years a­ fter land was contracted to rural h ­ ouse­holds ­under the HRS, rural h ­ ouse­holds generally enjoyed freedom in land use choices, although they had to fulfill the state’s grain quotas. Beginning in the mid1980s local governments in the southwest region have invariably engaged in administrating local agriculture to obtain more local revenue, seriously infringing upon the land use rights of individual h ­ ouse­holds. A major form of government intervention in this region has been compulsory tobacco production. Local governments also promote other cash crops. In Fuyuan’s case, cash crops such as ginkgo, fruits, and konjac have been actively promoted by the local government since the late 1990s. When rural h ­ ouse­holds ­were pressured to grow the government-­promoted products, they feared their contracted land would again be placed u ­ nder collective management, as in Mao’s era. What concerned farmers even more was the fact that the govern-

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ment’s interference with agricultural production often caused considerable economic losses. ­Under t­ hese circumstances, farmers’ re­sis­tance was inevitable. Their frustration and protests have often been expressed through procrastination and noncompliance with required production procedures. In some extreme cases, farmers’ re­sis­tance has erupted into violent protest. Over the course of more than two de­cades, farmers’ vari­ous forms of re­sis­tance have not only caused gradual changes in both tobacco production management and cash crop choice in Fuyuan but have also shown that in­de­pen­dent ­family farming has become irreversible in the post-­Mao era.2 When I asked local officials and village cadres how they would assess the ­future of the HRS and ­whether they thought it would be pos­si­ble to resume collective l­abor, all ­these officials ­were positive that the old way of managing agriculture could never work again. Some said, “Nowadays it is even very difficult to order farmers to grow what the government wants them to grow, let alone order them to do collective ­labor.” The irreversibility of in­de­pen­dent ­family farming in the post-­Mao era has been attested to by the fact that rural ­house­holds’ land contracts ­were renewed for an additional seventy years in 2008. In fact, rural land contracts have been renewed three times since the 1980s. In 1985 the contracts ­were renewed for the first time for another fifteen years. In 1997 the State Council issued a directive that renewed farmers’ land contracts for another thirty years. This directive was ­later included in the revised Land Management Law (1998). ­Under this law, standardized and notarized land contracts ­were gradually given to rural ­house­holds. In 2002 farmers’ rights to their contracted land w ­ ere formally acknowledged by law. The Rural Land Contract Law, issued in 2002 and implemented in March 2003, stipulates ­t hese crucial rights for farmers: (1) farmers are eligible to contract their collectively owned land and no organ­ization or individual is allowed to deprive them of their contract rights; (2) the contract term is thirty years and the village collective may not take back any land during the term; (3) within the contract term, farmers have income rights and circulation rights over their contracted land as long as the land is used for agriculture.3 In 2008 the Third Plenary Session of the Seventeenth Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party issued the Resolution of the CCP Central Committee on Some Major Issues in Rural Reform and Development, which further warrants farmers’ land use rights by providing farmers a

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contract term of at least seventy years. Most rural experts in China expect that the term w ­ ill actually be an indefinite one. In 2012 the central government deci­ded that over the following five years it would gradually issue land use rights certificates to rural h ­ ouse­holds across the country. With a formal land certificate farmers can better defend their contracted farmland ­under many circumstances.

Implementing the HRS at the Local Level The impacts of the ­family on rural land property relations are also manifested in the ways in which the HRS was implemented at the community level. Instead of government directives, land allocation in Fuyuan and most rural areas in China followed three grassroots princi­ples: (1) membership in the then production team, (2) egalitarianism among all eligible members, and (3) the ­house­hold as the land receiving unit. Created by ordinary villa­gers and grassroots cadres to grapple with the issue of distributing farmland—the most crucial life resource—the princi­ples reflect the prevailing attitude of rural ­house­holds ­toward rights, equity, ­family, and community. Guided by t­ hese princi­ples, land allocation ­under the HRS was generally an orderly pro­cess in the overwhelming majority of rural areas of China. My investigation of the distribution pro­cess in Fuyuan reveals that most villa­ gers supported t­ hese princi­ples and considered the 1982 land allocation fair. With the zhaizi/team as a relatively exclusive social and economic community, being acknowledged as an eligible member of the team was the first condition to receive land in 1982. Chapter 2 examined the first princi­ ple, that is, how production team membership was carefully defined in the pro­cess of land allocation ­under the HRS. This chapter focuses on the latter two princi­ples. The Princi­ple of Egalitarianism among Community Members Egalitarianism has always been a major moral basis for resource distribution in China’s rural society. The phi­los­o­pher Lao Zi expressed the desire for egalitarianism more than two thousand years ago: “In­e­qual­ity rather than want is the cause of trou­ble” (bu huan gua, er huan bujun). This desire for equality was reinforced by the social and economic environment of rural China, which was characterized by resource scarcity and economic uncertainty. An egalitarian attitude ­toward the most basic means of livelihood, such as land, continued to prevail throughout the twentieth ­century. When the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) fought against the Nationalist Party

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during the war period, the CCP successfully used the slogan “Fight the local despots and redistribute the land” (datuhao, fentiandi) to secure the support of poor rural residents and mobilize the masses. One of the goals of the land reform from 1947 to 1952 was to achieve a roughly equal private own­ership of land among villa­gers. L ­ ater, rural collectivism in the P ­ eople’s Republic reinforced the desire for equality among villa­gers who w ­ ere members of production teams. In fact, the collective era created a legacy of production teams meeting the subsistence needs of all team members. For example, basic consumption needs w ­ ere given to team members on an equal basis. Foodstuffs w ­ ere first apportioned to individual h ­ ouse­holds on the basis of the number of mouths to be fed, without considering their contribution to the teams’ output. Only the cash from sales of team produce to the state was distributed in accordance with the work points a f­ amily had accumulated over the crop cycle. House­holds would fall into debt to their team if they failed to accumulate enough work points to pay for the foodstuffs they received (Kung and Liu 1997). In the post-­Mao reform period, villa­gers’ desire to fulfill basic needs within the community largely remained the same. For most villa­gers who still relied on agriculture as their primary source of income, an equal share of land was their only means of guaranteeing their basic consumption needs. Within this context, it is not surprising to see that the demand for egalitarianism continued to underpin the 1982 land distribution u ­ nder the HRS. In Fuyuan, farmland was divided into two categories—­rice paddy and dry land. Each category was further divided into dif­fer­ent grades (good, medium, and poor) according to its soil quality and distance to the zhaizi residential area. Each team member born before or in 1982 was eligible for an equal share of both rice paddy and dry land, regardless of gender or age. ­Every ­house­hold, pooling together the shares received by all its members, drew lots to get a plot from each grade of rice paddy or dry land. This egalitarian method was strictly followed during the initial land allocation in 1982. The allocation pro­cess in Fuyuan took several months and was generally peaceful. Most villa­gers I interviewed had no complaint or question about the fairness of the pro­cess. In fact, some village cadres joked to me about the egalitarian method, saying “If it ­hadn’t followed a fair and equal method, we would have had a riot at that time, given that every­one was hungry and utterly poor.” Xin Liu described a similar egalitarian land distribution pro­cess in the rural community of Zhaojiahe in Shaanxi Province in 1981.

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The re­distribution rested on three major princi­ples. First, each person was entitled to the same amount of land, and an effort was also made to give exactly the same share of good and bad land to each ­family; in proportion to the size of each ­house­hold. Second, all the representatives from each h ­ ouse­hold had to agree at e­ very stage before taking the next step in re­distribution. Fi­nally, the assignment of par­tic­u­lar pieces of land was determined by lot, which was called zhuazidan (draw the bullet). (2000, 158)

­ fter the 1982 land distribution, rural h A ­ ouse­holds in Fuyuan had three types of land: (1) farmland received in 1982, often called contracted land (chengbaodi); (2) “private plots” (ziliudi) received in the 1960s; and (3) “fodder plots” (siliaodi) that teams allocated to their members in the 1970s and early 1980s. Fodder plots are often sloping land or unused, less-­fertile land that was secretly allocated to team members by the cadres. Since the higher level of administration often knew nothing about it, this kind of land was ­free from all tax obligations. While egalitarianism was highly emphasized, two issues need to be kept in mind. First, most w ­ omen would face challenges to maintain their shares of land a­ fter the initial egalitarian allocation, as discussed ­later in this chapter. Second, flexibility, rough mea­sure­ment of land, and local customs also characterized the allocation pro­cess. It was common for a f­ amily that lacked ­labor power to request smaller but more level and fertile plots instead of plots equal in size to ­those of other ­house­holds. On the other hand, a ­house­hold with many unmarried sons would most likely give up some of their fertile rice paddy in order to get more dry land or a larger, less-­fertile paddy. ­These families could then use intensive ­labor in the fields to improve soil conditions and increase crop yields. The mea­sur­ing pro­cess used when dividing the land could be inexact. In many of the plots, boundary markers w ­ ere not carefully set up to distinguish land contracted to dif­fer­ent families. ­These rough mea­sure­ments resulted from the uncertainty about the HRS that both ordinary villa­gers and rural cadres felt. Many villa­gers and cadres did not want to spend time on careful mea­sure­ments; they preferred to quickly complete land allocation so each h ­ ouse­hold could start production before the policy changed back to that of forced collective ­labor. As one villa­ger commented, “We ­didn’t mind that one plot was a bit smaller than the other. The most impor­tant ­thing was to let our ­family grow several seasons of crops before the land had

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to be returned to the collectives.” With the meager dry land, some cadres did not even carry out on-­site mea­sure­ments; they simply called on the ­house­holds concerned and told them how to divide the land. Moreover, land was not mea­sured strictly by physical size. In Fuyuan, as in many rural areas in Yunnan Province, p ­ eople usually use the amount of grain seed that can be sowed in a piece of land to determine its size. A mu of dry land could also be a plot large and fertile enough for a dou4 of corn seed. As a result, the area of a mu of land differed from place to place, depending on soil conditions. All ­these ­factors contributed to the flexible and inexact mea­sure­ment of land among the ­house­holds. ­A fter the initial land allocation in the early 1980s, rural land tenure in China can be divided into two types—­stable land tenure and periodic egalitarian reallocations among h ­ ouse­holds in a community. F ­ actors that decide ­whether a community would reallocate its land mainly include the topographic features of an area and the degree of pressure for more agricultural income for ­house­hold subsistence (Kong and Unger 2013). In hilly areas, such as Fuyuan, as well as most areas in southwest China, ­every piece of farmland has individual characteristics. Fields are dif­fer­ent from each other in the amount of sunshine each receives, soil quality, distance from the residential area of the community, and so on. It thus became very difficult and complicated to reallocate the land to achieve an equal per capita landholding a­ fter the original land allocation in the early 1980s. Village cadres in Fuyuan ­were generally opposed to any major land readjustment ­because of the ­great amount of effort that could be spent in ­doing this. Each ­house­hold in Fuyuan has kept the share of land it received in 1982, despite changes in ­family composition caused by birth, death, or marriage. This land policy is often referred to as one of “no increase of land when the ­family size increases; no reduction of land when the ­family size decreases” (zengren bu zengdi, jianren bu jiandi). In contrast, periodic reallocations of farmland have been carried out well into the new millennium in the northern plains or the central part of China, where land resources are scarce and population density especially high. Based on surveys of more than six hundred villa­gers’ groups in Anhui Province, Kong and Unger (2013) found frequent land re­distribution practices during the period from 1984 to 2008. Their research reveals that the major reason for reallocating land among ­house­holds was internal, deci­ded upon by communities to retain the initial egalitarian per capita distribution. The rationale of t­hese communities for reallocation was that, as families

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underwent demographic changes over time due to births, marriages, or deaths, t­ hose families that increased in size would have inadequate land, whereas ­house­holds that decreased over the years would have more land than needed. “The appeal to families’ long-­term economic interests was sometimes reinforced with appeals to equity” (Kong and Unger 2013, 11), causing land reallocation once ­e very few years. The choices of ­t hese communities recall the logic guiding peasant economic be­hav­iors in small communities as described by James Scott in his The Moral Economy of the Peasant (1976). Since the 1990s the central government has actively promoted the stability of rural land tenure relations for the purpose of encouraging large-­ scale farming and more efficient land use. Not only ­were rural ­house­holds’ contracts renewed for another thirty years in 1999 but land readjustment has since been highly discouraged, if not prohibited. In mountainous areas, such as Fuyuan, this new land policy was easily implemented ­because no land readjustment had been carried out since the early 1980s anyway. However, in the north and central regions, farmers’ preference for egalitarian landholding prevailed, and land readjustment continued long ­after the central policies that discourage readjustment w ­ ere issued. It is impor­tant to keep in mind that land re­distribution declined sharply in the north and central regions in the new millennium. In addition to the central policies that prohibit land readjustment, recent changes in the rural economy have contributed to this change. As more and more young villa­gers have migrated to cities for urban jobs, the population pressure on farmland has been significantly reduced, which has led to much lower pressure for land re­distribution (Kong and Unger 2013). The Princi­ple of the House­hold as the Land Receiving Unit Prior to the Communist victory in 1949, families and the widely existing private corporate groups such as patrilineal ancestral associations, schools, ­temples, guilds, religious socie­ties, and sworn brotherhoods ­were the ­owners of land in rural China, rather than individuals (Bernhardt 1999; Cohen 2005e; Freedman 1966; Ocko 2004). During the P ­ eople’s Republic period, the traditional practice of vesting property own­ership to the ­family continued to influence how land was distributed in rural communities during dif­fer­ent social and po­liti­cal campaigns. In Fuyuan, for example, the hallmark of the completion of the land reform was the issuance of land certifi-

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cates to rural families in 1952. The names of all ­family members ­were listed on the certificates regardless of gender or age, signifying that all owned the land. However, the certificate was issued on the basis of a h ­ ouse­hold. Once they received the land certificate, the rural h ­ ouse­hold became the private owner of the land. U ­ nder the vastly changed social and economic contexts of rural collectivization, the ­family continued to be an economic unit with property as its foundation, although privately owned land was taken away. The fact that the work point earnings of individuals w ­ ere considered ­family property and paid directly to the f­ amily head confirmed the f­ amily’s property holding status (Cohen 2005c). More than three de­cades ­later, the same princi­ple channeled land distribution ­under the HRS, and therefore the ­house­hold (hu) constituted the receiving unit. ­Every villa­ger had the right to receive a share of land from his or her production team and land allocation was calculated in terms of individual entitlement, but the individual land right was abstract b­ ecause the share of land an individual received was made to ­house­holds and effectively held by ­house­holds. ­Every ­house­hold, pooling together the shares received by all its members, drew lots to get a plot from each grade of land. It was the ­house­hold head who received the total amount of land allocated to the entire ­family. On the team’s land registry or the land contract issued to ­house­holds, the major items ­were the name of the h ­ ouse­hold head, the number of members in the ­house­hold eligible for land allocation, and the amount and location of land distributed to the h ­ ouse­hold. ­There was no specification of individual f­ amily members’ rights. For example, even though a person knew that he or she was given 0.5 mu of rice paddy, he or she was not able to determine which plots belonged to him or her among all the plots contracted to the ­family. The only way to identify one’s plots was through traditional ­family division procedures.

Constructing Domestic Property Relations through Generation and Gender To understand ­family division, including the division of land, it is impor­ tant to understand the Chinese concept of f­ amily. The Chinese word for ­family in its Mandarin pronunciation is jia. The jia can refer to three ­dif­f er­ent forms—­t he administrative ­house­hold, the residential ­house­hold, or the corporate economic jia. For most ordinary rural families, the jia is a corporate kin group displaying a g­ reat deal of variation in residential

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arrangements and in the economic ties among its members. In the jia, all male members are united not only by kinship, but also by claims they have on ­family property, making it pos­si­ble for property to be divided between dif­fer­ent administrative or residential ­house­holds (Cohen 1976, 57–59). Most ­house­holds go through a changing developmental pro­cess, during which ­family division ( fenjia) is an inevitable and critical stage.5 Instead of state laws, dividing property within the f­ amily is deci­ded primarily by two long-­held norms: (1) only males can inherit ­family property, except in rare circumstances; and (2) equality exists among the sons only. Each son receives an equal share of f­amily property when the f­amily divides, regardless of their age, marriage status, or residential arrangement. Meanwhile, each adult son is responsible for supporting his parents during their elder years. ­Daughters can help their el­derly parents, but they are ­under no obligation to do so. The basic rights and responsibilities of each gender and generation within the ­family are set up through ­these rules. Property division within the ­family proceeds by following ­these rights and responsibilities. In regions where farmland is subject to reallocation ­every few years according to demographic changes in the ­house­holds, individual families cannot treat their contracted farmland as a kind of f­amily property. However, in regions where relatively stable land tenure has been maintained since the implementation of the HRS, land has become a quasi-­family property to be divided among ­family members when parents age or die, and when ­children grow up, marry, and set up their own h ­ ouse­holds. The long-­held norms regarding ­family division, as described above, also apply when a ­family tries to divide its contracted farmland. Moreover, f­ amily division is considered “­matters within the f­ amily”; government at all levels generally takes a stance of nonintervention ­toward the traditional arrangements of domestic property relations. Although the state has used its formidable power to promote dramatic changes in society and the economy, it has tolerated or even accepted certain customary practices and arrangements in rural life, the most impor­tant of which are ­those regarding domestic residence and f­ amily property. So it is not a surprise to find that the state’s ­legal codes such as the Land Management Law (1998), Rural Land Contract Law (2002), Law of Succession (1985), or the Property Law (2007), play a very small role in shaping the pro­cess of ­family division in rural communities. Domestic property relations have become an arena in which the state generally refrains from intervening.

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Dividing Land between Generations In Fuyuan, farmland is passed from one generation to another mainly through males,6 and the division and succession of land can occur within the ­house­hold that originally received land in 1982 or among ­house­holds that separately received their land in 1982 but belong to the same corporate jia. ­Under rare circumstances, land can also pass from one lineage member to another. Property Division between F ­ ather and Sons Living in the Same House­hold When farmland was contracted to villa­gers ­under the HRS, ­family members received their land shares through the same h ­ ouse­hold contract and w ­ ere represented by one h ­ ouse­hold head. As the general trend of f­amily life in rural China is ­toward early residential separation of parents and sons, most rural h ­ ouse­holds begin their ­family division when the oldest son marries. At that point, the majority of parents are still active and not yet totally reliant on their sons for support. All f­amily property, including land, ­will therefore be divided equally among the parents and each of their sons. The parents’ land is often called “land of old-­a ge support” ( yanglaodi). Younger, unmarried sons may still live with the parents, but their shares are clearly stated. Before the parents die or the younger siblings come of age, ­family division can be regarded as danguo, or “go it alone.” 7 Adult sons often have the responsibility of supporting younger siblings as well as their parents. Only a­ fter their parents die and all young siblings are married is the f­ amily division considered clear-­cut. As each of the sons marries, they take their share of land and f­amily property and leave their parents’ home to live and work in­de­pen­dently. All sons need to fulfill their responsibility of supporting their parents, even when the parents are still capable of working. For example, the ­house­hold of each married son should provide an equal amount of cash, grain, wine, sugar, and other materials to the parents e­ very year. The amount of t­ hese supplies varies among families and usually cannot cover all of the parents’ living expenses. Nevertheless, they do provide financial relief. As the parents age, the sons w ­ ill start to share some of the heavy work in their parents’ fields, as well as medical expenses if the parents become ill or injured. Harsh economic and social realities force most parents in Fuyuan to work ­until they are simply unable to continue. During fieldwork I saw men

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and w ­ omen in their eighties still ­doing light agricultural work. As a resident in Huangnihe Administrative Village told me both jokingly and sadly, “We farmers d ­ on’t retire.” When they cannot work in the field anymore, the parents’ land is divided equally among their sons.8 The parents thereafter become the “collective dependents” of all sons (Cohen 1976, 74–75, 213). I observed three methods of old-­age support in Fuyuan. Two are traditional arrangements: the parents ­either move to live with one of the sons or take turns living with each of their sons. The third method is a recent trend: more and more parents choose to live in­de­pen­dently, facilitated by the custom that allows parents to keep their share of f­amily property, including land and a ­house, from an earlier ­family division, as well as by the increasing preference for personal space and privacy between the generations.9 Regardless of which arrangement is chosen for the parents’ old-­age support, strict equality in terms of rights and responsibilities exists among the sons, which means each of them is expected to provide an equal amount of support to the parents and to receive an equal share of the parents’ property. If the parents take turns living with each of their sons, their ­house and other property is divided equally among the ­brothers while they are still alive. If they live in­de­pen­dently, the parents receive an equal share of financial support from each son, and their property, including land, w ­ ill be divided among the sons when they die. If the parents move in with one of their sons, the other sons are obliged to provide equal shares of financial support. Again, each son is entitled to a share of the parents’ property when the parents pass away. Fi­nally, all sons are responsible for the burial expenses of their parents. A son who fails to fulfill this responsibility ­will put his share of the parents’ property in serious jeopardy. Property Division between F ­ ather and Sons Living in Dif­fer ­ent House­holds In this case the parents and their adult sons ­were already living in separate ­house­holds when they received land in 1982. The government considered the parents and their sons as belonging to dif­fer­ent administrative ­house­holds. As a result, the parents and their sons received land through dif­fer­ent land contracts and ­were represented by dif­fer­ent ­house­hold heads. Still, ­t hese ­house­holds can decide how they ­will redivide land among themselves. For example, when the parents become el­derly or are close to death, they can divide their property, including land, among all their sons. This kind of land succession between parents and sons involves the transfer of land use rights

What Is u­ nder the Control of the ­Family?     103

between administratively in­de­pen­dent ­house­holds. Nevertheless, considering t­ hese arrangements as a ­family ­matter, village authorities or government at any level generally do not intervene with or prohibit such land successions. In most cases neither the ­family nor the village authorities even bother to rewrite a new land contract. Inheritance within a Lineage Kathryn Bernhardt differentiates property inheritance in late imperial China into two types—­household division and patrilineal succession (1999). Bernhardt’s research reveals that “mandatory nephew succession” became a ­legal requirement in the early Ming Dynasty. Based on age-­old established social practices, this imperial law required all sonless families to establish a lineage nephew to be the patrilineal heir to the f­ather. In the Republican period, the old mandatory nephew succession was overturned by the new civil code, which d ­ id not recognize the property claims of patrilineal kin and granted ­women the same inheritance rights as men. The Succession Law of the P ­ eople’s Republic similarly endorses individual property rights and gender equality. In real­ity, however, property inheritance in ­today’s rural China continues to follow the age-­old practices. House­hold division strictly follows equal division among sons of the ­fathers’ property, as discussed above. Property of families without sons often goes to a patrilineal kin. The following two examples from Fuyuan show how land can be passed from one lineage member to another without the intervening of the village authorities or the government. The first example involves land succession between a nephew and his paternal u ­ ncle. In 1982 Zhang Guowu, his wife, and his d ­ aughter received 10 land as a ­house­hold. An alcoholic and a loafer, Zhang Guowu paid ­little attention to his fields, and his ­family fell into severe poverty. His wife left him several years a­ fter the land allocation, and his young d ­ aughter was given to a f­ amily far away for adoption. Living alone at home, Zhang Guowu did not change his drinking habits. A few years ­later he died of alcoholism. With no son of his own, Zhang Guowu was buried by his paternal nephew, Zhang Liyan, who ­later took over all of Zhang Guowu’s land. When I interviewed Zhang Liyan, I asked why he could inherit his u ­ ncle’s land with no intervention from his villa­gers’ group or the administrative village. Zhang Liyan was surprised by my question, asking, “Why should anyone have an objection to this arrangement? I buried my ­uncle, just like his son.”11 Fulfilling one’s burial responsibility to one’s parents or other el­derly lineage members

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thus constitutes an impor­tant precondition for property succession. Such customary arrangements ­were generally accepted by fellow villa­gers and village authorities. The example of Li Xiangsheng, which involves an agnatic relationship several generations removed, is more complicated.12 Li’s paternal grand­father was one of three ­brothers in the Li ­family who together made their ­family prosperous in the l­ater Qing period. They eventually became a prominent lineage in Fuyuan during the Republican period. Li Xiangsheng’s grand­ father was the eldest of the three b­ rothers. The second ­brother left Yunnan in the early 1920s and became prosperous in Zhejiang Province, eastern China. He started a new f­amily in Zhejiang and eventually settled t­here, although he already had a wife, Xiaoshi, in Fuyuan. Xiaoshi, however, did not remarry. She lived by herself in Fuyuan and survived all the po­liti­cal changes. When land was distributed in 1982, she received a share of her own as a single-­person ­house­hold. Over the past half-­century, most ­family members of the three b­ rothers gradually left Fuyuan to seek better lives and work opportunities in the cities. Li Xiangsheng and Xiaoshi, the grandnephew and the grandaunt, w ­ ere the only ones in the Li lineage still living in Fuyuan. Therefore, when Xiaoshi died in 1988, Li Xiangsheng was her closest agnate living nearby. Li Xiangsheng buried her and took care of all related m ­ atters. As a m ­ atter of course by the local standards, Li Xiangsheng took over Xiaoshi’s land. To fellow villa­gers and village cadres, this was a Li ­family m ­ atter: Li Xiangsheng fulfilled his responsibility as a grand­son and was thus eligible to receive Xiaoshi’s land.13 Gendered Access to Land Although a w ­ oman can receive a share of farmland once she is recognized as a member of a production team/zhaizi, she w ­ ill have to rely on both community and f­ amily membership to access land resources, making it very difficult, if not impossible, for her to hold her share of land in­de­pen­dently. As pointed out previously, land allocation ­under the HRS in Fuyuan followed three princi­ples: (1) membership rights; (2) egalitarianism; and (3) the ­house­hold as the land-­receiving unit. The egalitarianism princi­ple, which is largely based on the survival ethic, guaranteed that each team member born in 1982 or before was eligible for an equal share of farmland, regardless of gender and age. As a result of this princi­ple, ­every ­woman in the team/zhaizi, be she a young ­daughter or in-­marrying wife, received an equal share of land. Throughout my fieldwork, I did not find any female team/zhaizi member

What Is u­ nder the Control of the ­Family?     105

whose right to receive land was denied by her team in 1982. In Huangnihe Administrative Village, for example, even an old, childless w ­ idow with a then stigmatic landlord f­ amily background received her share of rice paddy and dry land. Ellen Judd’s study on rural land allocation u ­ nder the HRS in Shangdong Province similarly confirmed this egalitarian survival ethic. For example, in Huali, a large natu­ral village in Shandong, land was allocated to team members in 1986 this way: The roughly 1,050 mu of land remaining to Huali at the end of 1986 was divided into several categories. The scarcity and value of land resulted in allocations being precisely defined to two decimal points. ­Every eligible w ­ oman and man [my emphasis] in the village at the time of the reallocation was entitled to 0.67 mu of good quality land, which is referred to as each person’s “food grain land,” although it is actually used to grow both grain and cotton. . . . ​Each person registered in the village [my emphasis] is also entitled to a separate 0.1 mu of “vegetable land.” (1994, 29)

However, gender equality during the initial land allocation did not ­really provide a means for ­women to hold their shares of land in­de­pen­dently throughout their lives. Two major f­actors—­the age-­old practice of patrilocal residence and norms regarding ­family division—­curtailed ­women’s land rights. As pointed out above, ­women are generally excluded from receiving ­family property. When a ­family divides, an unmarried ­daughter ­will not be given a share of the f­ amily property, be it the land, ­house, furniture, or other ­family belongings. U ­ ntil she marries, she lives with her parents and is supported by both her parents and her married ­brothers living in their separate ­houses. If the parents have already died, she ­will live with one of her married ­brothers, and her other b­ rothers ­will also provide financial help. When a d ­ aughter marries, she often leaves her natal community to live with her husband’s ­family in his community ­because of the custom of patrilocal residence. If she was born in 1982 or before and received a share of land from her team/zhazi, her share of land would stay with her natal ­house­hold and would commonly be ­under the control of her ­father and be divided among her ­brothers when her parents die. For a person born ­after 1982, the team/zhaizi normally would not allocate any land to the person, ­unless the team/zhaizi happened to have extra land. If this person is a man,

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he and all his b­ rothers (if he has any) w ­ ill receive an equal share of the land originally received by the ­family when his parents pass away. But if the person is a ­woman, the ­family ­will not pass any land to her. When an out-­marrying ­woman moves in with her husband’s ­family, the team/zhaizi of her husband normally does not provide her with any land, ­unless the team/zhaizi happens to have extra land. If the married c­ ouple still lives with the husband’s f­ amily, she works the land held by the ­whole ­family; if the ­couple lives separately from her parents-­in-­law, she works her husband’s share of the land. I once asked the local cadres ­whether they thought such a practice was fair for ­women; most thought it was. Their rationale was that from the perspective of the ­whole zhaizi, ­daughters who marry outside of the zhaizi do not take their shares of land with them, so that their shares of land can be left for the ­daughters-­in-­law marrying into the zhaizi. The cadres noted that if ­daughters marrying out of the zhaizi took their land with them and ­daughters-­in-­law brought in the land from their natal zhaizi, managing land would become very complex, and cadres’ work burden would be significantly increased. Although the majority of villa­gers I interviewed support t­ hese gendered arrangements regarding land allocation, t­hese practices have severely curtailed ­women’s economic security and in­de­pen­dence. ­Women are forced to rely on community and f­amily membership, both of which ­w ill change if they get married, to access land resources. Before a ­d aughter marries, her right to use land is based on her membership in her natal f­ amily, and she cannot demand an equal share of land when the ­family divides. ­After she gets married, her right to use land lies in her marital relationship with her husband. It is impor­tant to point out ­here that in regions where land was subject to periodic reallocation to achieve an equal per capita landholding in a production team or villa­gers’ group, in-­marrying ­women could receive their shares of land when reallocation took place. Kong and Unger’s study on egalitarian land reallocation in Anhui Province (2013) reveals that each ­house­hold in a production team or villa­gers’ group received an equal amount of land on a per capita basis. In her study of Lu Village, a community located in a valley area in central Yunnan Province, Laurel Bossen noted that three land re­distributions had occurred (1986, 1990, and 1995) since the original allocation of land ­under the HRS in 1981. During each round of land allocation, land held by each h ­ ouse­hold would be readjusted according

What Is u­ nder the Control of the ­Family?     107

to demographic changes caused by birth, death, ­daughters marrying-­out, and d ­ aughters-­in-­law marrying-in. Each w ­ oman in the community, as long as she was registered to a community (­whether by birth or marriage), had a right to a share of the land. In fact, “the presence of w ­ omen, w ­ hether they be ­sisters, ­mothers, wives, or ­daughters, entitles a ­house­hold to additional land allotments” (2002, 97). However, in the new millennium, as land reallocation has gradually decreased in most parts of China and even come to a stop in some regions, most rural ­women’s situations are just like ­those in Fuyuan—­they have no means of in­de­pen­dently holding their shares of land; they rely on ­family relationships to access land in a community.14 ­Because of this, if a ­woman loses her f­ amily relationship (typically through divorce), any claim she makes for land use rights w ­ ill be questioned or even attacked. Kong and Unger’s Anhui research (2013) shows that many villa­gers’ groups they investigated ­would not allocate a new portion of land to w ­ omen who return permanently to their natal communities due to divorce. The situation faced by ­women who divorce and continue to live in their ex-­husbands’ communities can be illustrated by the dispute in the Chen ­family in an Administrative Village in Zhong’an Township in Fuyuan. I observed the court proceedings of this case in summer 2003. To understand this dispute, the situation must be traced back more than twenty years. Chen Xiaozhu and his wife Sun Xiaoyao have a total of four sons and two ­daughters.15 When land was distributed in 1982, their eldest son, Chen Jiahua, was already married and lived separately from his parents. Therefore Chen Jiahua and his wife, Liu Xiaofang, w ­ ere counted as an in­de­ pen­dent ­house­hold and received their share of land. Chen Xiaozhu and Sun Xiaoyao, together with their three young sons and two d ­ aughters, received land as another h ­ ouse­hold. When his ­house­hold divided in 1983, Chen Xiaozhu divided the land into four shares, one as old-­age support land for himself and his wife, and the other three for his three younger sons. The youn­gest son, however, died some years ­later without marrying. Chen Xiaozhu therefore took back the youn­gest son’s share. In 1996, when Chen Xiaozhu was seriously ill and close to death, he called on his remaining three sons as well as other impor­tant agnatic kin. He then divided the deceased youn­gest son’s share equally among the three remaining sons. The eldest son Chen Jiahua received a 0.4 mu plot, and he and his wife have since cultivated that plot. Considered a f­ amily ­matter, this inter-­household

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division of land was not opposed by the village cadres. When the second round of contracting agricultural land took place in 1999, the villa­gers’ group acknowledged the eldest son Chen Jiahua’s use rights over this plot and assigned its agricultural taxes to his ­house­hold. In 2002 Chen Jiahua and and his wife Liu Xiaofang divorced. Since he was not willing to raise their four ­children, his wife took all the responsibility. Jiahua agreed to leave all the land to Liu Xiaofang, but she did not insist on having the agreement in writing. ­A fter the divorce, Liu Xiaofang was no longer considered a member of the Chen f­amily. Sun Xiaoyao, her former ­mother-­in-­law, immediately demanded that Liu Xiaofang return the plot that had been given to the ­couple in the 1996 ­family division. Liu Xiaofang refused. Supported by her three sons, Sun Xiaoyao sued Liu Xiaofang in court for violating her land use rights. In her complaint Sun Xiaoyao demanded two ­things: first, Liu Xiaofang should return the land given to the ­couple when the Chen ­family divided its property in 1996; second, Liu Xiaofang should pay for the crop she harvested from the disputed land. During the court proceedings, both disputants failed to submit sufficient evidence and l­egal documents, especially the renewed land contracts; the court therefore dismissed the case and urged the disputants to obtain all necessary certificates from their villa­ger’s group and the County Bureau of Land and Resources. It is clear that if ­women’s families break up, they face the threat of losing their land. In the social and cultural context of rural China, where natu­ral villages are bounded communities with restricted membership, and where a patrilineal kinship system puts w ­ omen in a subordinate position within the f­ amily, ­women’s land rights have been prescribed at two levels— the natu­ral village level and the ­family level. At the natu­ral village level, while ­women have normally been given equal access to community land, their memberships in the community are also subject to redefinition when they enter into marriage or when they lose their ­family relationship through divorce. ­Women can lose their land ­after the redefinition of their membership. At the more intimate ­family level, age-­old norms often deprive ­women of the right to keep their shares of land when they marry. This practice prevents land from being taken away from one natu­ral village community to another. A community’s land is thus effectively preserved within its bound­ aries through the gendered access to land within the ­family. ­Women’s land rights are thus often curtailed by the prescribing mechanisms at both the community and ­family levels.

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Contestation and Change in the ­Family Norms and practices that structure domestic property relationships are not static; neither are they always accepted without question or challenge. As social circumstances change, ­people’s perspectives and practices also change. The first change in domestic property relations that I noticed during my fieldwork was in parents’ attitudes ­toward their old-­age support, as well as ­toward their ­daughters. An increasing number of parents claim that their old-­age support land ­will go to c­ hildren who dutifully support them in their older years, instead of simply being divided equally among the sons. Such pragmatism offers an opportunity for ­daughters, who traditionally cannot claim rights over their shares of land when a ­family divides. Parents can give their land to the d ­ aughter who takes care of them in old age. In the field, I often heard parents saying that d ­ aughters ­were now more filial than sons. While this may not always be the case, such attitudes nevertheless reflect the common concern about the tensions caused by two generations living together. Although in recent years an increasing number of parents are choosing to live in­de­pen­dently, most el­derly parents ­either live with one of their sons or take turns living with each of their sons. Any of ­these arrangements can put a burden on the relationship between the parents and the sons’ families. Since d ­ aughters do not have to live with their parents, they tend to have a smoother relationship with their parents than do their ­brothers. This good relationship, along with the parents’ pragmatism, enables some ­daughters to become successors of their parents’ property, including land. In e­ very zhaizi I had been to, ­there ­were at least a few families who gave their ­daughters a share of land when the ­daughters married. ­These ­women ­were often ­those who married within their natal zhaizi, in which case taking their shares of land to join another zhaizi was not involved. A second change is that, although equality has been an impor­tant princi­ple guiding property relationship among ­brothers, it may be difficult to maintain in the rapidly changing social and economic context of the reform era. A f­actor that could easily lead to conflicts among b­ rothers over ­family contracted land is the increase in social mobility and economic opportunities that may allow some c­ hildren to leave rural areas and forfeit their shares of land. The most common disputes occur between b­ rothers who have left their rural communities to work in the cities for a long period of time, if not permanently, and ­brothers who live in the rural areas and have been

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working on their ­family-­contracted farmland. When the ­family divides, ­brothers still living in the rural area tend to reject the requests of their ­brothers living in the cities for an equal share of f­ amily land. The former often feel it would be fair to take the major part, if not all of the land, ­because their urban-­living ­brothers already have “rice bowls” in the cities, and h ­ ave not borne any responsibility for the farm work. The above changes, along with a changing l­egal system that emphasizes individual rights and new ­legal institutions available to ordinary ­people for settling disputes, have led to increased contestation among f­ amily members over property. In the previous case of the former m ­ other-­in-­law versus her former d ­ aughter-­in-­law, the d ­ aughter-­in-­law, Liu Xiaofang, learned to use all pos­si­ble l­egal recourses. While her ex-­mother-­in-­law was accompanied and supported by her three sons in court, Liu Xiaofang hired a l­egal representative from the Fuyuan County ­Legal Assistance Office. The ­legal representative effectively defended Liu Xiaofang’s rights, which was one of the f­ actors that led the court to dismiss the case. In 1986 the Fuyuan County Court handled 396 civil cases, and the number increased to 1,362 in 2013 (Fuyuan xianzhi 1986–2000, 335; Yearbook of Fuyuan 2014).16 In short, increased wealth and consumerism, the emergence of a youth culture, the expansion of off-­farm employment opportunities and social mobility, and a changed ­legal environment in the reform era all constitute a changing social context in which deviations from tradition occur. ­These changes, which often involve w ­ omen and the younger generation, are certain to encounter re­sis­tance and thus cause contestation among ­family members.17

CHAPTER 6

The Economic Resilience and Predicament of Rural Families

In the social and economic context of rural China, the importance of the ­family lies not only in its being a framework for property own­ership, but also in key features of the ­family economy, such as managerialism, diversification, and commodification, that have had major implications for ­China’s rapid economic development in recent de­cades (Cohen 2005a). Meanwhile, many social and economic f­actors have prevented the rural populace in China’s interior regions from reaching prosperity. ­These ­factors include policies that have enabled the government to extract massive rural resources to support industrialization and urbanization, a l­abor surplus caused by China’s extremely large population base, and very limited land resources. In this chapter I use Fuyuan’s rural h ­ ouse­holds as an example to shed light on both the resilience and predicament of rural families in the new social and economic contexts of the post-­Mao era, and to reveal farmers’ views on the roles of land and farming in their lives.

The Economic Resilience of Rural Families Prior to Communist rule, dominant cultural patterns in f­amily life w ­ ere largely of l­ater imperial derivation. The ­family constituted a corporate unit that created, deployed, and managed its property and h ­ uman resources in a highly commodified context. During the first few de­cades of the ­People’s Republic, rural collectivization and the ­house­hold registration system made rural residents administratively bound to their collectives and deprived them of opportunities for diverse economic activities. During the post-­Mao reform period, the rural ­family, with its sophisticated skills in managing and diversifying economic resources and opportunities, has become one of the 111

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major ele­ments contributing to China’s recent rapid economic development. The lives of the majority of the rural populace have also changed in several key areas, which can be illustrated by the experience of Li Xiangsheng,1 a resident of Huangnihe Township, as well as the experiences of many other villa­gers in Fuyuan. ­A fter the rural h ­ ouse­hold reemerged as the primary unit of agricultural production, the majority of them w ­ ere able to quickly eliminate the hunger prob­lem. As Li Xiangsheng vividly remembered, a­ fter his ­family received their land ­under the HRS in 1982 and ­after just one crop cycle, the harvest was unbelievable. “The yields ­were five times the yields during the collective era,” Li told me, “for the first time our ­family was not worried about hunger.” In Fuyuan County, the average annual grain yield remained at seventy to eighty million kilograms during the twenty years of collectivization (1958–1978). Soon ­after individual rural ­house­holds ­were freed from collective l­abor and charged with their own production, the county’s grain yield reached a rec­ord high of 158 million kilograms in 1984 (Fuyuan Xianzhi 2006, 122). In the same year, the total national grain output was 407.31 million tons, up by 33.6 ­percent compared to 1978 (Wu Jinglian 2004, 101). Also, instead of focusing only on agriculture, rural h ­ ouse­holds in the post-­Mao period actively diversify their ­family economies. Li Xiangsheng’s ­family is an excellent example to show how diversification and good management have significantly helped rural ­house­holds to better their lives. 2 Li’s h ­ ouse was located on the main street of Huangnihe, which is a market town for the nearby zhaizi, and t­ here is a market ­every Sunday. As soon as private business policies loosened up in the mid-1980s, Li began to use his front room as a small grocery store. This small store constituted one more source of income for Li’s ­family. In 2001 Li built a two-­story home on the old site. With a much larger ­house, Li was able to start two dif­fer­ent businesses. First he set up two rooms where local el­derly ­people could play mahjong; he provided tea and electricity. Each mahjong ­table, consisting of four ­people, paid Li half a yuan to play one round of the game. Li’s second new business was to rent the front room to a local f­ amily as a bakery, which produced an annual rent of 2,000 yuan in 2003. As soon as ­these new businesses ­were established, Li and his wife quit most of the farming as well as raising pigs; Li rented out his plots to other villa­gers. He provided me with a comparison between farming and other economic activities. In 2003 he earned about 500 yuan e­ very month from the mahjong business. With that money he could buy about one thousand

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jin of corn in 2003, three times the yield from one of his corn fields (about 0.7 mu). In a telephone interview in 2011 he told me that he had expanded and upgraded his mahjong business. He had added two more rooms to attract more ­people. More importantly, he had spent more than 20,000 yuan buying mahjong machines that can automatically shuffle and send cards to the four players at a ­table. With this upgrade, more fellow villa­ gers came to play at his mahjong place, and he raised his charge for playing a round of the game from the original half a yuan to three yuan. “I am making a lot more money now,” Li told me, though he was not willing to tell me how much more he had made from his expanded mahjong business. Agricultural production accounted for over 80 ­percent of Fuyuan’s gross output value between the 1950s and 1970s, but dropped to 57 ­percent in 1987 and to less than 10 ­percent in 2012 (Fuyuan xianzhi 1986–2000, 110– 111).3 In 1980 only twenty-­one small private ­family businesses existed in the ­whole county, but the number had reached 3,237 in 1987 (Fuyuan xianzhi 1986–2000, 107). By 2010 ­there was a total of 12,369 private businesses in the county (Yearbook of Fuyuan 2011, 162). The situation in the nation as a ­whole is similar. While the share of China’s gross rural output from agricultural production dropped from 68.6 ­percent in 1978 to 46.8 ­percent in 1988, other businesses operated by individual families in fields such as construction, transportation, and commerce grew steadily, as proven by the increased availability of goods and ser­vices across the country. The diversification of economic activities brought more cash income for rural families. In 1980 China’s rural per capita net income was only 85.9 yuan; by 1985 it had increased to 398 yuan, more than a fourfold increase in five years (Wu Jinglian 2004, 103). All t­ hese social and economic changes prove that the traditional pattern of ­family organ­ization has been a major ele­ment in farmers’ current pursuit of economic prosperity. In addition to engaging in diverse economic activities locally, seeking employment in urban areas has become another major ave­nue for increasing income. The rapid development of rural township and village enterprises absorbed almost one hundred million rural laborers in the 1980s. Urban development has provided another one hundred million jobs for workers from rural areas since the 1990s u ­ ntil the beginning of the new millennium (Philip Huang 2006, 121)​. ­In other parts of China, migrating for urban jobs started as early as in the early 1980s. In Fuyuan, however, it was not ­until the new millennium that large number of villa­gers started to leave for urban jobs. In

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2003 less than 10  ­percent of ­people in the three administrative villages (Yizuo, Desheng, and Huangnihe) where I conducted my fieldwork sought urban employment. According to the estimates made by village cadres who I interviewed in 2014, the average percentage of ­people in the villages who became mi­grant rural workers was around 30 to 40 ­percent. Again, for Li Xiangsheng, finding nonagricultural employment for him and his ­children has also been an impor­tant strategy. Li had two sons and two d ­ aughters. Three of the ­children obtained urban jobs—­t he elder ­daughter ran a private business in the provincial capital, Kunming; the elder son worked for the township government; and the younger d ­ aughter taught at the township elementary school. Only Li’s younger son remained a rural resident in Huangnihe. Li was ­until his early thirties “an outright farmer,” holding a rural residence registration. In 1981 he obtained a job as a janitor at a local ­middle school through the connections of his stepfather and other relatives. He performed a variety of odd jobs such as cleaning the classrooms, cooking for the school’s dining hall, and ringing the bell for classes. This position provided a very meager but stable monthly wage, critically improving his cash resources in the 1980s. Although Li retired many years ago from the m ­ iddle school, with three c­ hildren having stable cash incomes and with his ­family businesses, he proudly observed that his ­family was now among the better-­off families in Huangnihe.

Constrained Small ­Family Farms and Rural Poverty Despite the resilience of the rural f­amily economic organ­ization, and despite the fact that three de­cades of reform have lifted 250 million ­people in China out of absolute poverty and hunger, it w ­ ill still be a long while before the majority of the rural residents in the country’s vast interior regions, who rely primarily on farming to make a living, achieve prosperity. Li Xiangsheng’s economic success lies in the fact that he and his c­ hildren ­were able to find vari­ous business opportunities and off-­farm jobs. However, for ­those villa­gers who must rely on farming, the story is very dif­fer­ent. Zhang Xiaoqin’s ­family, also living in Huangnihe, is a good example.4 All of Zhang’s ­family, the parents and their three ­children (two sons and Zhang Xiaoqin, the youn­gest, a ­daughter), ­were rural residents with no stable incomes from jobs other than farming. Moreover, lacking funds and social connections, ­running a small business was impossible for them. The Zhang ­family’s strategy to increase their meager income was to cultivate more land. In addition

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to the land they received in 1982, they also rented other villa­gers’ land. In 2003 they cultivated three mu of paddy fields and five mu of corn fields, of which one mu of paddy and two mu of corn ­were rented from other families. Their only advantage was l­abor power: two adult sons and two head of ­cattle. The Zhang ­family’s annual income in 2003 was about 4,000 yuan, only enough for the minimum amount of food, clothing, and shelter. When one son planned to marry in 2004, the ­family ran into serious financial difficulty. As a result, their ­daughter had to be sent to work as a ­house­maid in Kunming. The wage the ­daughter earned provided precious extra income for the ­family, but the ­family continued to face financial difficulties. In 2008, Zhang Xiaoqin’s two b­ rothers also left for Kunming and joined the hundreds and thousands of rural mi­grants working in the city. Zhang Xiaoqin’s parents remained in Huangnihe and continued to farm. Most villa­gers in Fuyuan live in barren mountains where opportunities for off-­farm employment or small businesses are very limited, if not impossible. If they ­do not choose to be mi­grant workers, ­these villa­gers ­will face the same fate as the Zhang ­family—­farming is their major means of making a living, and poverty constitutes one of the greatest challenges in their lives. In Huangnihe Administrative Village, which is a market town located in the fertile Huangnihe valley, the average annual per capita income was 2,300 yuan in 2004 and 5,800 yuan in 2010. In the mountain villages, however, it was around 1,500 yuan in 2004 and barely reached 3,000 yuan in 2011 (Yearbook of Fuyuan 2005, 299; 2011, 328​). In 2013 the average per capita income of the rural population in Fuyuan was 6,978 yuan, whereas that of urban residents in the county seat and township seat was 22,246 yuan.5 If we consider some statistics at the national level, the issue of rural poverty is even more apparent. In 2007 China’s average rural per capita income was only 4,140 yuan (about U.S. $500),6 only slightly higher than the international poverty line of  U.S. $1.25 a day at 2005 prices. Although this figure increased to 8,895 yuan in 2013, it was significantly lower than the average urban per capita income of 26,955 yuan.7 So, why ­can rural ­house­holds not obtain substantial income from farming? Or, to put it another way, why are small f­ amily farms not profitable? A number of profound po­liti­cal, historical, and economic f­ actors, which I w ­ ill describe below, have caused the devaluation of farming and have contributed to rural poverty. Affected by ­these ­factors, small-­scale farming can provide only a subsistence livelihood with very limited economic prospects.

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Policy Barriers Farmers’ rights to obtain a fair income from farming have been compromised by a series of government policies that have set up a structurally unequal distribution of income from agriculture since the beginning of the ­People’s Republic. The major policies include excessive rural taxes and fees, heavy resource extraction from rural areas through an implicit price differential between industrial and agricultural products, the government’s low investment in agriculture, the government’s administrative intervention in agricultural production, and the massive land requisition by the government in the reform period. Chapters 9 and 10 examine the last two issues in detail. China’s first Five-­Year Economic Plan (1953–1957) was a replica of the Soviet industrialization strategy that put strong emphasis on developing key capital-­intensive, heavy industries. In order to extract a surplus from agriculture for industrialization, the government deliberately lowered agriculture’s terms of trade with industry, creating the “price scissors”—the price differential between agricultural and industrial products. This unequal exchange between agricultural and industrial products was made pos­si­ble by socially and eco­nom­ically dividing rural and urban areas through policies of compulsory grain procurement, fixed prices for agricultural products, food rationing, and the h ­ ouse­hold registration system (see Selden 1993a, 215). From 1957 to 1978 about half of the central government’s revenues came directly or indirectly from agriculture, and the resources extracted from agriculture through price scissors totaled 512 billion yuan (Wu Jinglian 2004, 104). Throughout the Maoist era, the rural population was eco­nom­ically devastated by this deprivation. From 1957 to 1978 annual rural per capita income increased from 73.37 yuan to only 133.57 yuan, an average annual increase of less than three yuan. Taking inflation into account, the ­actual annual increase in rural per capita income was only about one yuan (Wu Jinglian 2004, 104.) In 1978, four years before the HRS was implemented, most rural families hardly owned any property except for their h ­ ouses. Meanwhile, the government’s investment in agriculture has been very low. Low investment has brought many serious prob­lems to the agricultural sector, including outdated production technology, inadequate ­water conservation facilities, stagnation of farmland construction, and lack of a rural social security system. In the early years of the post-­Mao reform period, agricultural investments ­were higher than ­those in the collective era. Since

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the 1980s, however, they have decreased steadily. A ­ fter decentralization of the nation’s fiscal system in the 1980s, local governments became the primary investors in local agriculture. Given that agriculture tends to have a longer production cycle, most local governments prefer to put their funds in industrial and commercial proj­ects that can yield faster returns. Although China’s Agricultural Law requires that the increase of local governments’ investment in agriculture should be higher than the increase in their revenue, ­there has been no effective central mechanism for supervising local governments’ be­hav­ior. In 2003 the government’s agricultural investment reached its lowest point; only 7.12 ­percent of total government expenditures was invested in agriculture (Gao, Zhang, Dong, and Luo 2006, 64). Facing increasing rural discontent and unrest, the Chinese government began making a series of policy adjustments in 2004. In 2006 the agricultural taxes w ­ ere abolished nationwide. In Fuyuan the tax and fee reform formally began in July 2003, and the county government abolished the agricultural taxes in 2004. Fuyuan’s per capita payment of rural taxes and fees dropped from the previous 42.48 yuan to 14.58 yuan (the current 14.58 yuan mainly represents the special products tax for tobacco) (Yearbook of Fuyuan 2005, 208). The burden on farmers has been alleviated a­ fter the reform; however, the reform has by no means solved the fundamental prob­ lems that led to heavy rural taxes and fees ­because it has not eliminated the root cause—­the bloated organ­izations and redundant government personnel at the grassroots level and the government’s continued heavy resource extraction from rural areas. A ­ fter the rural tax and fee reform, revenues of townships and villages ­were reduced, but their expenditures remained unchanged. The pressure of fund shortages w ­ ill soon drive local governments to impose new taxes and fees on farmers if no further po­liti­cal reform is implemented to reduce the continuous expansion of township governments nationwide. In 2006, u ­ nder the po­liti­cal slogan of “building the socialist new countryside” (  jianshe shehui zhuyi xinnongcu), the central government began to systematically invest funds in the agricultural sector and claimed that its rural policies would now follow the “six character princi­ples” (liuzi fangzhen): “less extraction, more support, and more freedom” (shaoqu, duoyu, fanghuo). More changes occurred in 2008 a­ fter the Third Plenary Session of the Seventeenth Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party passed the Resolution of the CCP Central Committee on Major Issues in Some Rural Reform and Development (the 2008 Resolution). One major focus of the resolution is developing an effective mechanism to secure agricultural investments made

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by all levels of government. Starting in 2009, the government’s rural investment focused not only on agricultural production but also on rural public undertakings, which included expanding the percentage of the rural population that can access the electrical grid, increasing rural road construction, improving rural drinking ­water safety, and sharing renewable energy technology such as biogas.8 From 2010 to 2015, the central government’s agricultural policies, as reflected by the first documents issued by the CCP central committee at the beginning of each year (zhongyang yihao wenjian), focused on dif­fer­ent aspects of China’s agriculture and rural development, such as ­water conservancy, rural financial system, agricultural technology, and subsidizing grain production. Despite ­these changes, ­there is still a long way to go before any significant improvement can be realized and before the economic gap between rural and urban areas can be reduced, if not closed. ­ actors Constraining the Productivity of Small ­Family Farms F To understand why the majority of rural h ­ ouse­holds in China’s interior regions still face a serious poverty prob­lem, we also need to examine the productivity of the numerous small f­amily farms that have supported China’s agriculture since the early 1980s. A series of f­ actors have constrained the productivity of t­hese small ­family farms, including ­labor surplus, land fragmentation, lack of funds, lack of formal organ­izations to represent farmers’ interests and coordinate large-­scale cooperation among farmers, and d ­ ifficulty in reaching outside markets. In other words, ­factors causing ­agricultural involution and rural poverty in pre-1949  north China and the Yangtze Delta continue to affect small f­amily farms even in the new millennium.9 ­L abor Surplus Over the past half c­entury Fuyuan’s population has increased almost fourfold—­from about 21,030 in 1949 to 80,460 in 2013. The speed of population growth far exceeded the increase in grain production. Between 1949 and 1987, for instance, Fuyuan’s farmland expanded considerably through reclaiming wasteland and forests, from 506,900 mu to 693,300 mu, an increase of 36.77 ­percent. Per mu grain output increased from 64.5 kilograms in 1949 to 189.24 kilograms in 1987. However, as each unit of farmland must support more p ­ eople, the county’s per capita grain output dropped from 294 kilograms in 1957 to 268 kilograms in 1987 (Fuyuan xianzhi

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1986–2000, 107). Since the 1990s, with the improvement of agricultural technology and the increasing use of chemical fertilizers, per capita grain output increased to 390 kilograms, a 43 ­percent increase compared to 1987 (Yearbook of Fuyan 2011, 191). Still, with more p ­ eople than needed engaged in farming, it is hard to achieve l­abor efficiency, and underemployment has become inevitable in rural areas. To alleviate the prob­lem of l­abor surplus, ­family economic diversification has been a key strategy used by rural families, which enables rural ­house­holds to rationalize ­labor division among ­family members, increase ­labor efficiency, and improve the productivity of their farms. For most rural families, t­ here are two main ways to diversify the ­family’s economy and reduce surplus ­labor—­conducting small ­family businesses and seeking off-­ farm jobs in urban areas. Small businesses such as restaurants, as well as construction work and transportation provide the extra ­labor force with job opportunities. However, ­these small businesses have also been burdened by a surplus of l­abor. For example, numerous Fuyuan families have opened restaurants, grocery stores, and traditional medicine stores in the county seat, the township seats, and even a larger village community. I observed some small restaurants in the county seat during my fieldwork and found that a small restaurant with no more than five t­ ables tended to have more ­people than needed to take care of the business; the restaurant not only has numerous waitresses but also persons soliciting customers outside the restaurant, young men offering a f­ree car wash to p ­ eople willing to eat at their restaurant, and old ­people selling vegetables harvested from their home gardens. One could even buy ­these fresh vegetables and let the restaurant cook them. Such small businesses w ­ ere obviously ­doing their best to absorb as many extra laborers as pos­si­ble. If unable to launch their own ­family business due to lack of funds or other social resources, rural residents had to migrate to urban areas for jobs. Land Fragmentation The emergence of small f­ amily farms nationwide was the direct result of the implementation of the HRS. Since then, the general trend is more fragmented farmland and ever-­smaller ­family farms, caused by a combination of ­factors, including tension between the extremely large population base and the very limited land resources that have existed for many centuries, the egalitarian land distribution ­under the HRS, and the long-­held tradition of dividing ­family property, including land, equally among all sons

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within a f­amily. From 1986 to 1999 a Chinese rural h ­ ouse­hold held about seven small plots on average, totaling between 0.53 to 0.61 hectares (Tan, Qu, and Heerink 2005, 205–206). Among the more than twenty ­house­holds I interviewed in Huangnihe Administrative Village alone, the highest number of plots received by a ­house­hold was eleven, and the lowest was six. Huangnihe is located in a valley area. The average number of plots held by ah ­ ouse­hold living in the mountains is even higher. Th ­ ese small and scattered plots greatly reduce the efficiency of ­labor and land management. To maintain bound­aries between fields owned by dif­fer­ent families, numerous banks of earth have been constructed. As estimated by the staff of Fuyuan’s agricultural bureau, at least 5 ­percent of farmland is used for this purpose, which is quite a large amount of waste if we consider this number from the perspective of the entire county or nation. Since each f­ amily’s fields are scattered in dif­fer­ent locations, much time that could other­wise be devoted to ­labor is lost in travel. Small plots also make farmers’ work inefficient, especially when applying fertilizers and pesticides or harvesting. Fragmented land also makes the mechanization of farm work very difficult, if not impossible. Lack of Funds Lack of funds is another obstacle that prevents farmers from improving their work conditions and moving t­ oward larger-­scale production. Fuyuan’s konjac production is an example. Although Fuyuan farmers have achieved better incomes from growing konjac than from other crops, most ordinary ­house­holds cannot afford to produce greater yields ­because of the high cost of konjac seeds.10 The majority of ­house­holds can afford to grow only two to three mu of konjac. In 2007 ­there ­were only eight ­house­holds that grew more than one hundred mu of konjac, and around two hundred h ­ ouse­holds grew more than ten mu. In 2014 the number of h ­ ouse­holds growing more than ten mu of konjac increased to over four hundred, but this still only accounted for a very small percentage of all the h ­ ouse­holds growing this 11 crop. ­Unless farmers can find a way to generate large-­scale specialized commercial agriculture, they ­will continue to encounter barriers to higher income. Obstacles to Reaching Outside Markets “Small farmers vs. big markets” is another dilemma faced by farmers (Wu Jinglian 2004, 112). In­de­pen­dent specialized farmers’ economic organ­ izations that can represent farmers in finding and negotiating with outside

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markets do not yet exist in most of China.12 Fuyuan is no exception. The overwhelming majority of farmers in Fuyuan live in the mountains. ­Unlike villa­gers in the more-­developed coastal areas who can take advantage of the networks and financial resources provided by their overseas relatives, Fuyuan’s rural h ­ ouse­holds generally lack the social and financial resources to form large-­scale production organ­izations, set up pro­cessing factories for raw products, or connect with larger outside markets. Local products and crops are used for e­ ither ­house­hold consumption or for sale in nearby small markets. As early as the 1990s some local families in Huangnihe became prosperous by pro­cessing noodles. They used locally grown wheat to pro­cess noodles in their home workshops and sold them to the local markets. Their success inspired many families to set up their own noodle workshops. Over a period of five years the local rural markets ­were saturated with noodles, but ­t hese noodles did not attract urban customers such as ­t hose living in the county seat or nearby cities who ­were more familiar with noodles ­pro­cessed by food factories. Soon most of the f­amily workshops w ­ ere out of business. The same situation occurred between 2008 and 2009, for example, when some villa­gers in Huangnihe Township grew ginger and earned a good income from sales in local markets, motivating many ­others to follow their lead. The local markets w ­ ere soon again saturated, but most ginger growers ­were unable to sell their products to outside markets. Consequently, the price of ginger fell, causing most growers to stop growing it. During my fieldwork I was contacted many times by ­either county officials or village cadres who wished that I could help them find markets for local products, making me realize the challenge of establishing connections with outside markets for most rural ­house­holds in Fuyuan.

Farmers’ Ambivalence ­toward Land and Farming Farming as Subsistence Living and the Land as Safety Net For most of Fuyuan’s rural residents, who have generally lagged b­ ehind in their attempts to develop local industry, land is closely related to agriculture. Affected by the ­factors discussed above, agriculture in Fuyuan remains small-­scale farming and can only provide a subsistence living. Since the early 1990s, many villages in Fuyuan have tried to grow more profitable cash crops such as konjac and vegetables. Still, ­these new choices have not yet developed into large-­scale commercial agriculture. Thus, beyond providing the

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minimum amount of food, clothing, and shelter necessary to support life, the contribution of such small-­scale farming to the ­family economy is limited. In fact, the more prosperous families in Fuyuan do not rely on agriculture, but on off-­farm opportunities. With a deep understanding of the limited income to be attained from farming, ­people in Huangnihe often jokingly say that one can easily judge ­whether a ­family is rich or poor by taking a look at their farmland. The ­family whose field is neatly maintained with a crop growing well is definitely a poor one ­because farming is obviously the only t­ hing they can do. On the other hand, the ­family whose field is in such bad shape that snakes crawl around in it is most likely making enough good money that they can afford to ignore farming. This joke reflects a double irony b­ ecause, traditionally, the fields in better shape would be seen as reflecting positively on the owner. Now this joke reveals the importance of off-­farm jobs to the economic well-­being of the ­family. Li Xiangsheng similarly talked about the limited contribution of agricultural activities to the improvement of the ­family’s financial situation. He vividly remembered his ­family’s happiness when they first received their land in 1982. However, ­after the first few years following the HRS, Li’s ­family, like all other villa­gers in Fuyuan, gradually gave up the hope of becoming prosperous through agriculture even u ­ nder the new reform policies. Through the 1982 land allocation u ­ nder the HRS, Li and his ­family received 2.5 mu of rice paddies, 2 mu of sloping dry land, and a c­ ouple of small vegetable gardens. His land was dispersed among eight small plots in dif­fer­ent locations. The farthest was one kilo­meter from his ­house. Even so, according to Li, the agricultural land in his zhaizi, which is located in a small valley area, was much closer to residential areas than in most nearby zhaizi located in the mountains. Li usually grew rice, corn, and vegetables on his plots. To show me why it did not pay to do agricultural work, Li compared the profit from farming with the salary of his youn­gest ­daughter, who taught at the township elementary school. His ­d aughter earned 1,000 yuan a month in 2003. As of that year, ­after deducting the expenses for agricultural taxes, seed, fertilizers, and pesticides, one mu of rice paddy yielded a profit of around 500 yuan and corn around 300 yuan. Li noted, “What she makes in a month equals what our peasants earn from a w ­ hole year’s hard work in two mu of rice paddy. It is just so hard to be a farmer.” The profits from a mu of rice or corn increased only slightly in 2014: a mu of rice yielded a profit of 550 yuan and corn 380 yuan.

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In addition to farming, the majority of villa­gers also raised pigs b­ ecause they could feed pigs corn, fodder growing on the margin of the fields, and daily leftover food from the ­family. Income from raising pigs was very meager as well. Villa­gers always said that raising pigs was a way to “save petty money to get a large sum” (lingqian zan dunqian). Li Xiangsheng described to me how small the earnings can be. At the local market a pig could sell for 1,000 yuan in 2003. However, a­ fter deducting slaughter taxes and expenses for fodder (­here the ­labor was not counted as an input), one earned about 550 yuan. “It is like earning one and a half yuan a day,” Li complained, “even so, I must get up early ­e very morning to prepare food for the pigs, clean the pen, and carry the manure on the shoulder pole to the fields. It is backbreaking work and t­ here is no break throughout the year.” The profit from raising a pig r­ose to 800 yuan in 2014, which means a daily income of five yuan. Therefore, u ­ nless it is a pig farm with hundreds of pigs, a ­family with a few pigs would not improve their income significantly. Although disappointed by the poor economic prospects of agriculture, rural ­house­holds in Fuyuan nevertheless hold tightly to their land. This ambivalent feeling t­ oward land is caused by the harsh social and economic realities in rural areas. ­Under the HRS, universal access to land provides the rural populace, especially the poor, with a safety net that ensures subsistence. Without access to stable off-­farm employment, most rural h ­ ouse­holds in Fuyuan still consider land essential to their life. When facing any life challenges such as health prob­lems, old age, or debts, land is usually their last resource. In fact, even affluent families are unwilling to give up their land. When I asked Li Xiangsheng ­whether he thinks land is indispensable to their ­family, he said, “Definitely it is impor­tant.” Although his f­amily’s major income no longer comes from the land, his biggest concern was the social and economic uncertainties faced by the rural populace. His younger son was still a rural resident with no stable cash income. For the time being his f­amily business was d ­ oing well but it was not guaranteed, nor was his older ­daughter’s private business in Kunming. All of their businesses ­were small in scale, so any change in state policy or the market could strike them hard. Only land is relatively stable and accessible. As Li commented, “In the worst situation, we can at least return to our land and make a livelihood from the soil.” Kong and Unger’s research on 476 villa­gers’ groups in Anhui Province (2013) similarly shows that 76.5 ­percent of the groups continued to make

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land available to families who moved to the cities for urban employment, ­because “access to land back home has provided a much wanted safety net for mi­grant families. . . . ​It is an option that many village ­house­holders obviously wish to keep open” (2013, 13). The ambivalent attitude that the majority of rural ­house­holds hold ­toward land and farming has deeply affected the development of the market for agricultural land use rights in the post-­ Mao reform period. Lack of Involvement in the Market for Agricultural Land Use Rights Two types of rural land markets exist in China: one for circulating farmland for more efficient agricultural production, and one for selling farmland for industrial and commercial use and urban development. The Chinese government promotes t­ hese two types of markets for dif­fer­ent social and economic purposes. Farmers’ responses ­toward ­these markets also differ. ­Here I ­will focus on the first type of land market, also called the market for agricultural land use rights (nongdi shiyongquan shichang). Chapter 10 discusses the second type. Three features characterize the market for agricultural land use rights: (1) a transaction only changes the person who can use the involved land, the villa­gers’ group retains own­ership of the land; (2) the land remains in use for farming ­after the transaction; (3) the purpose of the transaction is for efficiency and con­ve­nience of land use. Through this market, farmers can rent, subcontract, swap, or transfer the agricultural land they originally contracted from their village collectives. In promoting this type of market, the government hopes that land can be concentrated in fewer ­house­holds, allowing for relatively larger-­scale farming and thus changing the land fragmentation and small-­scale farming that have long impeded China’s agricultural development. However, the development of this type of land market has been inconsistent and stagnant b­ ecause of the low involvement of rural ­house­holds. Only a very small percentage of farmers are involved in transactions such as swapping, renting, or subcontracting; and t­ hese transactions often occur within local communities and without ­going through formal ­legal procedures. In 1998 the Ministry of Agriculture conducted a survey on farmland circulation in eight provinces. According to this survey, only 3 to 4 ­percent of farmland was circulating among farmers. In the beginning of the new millennium, the rate of farmland circulation in the coastal provinces had reached 8 ­percent (Huang Xiaohu 2006, 237). It is reasonable to estimate

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that the rate was lower in the interior regions. According to the statistics provided by the Ministry of Agriculture, the rate increased to 26 ­percent by the end of 2013, but the increase in many regions was caused by the intervention of local governments.13 Most rural ­house­holds ­were still not willing to let other ­people farm their land. Among the ­factors causing rural ­house­holds’ low involvement in circulating farmland, the most impor­tant one is farmers’ ambivalent attitude ­toward land and farming—­while farmers cannot afford to give up their land, they are not enthusiastic about farming due to the low agricultural profits. Most farmers ­do not consider expanding farming as a practical way to increase ­family income, and surplus ­labor often flows to urban areas for temporary, unstable jobs. As a result, both land supply and demand are very limited in rural areas. Another f­ actor contributing to a limited market is the lack of a feasible and effective mechanism or institution through which farmers can obtain information about land supply and demand outside their local communities. The need to circulate farmland among villa­gers within a community is often very limited. It is also difficult to set a price that reflects supply and demand, further impeding formation of a mature market. In Fuyuan, for example, a renter usually pays half of the harvest from the rented plot, a practice based on long-­held customs rather than the real market price. In Fuyuan, mainly three types of farmland circulation exist. The first is swapping (huhuan). When farmland was distributed to rural ­house­holds in Fuyuan in 1982, each h ­ ouse­hold received plots of good, medium, and poor quality. ­These plots ­were usually scattered within the zhaizi. Swapping occurs to improve production and management con­ve­nience. For example, two families could each have a plot far from their home but close to the other ­family. ­These two families could then swap their plots. The swapped plots are generally equal in soil quality and distance to irrigation. The second method of circulation is subcontracting (zhuanbao), which refers to a transaction in which the original contracting h ­ ouse­hold contracts their plot(s) to another villa­ger. The subcontractor pays rent to the original contractor. In Fuyuan, payment for subcontracting is seldom made in cash; farmers pay through the produce harvested from the subcontracted plot. Right ­after the harvest, the two families meet at the field and divide the yield equally. Usually the subcontractor does not have to deal with the village administration, and the contractual relationship between the original contractor and his or her village administration does not change ­a fter subcontracting has taken place. A good income from off-­farm jobs is a

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precondition for letting a ­family subcontract their land. Generally speaking, few, if any, ­house­holds in zhaizi located in the high mountains would subcontract their land to o­ thers. In the valley areas, such as Huangnihe Administrative Village, where the main street becomes a market on Sundays for nearby zhaizi, the land subcontracting rate is close to 10 ­percent. Residents on the main street can use the front rooms of their h ­ ouses for restaurants, barbershops, and grocery stores. ­People with a booming business often subcontract their land to other villa­gers so that they can spend more time managing their business. The third method is renting (chuzu). According to the Rural Land Contract Law, subcontracting and renting are two dif­fer­ent categories. In real­ ity, renting is dif­fer­ent from subcontracting only when the renters are ­people outside the villa­gers’ group or even outside the administrative village. In China’s eco­nom­ically more developed coastal regions, villa­gers are often occupied with off-­farm jobs and therefore more likely to rent their land to ­people migrating from the poorer interior regions. In Fuyuan, where most villa­gers rely on farming for their livelihood, ­there are few renters from other counties or provinces. ­There are at most some renters from a dif­fer­ent administrative village who hope to expand their cash-­crop production by renting a few more mu of land. In terms of payment and the contractual relationship, renting is handled in the same way as subcontracting. During my fieldwork I found that farmers in Fuyuan had considerable freedom in land swapping, renting, and subcontracting as long as the involved land remained in use for farming. But farmland circulation in Fuyuan was quite low, just as in other parts of China. In 2003 less than 3 ­percent of ­house­holds in the three administrative villages (Desheng, Huangnihe, and Yizuo) in which I conducted research engaged in circulating their farmland. In 2014 the percentage ­rose to around 10 ­percent in communities near the county seat and township seats, according to the estimates made by local officials during my interviews. Moreover, most farmland circulations took place within the same zhaizi/villa­gers’ group and mainly involved relatives. Villa­gers handled t­ hese transactions in a very informal way; they often did not need to obtain the village administration’s permission. At most, they would let their village cadres know that such a transaction had occurred. Legally speaking, villa­gers who engage in swapping or renting land should have their contracts formally rewritten at the County Bureau of Land and Resources, but ­people seldom did so in real­ity. It was common to see the names of one h ­ ouse­hold’s members on the contract even though the land

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was being farmed by another ­family. Villa­gers did not seem to be worried about this situation. As some villa­gers told me, “­Here every­body knows each other. No one can steal your land. Besides, p ­ eople renting your land or swapping land with you are e­ ither relatives or friends. It is unlikely they would cheat you.”

New Opportunities and Changes Although the vast majority of rural h ­ ouse­holds face the predicament of low agricultural income and small-­scale farming, changes and a new pattern in agriculture have started to appear over the past two de­cades in both China’s interior regions and the eco­nom­ically more developed areas. As the agricultural policies of the Maoist era that focused only on grain production gradually came to an end in the 1980s, rural ­house­holds began to experiment with a variety of cash crops. In Fuyuan’s case, traditional crops such as rice, corn, and potatoes are mainly grown for self-­consumption and feeding farm animals, not for bringing more h ­ ouse­hold income. Local farmers have tried to obtain more income from cash crops such as konjac, fruits, and vegetables. A price comparison can show why farmers are more interested in cash crops. In Fuyuan, one mu of rice paddy yielded a profit of around 500 yuan in 2003 and 1,000 yuan in 2014, and corn around 300 yuan in 2003 and less than 5,000 yuan in 2014. Growing a mu of konjac, however, brought in an income of 2,000 yuan in 2003 and 5,000 yuan in 2014. Since 2008 walnut trees have been planted on over 240,000 mu of farmland. Most of t­ hese trees are expected to bear edible fruits in a few more years, and a mu of walnuts can produce a profit of 3,000 yuan. Starting in 2010, blueberries have also been grown in the county seat area, and a mu of blueberries can produce a profit of 10,000 yuan per mu.14 In eco­nom­ically more developed regions, the production of cash crops has been more prevalent. In 2014 the total area of farmland that was used for growing grain decreased to 56 ­percent of the total area of China’s farmland, and the value of grain output accounted for only 15 ­percent of the value of the overall agricultural output in China (Philip Huang 2014a, 185). The general trend in agriculture in the new millennium, therefore, has been ­toward a high-­value agriculture that requires intensive ­labor and capital input. Philip Huang attributes this trend to several impor­tant social changes that have occurred, along with China’s economic development over the past several de­cades. First, diets have changed, and the need for more

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meat, fruits, and vegetables has increased. Second, starting in 2000, the number of p ­ eople engaging in agriculture has been in consistent decrease, caused by China’s recent rapid urbanization that has provided off-­farm employment opportunities for over ten million ­people each year, and by the low birth rate in the new millennium that has reduced both rural and urban populations (Philip Huang 2007, 8–9). With more and more p ­ eople moving to urban areas and with the remaining rural population engaging in high-­value agriculture, Huang points out, a “hidden agricultural revolution” has gradually occurred over the past two de­cades, which could in the ­future change the agricultural involution that has caused rural underdevelopment over China’s long historical periods (Huang 2010). For rural h ­ ouse­holds in China’s vast interior regions, however, ­whether they can eventually achieve prosperity through agriculture depends not only on broad social and economic changes at the national level, but also on microlevel agricultural pro­cesses, which they need to contest and negotiate with both village leaders and local governments to defend their own rights and interests. Chapter 9 examines how agricultural production operates at the village level in Fuyuan in detail.

PART III

THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT

CHAPTER 7

Land as a New Subject of Control The National Context of Reform

Land management in China underwent significant changes in the post-­Mao era. This chapter first explains what land management practices had been associated with the central planning economy from the 1950s to the early 1980s. It then explores what social, economic, and po­liti­cal ­factors caused the Chinese government to start an overhaul of its land management system in the post-­Mao era. Such an overhaul set up a new institutional framework for local governments to manage local land resources according to both market princi­ples and the commands of the central government. Land has since become a new subject of control for governments at all levels.

Features of Pre-Reform Land Management Before 1986, three features characterized the nation’s land management—­ management fragmentation, ­free administrative allocation, and compulsory land requisition, all of which ­were deeply rooted in China’s command economy in the pre-reform era. Fragmentation of Land Management In the pre-reform period, a centralized agency to supervise, coordinate, and manage the use of national land resources did not exist. Land management was divided into three sectors: urban, rural, and vari­ous government branches that controlled special categories of land resources. Even within each sector, ­there was no unified management; instead, vari­ous social entities exerted dif­fer­ent amounts of control over land they used and occupied, causing ­great loss of valuable land resources. In the rural areas, for example, while

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agricultural land was owned and managed by rural collectives at dif­fer­ent levels (such as the communes, the brigades, and production teams), the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of ­Water Resources, the Ministry of Forests, and the Ministry of Land Reclamation and Cultivation all played impor­tant roles. The Ministry of Agriculture was responsible for w ­ ater and soil conservation, soil improvement, fertilizer improvement, and agricultural production. The Ministry of W ­ ater Resources was in charge of irrigation works and ­water conservation proj­ects in rural areas. Forestland owned by rural collectives such as production teams was managed and supervised in part by the Ministry of Forests. In the urban areas, a land management department was established ­under the Ministry of Internal Affairs at the beginning of the P ­ eople’s Republic. This department’s duties included real estate registration, tax collection, issuing land certificates, public housing management, and approval of urban construction plans. In 1953 the CCP launched the “three socialist transformations” movement to realize rural collectivization and nationalization of industry and commerce. As the movement began nationwide, the work previously charged to the land management department was transferred to the Bureau of Taxes and Fees in the Ministry of Finance; urban planning was turned over to the Ministry of Construction and Proj­ects (  jianshe gongcheng bu); and urban housing and real property management was assigned to the newly established Ministry of Urban Ser­vices (Zou Yuchuan 1998, 68–69). In 1954 the land management department was dissolved. Since then ­t here has been no in­de­pen­dent and specialized institution or agency at ­either the central or provincial level to coordinate and supervise land use. Moreover, although urban land was state owned, the majority of it was allocated to vari­ous work units and government organ­izations, which had almost unlimited rights over the land they received from the state and ­were in fact granted land use rights for an infinite time period. U ­ nless a higher level of government needed to expropriate the land for other purposes, each work unit or social organ­ization was responsible for managing their land with ­little intervention from the central government, making central coordination and supervision very difficult. The fragmentation of urban land management was exacerbated by the on-­again, off-­again urban planning in the pre-reform period. Urban planning responsibility shifted through a series of agencies from mid-1958 to the late 1970s. The Bureau of Urban Planning was u ­ nder the Ministry of Con-

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struction and Proj­ects in 1958. It was then transferred to the National Committee of Capital Construction (guojia jiben jianshe weiyuanhui) in 1960, to the State Planning Committee (guojia jihua weiyuanhui) in 1961, to the National Economy Committee (guojia jingji weiyuanhui) in 1964, and back to the National Committee of Capital Construction in 1965. During the Cultural Revolution, the Bureau of Urban Planning was dissolved and was not reestablished u ­ ntil 1979 ­under the National Committee of Capital Construction (Zou Yuchuan 1998, 104). In addition to the separate management of rural and urban land, special land resources ­were managed by vari­ous state departments. For example, all surface w ­ ater was managed by the Ministry of W ­ ater Resources, forests by the National Bureau of Forests, land and ­water surfaces used for transportation by the Ministry of Transportation, land on state farms by the Ministry of Land Reclamation and Cultivation, land used for constructing railways by the Ministry of Railroads, and certain strategic land by the military. Scholars and current reformers in China often describe this state of management fragmentation as “urban-­rural division and separation among departments” (chengxiang fenge, bumeng fensan). The Replacement of the Land Market by Administrative Allocation China’s land market was abolished a­ fter the po­liti­cal and economic campaign of the “three socialist transformations” came to an end in 1957. ­Until 1988 the Chinese Constitution banned all land transactions, and land was considered to be neither a commodity nor an asset for producing economic wealth. In rural areas, production teams w ­ ere not permitted to rent, sell, or buy their collectively owned land. In the cities, the land was owned by the state. No social and economic enterprises, government agencies, or any other social entities ­were allowed to transfer land use rights to a third party. The only way for any social entity to obtain land was through administrative allocation (xingzheng huabo) by a higher level of government. In other words, land resources circulated among dif­fer­ent social entities through f­ ree administrative allocation. This practice had its po­liti­cal and economic roots in China’s command economy. As the State Council put it in 1954, The decisive key to guarantee rational use of land lies in the government’s allocation of land strictly according to the a­ ctual needs and development condition of enterprises, work units, organ­izations, military, and schools.

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­ ere is no need to impose land use fees or collect rents ­because such Th fees and rents would not increase the income of the government, rather, they would increase production costs and the government’s bud­gets, as well as increase many administrative procedures. (Zou Yuchuan 1998, 63)

­Under the central planning system, the central government, together with provincial and county governments, was in charge of establishing both short (one-­year) and mid-­range (five-­year) plans for social and economic development. The central government and local governments deci­ded what and how much the enterprises should produce, and the enterprises ­were required to return their economic profits to the government. Land value and land income w ­ ere hidden in the overall enterprise profit. When planning new proj­ects, government at all levels examined existing capacities and then determined the level of capital investment and improvement required to achieve their goals. Land development was included in this pro­cess of proj­ ect planning, but was the last ­factor to be considered. Once the proj­ect was approved, the capital, materials for construction and production, and land needed ­were allocated to the enterprise or responsible work unit. ­Under such a central planning economic framework, land use efficiency was not a ­factor to consider, and it was common to see ware­houses in central locations in the cities. Compulsory Land Requisition As the government ran out of available urban land in cities for allocation, it had to create a new way of supplying land. Land requisition thus became the only route to get additional land resources for urban and industrial development. In November 1953 the State Council issued the first state policy on land requisition, the Regulations on Land Requisition for National Construction (guojia jianshe zhengyong tudi banfa). The regulations required that all national defense proj­ects, industrial enterprises, railroad construction, and ­water irrigation systems, as well as other economic and cultural construction proj­ects, ­were eligible to requisition land from rural cooperatives, urban work units, and private o­ wners of urban land. The princi­ple of land requisition was to guarantee the land needed for national construction and to make appropriate living and work arrangements for t­hose whose land was requisitioned. The procedures included applications for construction land by work units or proj­ects needing land, approval from a higher level of

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relevant government branches, and final approval from local municipal governments.1 Compensation for the land expropriated did not reflect market prices; rather, the central government stipulated dif­fer­ent kinds of compensation. For land owned by rural cooperatives, farmers w ­ ere compensated with a package that included job offers to work for the enterprises established on the expropriated land, resettlement fees, compensation for loss of crops and attached belongings on the property, and sometimes even an urban h ­ ouse­hold 2 residency license. Urban work units or social entities whose land was expropriated ­were not compensated ­because their land belonged to the state in the first place. However, some economic and social adjustments might be allowed for t­ hose work units. This land requisition policy was in accord with the CCP central leadership’s national development strategy—to gain the maximum resources from the countryside to support industrialization. In addition to siphoning agricultural surplus through agricultural taxes, compulsory purchase at prices lower than market value, and price differences between agricultural and industrial products, the government used compulsory land requisition to obtain cheap land resources for industrial development. The 1953 Regulations ­were revised by the central government in 1958. The new regulations differed from the original in two impor­tant ways: first, the 1958 regulations defined expropriating land from rural collectives as “requisition” (zhengyong) while defining expropriating state-­owned land used by urban work units as “allocation” (huabo). The government would compensate rural collectives for the land expropriated, but would not compensate the work units; second, compensation to rural collectives became much lower than in the previous period, placing farmers who lost land in very harsh social and economic conditions (Zou Yuchuan 1998, 91–93). For example, the 1953 regulations stipulated that farmers whose land was expropriated could be paid the value of their yields for three to five years; the 1958 regulations decreased the compensation to two to four years. Furthermore, u ­ nder the 1958 regulations, if the representatives of the P ­ eople’s Commune found that the land requisition did not affect the lives of the farmers, the local governments did not have to compensate them at all. In the po­liti­cal atmosphere of the collective period, meetings of ­People’s Commune representatives could easily be manipulated by local cadres, who often put their po­liti­cal ­careers ahead of local farmers’ interests. The result was often land requisition without compensation. The new regulations also stressed that local governments should

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try to have the farmers whose land was expropriated stay in the rural sector instead of arranging urban jobs for them. All the new mea­sures contributed to the further deprivation of the rural population. This policy was maintained throughout the Maoist period.3 To sum up, a land management system featuring fragmented management, ­free administrative allocation, and compulsory land requisition prevailed from 1956 to 1986. Deeply rooted in the central planning economy during the Maoist era, this system was at odds with the economic rationality emphasized by the “socialist market economy” in the post-­Mao era, and eventually led to an overhaul of the system in 1986.

The Central Government’s Motivations for and Approachs to Reform When post-­Mao reforms began in the early 1980s, the previous ways of ­handling land resources became a g­ reat obstacle to the economic rationality and efficiency required by the market economy, motivating the central government to put the reform of the land management system on their agenda. Specifically, three considerations motivated the central government to launch the reform. First, the central government intended to set up a unified, modernized agency to coordinate and supervise land use nationwide and thus to change the previous chaotic situation. It hoped that u ­ nder the control of a unified institution, dif­fer­ent social entities and economic sectors would not act as both land users and land use regulators, thereby preventing serious conflicts of interest and a g­ reat waste of land resources. Second, the central government hoped to gradually introduce market mechanisms into the land management system so as to solve two major prob­ lems: land use inefficiency and the lack of development funding for local governments. U ­ nder the previous central planning economy, land was allocated without cost to work units, causing land users to have ­little incentive to economize on their land. Using market mechanisms instead of administrative allocation to distribute and circulate land could help encourage more productive land use and faster responses to economic changes. In regard to development funding, governments of all levels lacked funds for economic development in the early stages of China’s reform. Reintroducing a land market could create an institutional capacity for local governments to raise much-­needed revenues for urban development and industrialization. Third, since the mid-­Qing, grain self-­sufficiency had been a major concern for the Chinese state, be it the Qing government, the Nationalist gov-

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ernment, or the CCP government. In the post-­Mao era, the government continues to consider self-­reliance in crop production as critical to the nation’s sovereignty and in­de­pen­dence in international affairs, although Mao’s policy of “taking grain as the key link” ( yiliang weigang) was not considered ­ ill Feed China questioned mandatory. In 1995 Lester Brown’s book Who W China’s ability to feed its rapidly growing population in the twenty-­first ­century. Brown believed that a severe food shortage would not only drive up crop prices in the world market but also destabilize China. This book caused ­great controversy in China and certainly alarmed the government. Another f­actor that deepened the Chinese government’s concern for grain self-­sufficiency was the real­ity of rapid farmland loss in the reform era. Urbanization since the early 1980s had caused rapid depletion of farmland, particularly in the urban fringes, where high-­quality and productive land was located. Between 1986 and 1995, more than 1,973,000 hectares of farmland ­were lost to industrial and commercial construction.4 From 1997 to 2008 farmland loss was even more severe—125 million mu (more than 8 million hectares) w ­ ere used for urban development and industrialization, equal to the total amount of farmland that Henan, one of China’s major grain-­cultivation provinces, held in 2008.5 As a result, preserving enough farmland to maintain national grain self-­sufficiency became a central issue when the Land Management Law and other related polices ­were revised in 1998. Although it is the third-­largest country in the world, China’s per capita farmland is only 43 ­percent of the world average. Therefore, how to regulate local governments’ overuse of farmland for urban development, and to alleviate the deforestation, desertification, and soil erosion that had been depleting the nation’s land resources became the issues that the revised Land Management Law focused on. While the above goals motivated the overhaul of the nation’s land management system, the central government’s approach to reform was decidedly a gradual one. Public own­ership of land, ­whether state own­ership of urban land or village collective own­ership of rural land, has been one of the cornerstones of China’s socialist system. In the early stages of China’s post-­ Mao reform, any effort to transform public own­ership ran into tremendous po­liti­cal re­sis­tance and provoked social instability. Nevertheless, more power­ ful social and economic forces in both rural and urban areas also called for changes in land property relationships. Using its typical method of “groping for stepping stones while crossing the river,” the CCP central leadership tried to address this challenge by compromising between economic reform

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and socialist princi­ples. Specifically, it tried to separate land own­ership rights from use rights and allowed reform and experiments to be conducted in the realm of land use rights, instead of on the fundamental structure of public own­ership. In the countryside, the implementation of the House­hold Responsibility System is a typical example of separating land own­ership rights from use rights. The rapid and relatively smooth implementation of this system in rural areas in the early 1980s lay in the fact that the collective own­ership of agricultural land remained unchanged, and that what farmers obtained was the partial freedom to use the farmland that their village collectives contracted to them.6 In urban areas, the separation of land own­ership rights from use rights allowed urban land use rights to be leased at a profit for a fixed period of time, which paved the way to introducing market mechanisms into the distribution of land resources and changed the long-­held ­free administrative land allocation. The f­ ree administrative land allocation was first challenged in 1979, when China ­adopted its “open door” policy and ended its decades-­ long po­liti­cal isolation from the West. The “open door” policy brought about foreign and overseas Chinese investment in the east coastal regions. As foreign businesses increasingly demanded more access to land, as well as clearer land use regulations and property rights, the method of administrative land allocation was unable to ­handle the massive reallocation of urban land needed to improve urban infrastructure and to move industries from urban centers to the suburbs. To cope with t­ hese prob­lems, the central government a­ dopted a so-­ called double track system, which allows the coexistence of the administrative land allocation and the market for land use rights. As a result, the administrative land allocation continues to exist, applying to public organ­ izations and institutions, state or military agencies, urban infrastructure, public proj­ects, and key industrial sectors such as energy, transportation, and w ­ ater conservation facilities. Meanwhile, experiments ­were conducted in the special economic development zones (SEDZs) along the eastern coastal regions to attract foreign investment. The government allowed foreign investors to lease land for a certain period of time. Investors paid up front land use fees and rents, which provided much-­needed funds for government at all levels. Although this practice was limited to the SEDZs, the impact on land policy reform was profound. ­L ater this practice was tested in some cities. In 1986 the new Land Management Law institutionalized the leasing of the land use rights. To avoid a contradiction between this new

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land law and the Chinese Constitution, the Constitution was altered in 1988, allowing transactions such as leasing and “conveying” (a po­liti­cally correct euphemism for “selling”) land use rights. As a result, while public own­ership of all land resources is still firmly upheld by the Constitution, t­ here are vari­ ous ways of circulating land use rights on the market, such as selling and renting. In 1991 the central government extended this partial market of land use rights to virtually the entire country.7 To conclude, a significant feature of China’s post-­Mao land management reform has been the separation of land own­ership and use rights (liangquan fenli). As land management reform focused on land use rights, instead of on the fundamental structure of public own­ership, China’s reforms to its land management system are referred to as the “land use rights reforms.”

Institution Building Since 1986, the government mainly has been involved in two tasks—­setting up a unified system and creating a new ­legal framework to reform the nation’s land management system. A Unified System The creation of the State Bureau of Land Management (guojia tudiju) in 1986 represented the beginning of a systematic overhaul of China’s land management system. A unified system of land management was established in China for the first time. The bureau was in charge of such ­matters as policy formulation, land allocation, land requisition, and monitoring urban development. Soon, corresponding departments and bureaus w ­ ere also established at the provincial, municipal, county, and township levels. In 1998, with land playing an increasingly impor­tant role in all economic and social spheres, the central government further expanded the power and responsibilities of the State Bureau of Land Management. As a result, a new Ministry of Land and Resources was created by combining the previous State Bureau of Land Management, the State Oceanic Administration (guojia haiyang ju), the State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping (guojia cehui ju), and the Ministry of Geological and Mineral Products (dizhi kuangchan bu). The corresponding departments and bureaus at the provincial and county levels also changed their names to Land and Resources. Within this context of national reform, Fuyuan County instituted its four-­tier land management system involving the county, the township, the administrative village, and villa­gers’ groups. The Land Management Bureaus

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of Fuyuan County ­were established in 1987.8 One year ­later, Land Management Offices ­were set up in Fuyuan’s eleven townships as branch offices of the County Bureau. Meanwhile, in each of the 160 administrative villages, a village committee member was appointed as the land management officer (tuguanyuan). In each villa­ger’s group, a villa­ger was designated as the land management in­for­mant (tudi guanli xinxiyuan). In 2002 the County Land Management Bureau changed its name to the County Bureau of Land and Resources, following the change of the State Bureau of Land Management to the Ministry of Land and Resources. The County Bureau’s branch offices at the townships kept their original names as Township Land Management Offices. ­These changes led to a significant increase in the number of land management personnel in Fuyuan. In 1987 t­ here ­were thirty-­seven land ­management personnel, five of them working in the county bureau and thirty-­ two in the township branch offices. By 2013 the number had increased to 111. Over t­ hese same years, the number of personnel with higher education degrees also increased. In 1987 only two ­people among all personnel had associate degrees; the rest w ­ ere ­either high school or m ­ iddle school gradu­ates. By 2002 twenty-­four ­people held college or associate degrees, and ten had degrees in secondary vocational education. In 2013, 48 out of 111 personnel had college or associate degrees. With the increase in personnel and the assistance of modern technology, such as computers, cameras, and satellites, work division within the County Bureau also became increasingly sophisticated over this time period. In the beginning, ­there was no division of work among the five staff members in the County Bureau. In 1993 the bureau established a general office and three specific offices for managing construction land, land cadastre, and law enforcement. In 2013 the bureau was composed of a general office and six specific offices charged with ­legal supervision, land use planning, the land market, farmland protection, land cadastre, and mine supervision. Like many government organ­izations in China, the bureau had its own ser­ vice units (shiye danwei), including the Center of Land Purchase and ­Reserve, the Law Enforcement Brigade, and the Office of Land Price Estimates.9 In addition, the bureau set up its own profit-­making enterprise, the Fuyuan County Real Estate Development Com­pany, which manages real estate transactions and sells construction materials, hardware, and electrical equipment.

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A New ­Legal Framework In addition to creating land management institutions at dif­fer­ent administrative levels, a new ­legal framework was also established. In 1986, the same year that the State Bureau of Land Management was created, the first land law in China—­the Land Management Law—­was issued. This law clarified the rights and responsibilities of citizens, enterprises, and governmental agencies in using and managing land. The government’s goals in reforming China’s land management w ­ ere well expressed through this law. For ­example, it mandated an integrated land use plan for all levels of local government to rationalize land use and achieve a balance among economic development, farmland preservation, and environmental protection. Also, it promoted the market for land use rights in the hope that land prices and market mechanisms would economize land use and coordinate land development by dif­fer­ent social and economic entities. In 1998 the Land Management Law was revised to include more rules on the operation of the land use rights market and on land use planning and farmland protection. In the new millennium, as more and more rural land had been taken away forcefully by the government for urban development and industrialization, rural unrest became an issue threatening social stability. The Land Management Law was revised again in 2004 to address the issues of compulsory land requisition and compensation for land acquisition.10 The second major land law, the Rural Land Contract Law, was issued in 2002. Aiming to legalize the land tenure relations established by the House­hold Responsibility System in the early 1980s, this law specifies the rights and responsibilities of both village collectives and farmers. It stipulates in detail farmers’ use, income, and transfer rights over the land that they contract from their village collectives, as well as the village collective’s management rights over the collectively owned land.

New Management Tasks at the County Level Land became a new subject of control for local governments ­a fter the ­reform. A County Bureau of Land and Resources generally f­ aces the following major tasks: cadastre management, land use planning, managing the local land market, tax and fee collection, and law enforcement and conflict resolution.

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Cadastre Management According to the 1998 Land Management Law, cadastre management (diji guanli) mainly involves land surveys, data organ­ization and analy­sis, land and soil appraisal, and land registration. China’s cadastre management was suspended in the late 1950s a­ fter the collectivization movement in rural areas and the nationalization of urban land property came to an end. Without basic data and information on the nation’s land resources, effective land management also came to an end. With the beginning of the land management reform, substantial data and information have been obtained through land surveys, soil grading, land registration, and land price appraisal, making a more effective management of land resources pos­si­ble. The first step a­ dopted by the government to rebuild and modernize the nation’s cadastre system was the first national land survey, conducted from 1984 to 1996, and covering the majority of China’s counties. During the survey, data on Fuyuan County’s land resources ­were collected from April 1990 to January 1991. About 160 maps ­were made. Meanwhile, borderlines between vari­ous administrative units ­were verified and readjusted, including 366.67 kilo­meters of border between Yunnan Province and other provinces, 402.2 kilo­meters between Fuyuan County and other counties, 466.6 kilo­meters among townships, 2,106.49 kilo­meters among the administrative villages, and 320 kilo­meters of other miscellaneous borders. A total of 6,611 boundary markers w ­ ere installed (Fuyuan Xianzhi 1986–2000, 95). During the countywide survey, more accurate data on local soil conditions ­were also obtained. Local soil was graded on a scale from one to eight. First-­ grade soil is the best for farming, especially for rice growing. The higher the soil’s grade, the less suitable it is for farming. Grade eight land cannot be used for farming, forestry, or animal husbandry. Besides the information obtained during land surveys, land registry is another major aspect of cadastre management. In 1989 the State Bureau of Land Management issued The Regulations on Land Registry (tudi dengji guize) and initiated a nationwide land registry. Fuyuan County began the work in the same year. Local cadres often call this work “issuing certificates for two rights” (liangquan fazheng), referring to land own­ership rights and land use rights. Issuing t­ hese certificates, however, proved to be long and complicated and is still in pro­cess. The challenges involved in issuing collective land own­ ership certificates are discussed in Chapter 3. Chapters 5 and 10 discuss the issuance of land use rights certificates. The delays and difficulties in issuing

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t­hese certificates are caused mainly by two f­actors. The first is the lack of funding and qualified technical staff. For example, ­there are currently 800 million mu of farmland in China. It is estimated that the cost for issuing the land use rights certificates to rural h ­ ouse­holds is eight yuan per mu.11 The second f­actor is the reluctance of local governments to provide own­ ership certificates to villa­gers’ groups and land use rights certificates to farmers, both of which could be used by members of the rural populace to defend their land rights when compulsory land requisition takes place. As also pointed out in Chapter 4, competition over land resources between the administrative village and its constituent villa­gers’ groups could also lead to the attempts of the administrative village to hold the own­ership certificates of its groups. To operate the land market and collect taxes, the government also needs to appraise land. Seeking a compromise between a market-­based and a planning-­based economy, the central government ­adopted a benchmark price system in the early 1990s to determine the value of urban land. As a result, land prices are not completely deci­ded by negotiation between the buyer and the seller; rather, specialized appraisal institutions, in most cases or­ga­nized by the government, calculate the benchmark price. Using the benchmark price as a guide, land transactions of vari­ous kinds are conducted, and the final price is settled. Fuyuan’s Office of Land Price Appraisal was set up in 1996 and works u ­ nder the County Bureau of Land and Resources. Its first major task was to appraise an area of 10.99 square kilo­meters in the county seat. Land prices in this area ­were determined by ­factors including population density, economic and commercial activities, infrastructure and accessibility, and de­mo­li­tion costs. The appraisal resulted in a list of benchmark land prices for all the plots within this area and a price map (Fuyuan tudizhi 1999, 80). Land Use Planning ­Under the 1998 Land Management Law, all levels of administration, including the central, provincial, municipal, county, and township governments, are required to set up integrated land use plans (tudi liyong zongti guihua). The purpose of ­these plans is to coordinate land use activities by vari­ous economic sectors and to plan the relations among economic development, food grain security, and environmental protection. The integrated land use plans are hierarchically drafted and implemented. The State Council approves all provincial land use plans, and the province approves plans at the county

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and township level. Higher-­level plans set clear and nonnegotiable par­a­ meters and targets for local plans. Two types of targets are crucial—­the quota for conversion of farmland to construction land, and the quota of farmland that local governments must preserve. Given t­ hese nonnegotiable quotas, local plans are forced to balance their goal of farmland preservation with their need for more land for development. Fuyuan’s first integrated land use plan was established in 1996. In 1998 the county government revised their plan according to the new Land Management Law. The first land use plan covers the period from 2000 to 2010. In the plan, Fuyuan’s land resources are divided into dif­fer­ent categories: farmland, forests, animal husbandry, fisheries, transportation land, industrial enterprise, urban housing, village housing, and unused land. The county’s use of each category of land must follow the quota stipulated in the plan. Moreover, the Land Management Law requires that specific land use zones must be designated at the county and township levels. A land use zone is a parcel of land designated for one par­tic­u­lar use. Land use zones are often divided into agricultural, construction, ­human and natu­ral landscape protection, land adjustment, and temporarily unused zones. Guided by this plan, the County Bureau of Land Resources examines and approves land use of all types, such as national proj­ects, township-­village enterprises, foreign-­investment enterprises, private enterprises, rural public facilities, and private housing construction. In 2013 Fuyuan’s second integrated land use plan was formed, setting up quotes for each type of land to be used during the period from 2010 to 2020. Managing the Local Land Market As pointed out previously, market mechanisms have also been gradually introduced into the land management system. In the 1980s the primary task of most County Bureaus of Land and Resources revolved around cadastre management. Since the 1990s, however, their focus has shifted to assisting local governments in requisition of agricultural land from farmers and representing their governments to sell the acquired land for industrial and commercial use. In Fuyuan’s case, the point of change for the County Bureau’s work priority was 1999. Before then, the bureau had made considerable effort to collect and or­ga­nize land data. When Fuyuan’s coal industry expanded in 1999, the local economic boom increased the need for construction land. Assisting local governments in land requisition and operating a local land market have since become the central focus of the bureau’s

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work. Between 1987 and 1996 the Fuyuan County Bureau of Land and Resources requisitioned a total of 6,143.213 mu of farmland for industrial use and urban development. As the local economic development speeded up in the new millennium, the amount of farmland expropriated by the local government also surged. In the year of 2013, just for the proj­ect of expanding the county seat to the northern suburban area and the proj­ect for building an industrial park, the County Bureau expropriated 3,875 mu of land (Fuyuan tudizhi 1999, 129). Collecting Land Taxes and Fees Throughout the period of the central planning economy, the only land-­ related taxes in the vast rural areas w ­ ere agricultural taxes and special crop taxes. In the cities no taxes or fees w ­ ere imposed on urban residents or the vari­ous administrative units using freely allocated land. Land use fees w ­ ere first introduced in China’s urban areas in 1979 and w ­ ere mainly imposed on foreign enterprises and joint ventures. Th ­ ese fees w ­ ere extremely low, merely reflecting land own­ership rather than functioning as economic leverage to guide resource allocation. The real change in land taxes and fees came in 1989 when the central government passed the Provisional Act of Land Use Taxation on State-­Owned Urban Land, ending the long tradition of ­free land use. All administrative units, government organ­izations, and individuals w ­ ere obliged to pay land use taxes if they used land in cities, towns, or industrial and mining districts. In 1993 the Provisional Act of Land Value Increment Tax on State-­Owned Land was issued, which specified that parties or individuals that sell land use rights must be taxpayers and therefore should pay a land value increment tax if they realized a net profit through land transactions and the net profits exceeded 20 ­percent of total costs, including land improvement costs, construction costs, management fees, transaction fees, and taxes. Following the central land tax policies, the Fuyuan County Bureau of Land and Resources first began collecting taxes and fees for urban land use in 1987. It did not collect agricultural taxes or special crop taxes, which had been the duties of the township governments and the County Bureau of Tobacco, respectively.12 Conflict Resolution and Law Enforcement Soon ­after its establishment in 1987, the Fuyuan County Bureau of Land and Resources took over the responsibility of resolving land disputes from other government branches. It deals with vari­ous types of disputes, such as

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border disputes between village collectives, between a village collective and a state organ­ization, between ordinary farmers, or between dif­fer­ent state organ­izations; disputes involving land contracts between rural h ­ ouse­holds and their village collectives; and disputes caused by land requisition. In addition to resolving vari­ous disputes, the bureau also supervises local construction and ensures that rural enterprises, villa­gers, and government organ­izations seek its approval before construction begins. It also ensures that ­these social entities do not use more farmland than approved. Violators are subject to fines or even to dismantlement of the construction. L ­ egal enforcement such as imposing fines or dismantling an illegal construction is mainly undertaken by the Bureau’s Law Enforcement Brigade, which works closely with the County Court and the County Bureau of Public Security. To sum up, as a result of the reform of the land management system since 1986, land has become a new subject of control for governments at all levels in China. This reform reflected a series of concerns of the central government, such as modernizing the land management system, tightening its control over the country’s land resources, obtaining adequate revenue for local urbanization and industrialization, maintaining national food self-­sufficiency, and protecting the environment for sustainable development. However, as Chapter 8 shows, t­ hese agendas have set up a contradictory incentive framework for local governments in their management of local land resources and have caused much tension between the central government and local governments. While the central laws and policies prescribe that the County Bureaus of Land and Resources be charged with new management tasks, it is often difficult for ­these bureaus to fully exercise their functions and power, due to the position of the bureau within the county bureaucratic system and the fact that the goals of the central government and local governments in managing land resources have diverged as a result of China’s recent fiscal reform.

CHAPTER 8

Land Resources and the Fuyuan Government’s Development Agendas

When I started my fieldwork in Fuyuan County in 2002, my first impression of the local government was their sense of urgency about developing the local economy. In the central square of the county seat, Zhong’an town, a huge, colorful billboard of Deng Xiaoping’s image stood out in sharp contrast to its dark and grey surroundings. U ­ nder Deng’s image ­were his famous words, frequently used as a slogan to justify and encourage economic development—­“Development is the absolute princi­ple” ( fazhan caishi yingdaoli). The gate of almost ­every township government in Fuyuan was hung with the slogan “development is the primary task to govern and make the nation prosperous” ( fazhan shi zhizheng xingguo de diyi yaowu).1 Since the mid-1980s, the single most impor­tant theme r­ unning through the county government’s annual work reports has been development. The county government’s 2006 work report states, “Cadres and p ­ eople in Fuyuan aspire to development, seek development, and promote development” (ganbu qunzhong panfazhan, moufazhan, cufazhan) (Yearbook of Fuyuan 2007, 39). When outlining its work focus of 2015, the county government ­proposed eight major tasks. Six of t­ hese tasks w ­ ere about how to develop Fuyuan’s economy—­improving safety management of local coal mines, upgrading the local power industry to include wind and solar energy, speeding up Fuyuan’s urbanization by expanding the county seat and major township seats, pushing for commercialization of local agriculture, attracting more outside investments in local enterprises, and strengthening the county government’s overall ability to plan and control the local economy. The two other tasks concern improving the livelihood of the rural populace and advocating a practical and realistic working style for government 147

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o­ fficials. Looking ahead, the county government aims to realize a 9 ­percent increase in local GDP by the end of 2015 and to increase the annual income of both rural and urban residents by 10 ­percent.2 To understand why economic development has become an overwhelming charge for local governments, we need to put it in the context of the Chinese government’s fiscal reform since the 1980s. Before the fiscal reform, higher levels of government took most of the local revenue and then allocated most of the funding to cover local governments’ expenditures. Through a mechanism called “eating in separate kitchens” ( fenzao chifan), recent reforms allow local governments to have property rights to the residual revenue generated by local economic growth. This revenue-­sharing arrangement has given local governments unpre­ce­dented control over resources and turned them into economic agents who play a critical role in the phenomenal economic growth in the post-­Mao era (Burawoy 1996; Nee 1992; Oi 1992, 1999; Pieke 2004). Meanwhile, the expansion of local power and autonomy has resulted in decentralization, one of the most impor­tant institutional changes in the post-­Mao era, and has since changed the po­liti­cal and economic relations between the central government and local governments (Oi 1999; Oksenberg and Tong 1991; Remick 2004). In the new po­liti­cal and economic context ­shaped by the fiscal reform, developing the local economy, accumulating revenue, and thereby increasing their po­liti­cal and economic power have become the goals of local governments, including that in Fuyuan County. Against this background, this chapter seeks to understand how the recent reform of China’s land management system turned land into an impor­tant revenue source for local governments, and how the need to follow the central policies of farmland preservation and the urge to seek more revenue from land sales set up a contradictory incentive structure for local governments in their management of land resources.

A Hinterland County Seeking Development China’s bureaucratic hierarchy within which the Fuyuan government operates is composed of five levels: (1) the central government (zhongyang); (2) provinces (sheng) and municipalities directly ­under central jurisdiction (zhixiashi); (3) prefectures (zhuanqu) and their urban equivalents, cities (shi); (4) counties and their urban equivalents, county-­level municipalities (xianji­shi); and (5) townships (xiangzhen) and their urban equivalents, dis-

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tricts (qu).3 Through ­these five levels of government a high degree of central control is achieved nationwide. Fuyuan is one of 128 counties in Yunnan Province and is u ­ nder the jurisdiction of Qujing City.4 Within the Fuyuan County government, as in all counties in China, a small circle of leadership takes charge of all the functional sections (e.g., the Finance Bureau, the Bureau of Land and Resources, and the Bureau of Agriculture) and makes decisions on major social, po­liti­cal, and economic issues. This po­liti­cal and administrative core consists of (1) key figures in the County Party Committee (xianwei), including the party secretary, deputy secretaries, and members of the standing committee of the County Party Committee (xianwei changwei); and (2) key figures in the county government, including the county mayor (xianzhang) and deputy mayors. Similarly, at the township level, a small group of leaders takes charge of all sections within the township government. In this study the terms “county government” and “township government” refer to the above leadership cores. Located in the northeast of a frontier province, Fuyuan has been a poverty-­stricken county for centuries. Throughout the Maoist era, its government sought poverty-­relieving subsidies from the central government. When the post-­Mao reform began, the Fuyuan government embarked on a road of trial and error to develop the local economy. It has ­adopted vari­ous strategies to cope with changing po­liti­cal and economic conditions, and its need to seek more revenue has left a deep imprint on the trajectory of Fuyuan’s economic development in the reform period. Throughout the 1970s and most of the 1980s, the Fuyuan government strug­gled to increase local grain production, despite the fact that most of Fuyuan’s agricultural fields, located in the mountains, lack ­water resources and produce low grain yields. The central policy of grain self-­sufficiency for ­every county and the food rationing system at that time provided few alternatives for developing the local economy. As soon as China’s grain market controls eased, and the food rationing system was abolished in the early 1990s, the Fuyuan government began to aggressively promote tobacco production. Tobacco is mainly grown in China’s southwest regions. Since its sale is monopolized by the government, tobacco has contributed greatly to the revenues of both the central government and local governments. To increase tobacco production, the Fuyuan government, as all other local governments in the southwest, a­ dopted vari­ous mea­sures to push farmers to grow tobacco.5 In 1986 Fuyuan grew 70,300 mu of tobacco. In 1997 the

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tobacco-­growing area soared to 257,000 mu (Fuyuan xianzhi 1986–2000, 135). In 1997 approximately 50 ­percent of the Fuyuan government’s revenues came from tobacco (Yearbook of Fuyuan 1998, 361). However, when the central government started to implement its “double controls” (shuangkong) policy in 1998, tobacco’s contribution to the economy of the ­whole southwest region was significantly contained. Aiming at reducing both tobacco yields and the tobacco growing area for quality-­ control purposes, this policy dealt a blow to the tobacco-­focused economy in the southwest. To alleviate the economic crisis brought about by this policy, the Fuyuan government ­adopted the strategy of “walking with two legs” (liangtiaotui zoulu); that is, developing both agriculture and industry. In the agricultural sector, it has put g­ reat effort into “adjusting its agricultural structure” (tiaozheng nongye jiegou). Farmers ­were urged or even forced to experiment with other cash crops such as konjac, ginkgo, and vari­ous fruits. Meanwhile, large-­scale commercial agriculture was also promoted by the local government. Chapter 9 discusses the dif­fer­ent strategies of the Fuyuan government for adapting to the new agricultural policies. In the industrial sector, grasping the opportunity provided by the acceleration of China’s economy and the increasing energy demand in the late 1990s, the Fuyuan government pushed for a fast expansion of the local coal industry. The county government had long attributed Fuyuan’s poverty to its lack of local industry. Given Fuyuan’s rich coal resources, the easiest path to industrialization was through developing coal mines. In 1975 ­there w ­ ere seventeen small coals mines in Fuyuan, built, owned, and managed by local P ­ eople’s Communes. Constrained by their rudimentary facilities, t­ hese small mines produced a total of only 4.79 million tons of raw coal from 1953 to 1978.6 The situation began to improve with the post-­Mao reform. As the county government actively sought funds to improve the facilities of local coal mines and became involved in providing training to the mines’ managerial staff, Fuyuan’s coal industry began to expand in the early 1990s, as shown in the figure below. T ­ oday the coal industry has become an impor­ tant sector of Fuyuan’s economy, contributing significantly to the local government’s revenue. In 1988 the Fuyuan government had a meager revenue of 35.17 million yuan. Its revenue reached 188 million in 1997 as a result of expanded tobacco production. Since 2000, taxes from the coal industry have replaced t­ hose from tobacco as the largest portion of the local government’s revenue. In 2004, for example, Fuyuan’s revenue reached 350 million yuan, of which the coal industry contributed over 50 ­percent and tobacco

Land Resources and the Fuyuan Government     151

Figure 8.1  Fuyuan’s coal output, 1953–2013 Sources: Fuyuan Xianzhi (Fuyuan County Gazetteer) (1993), 231–235; Yearbook of Fuyuan (1995, 225; 1999, 285; 2003, 182; 2006, 276; 2009, 231; 2011, 228); Yearbook of Fuyuan (2014), http://­w ww​.­q jfy​.­gov​.­cn​/­f ynj/gjcj/20141028/100812.shtml.

10.68 ­percent.7 In 2013 coal production contributed to 56 ­percent of Fuyuan’s total economic output.8 At the beginning of the twenty-­first c­ entury, the Fuyuan government summarized their economic strategy as developing “four pillars,” that is, the coal industry, tobacco, grain production, and pig farming (Yearbook of Fuyuan 2004, 16). Supported by t­ hese pillars, Fuyuan gradually improved its economic status in the province and even in the western region. In 2002 its gross economic output ranked twentieth among all 128 counties in Yunnan Province and jumped to fifteenth place in 2006 (Yearbook of Fuyuan 2007, 3). In 2006 Fuyuan also entered the ranks of the top one hundred richest counties in western China. Four years l­ater, in 2010, its rank among the one hundred western counties jumped from its original ninety-­seventh place to forty-­seventh (Yearbook of Fuyuan 2011, 57). Looking back at the trajectory of Fuyuan’s economic development over the past three de­cades, some of the cadres I interviewed described it as “groping for stepping stones

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while crossing the river” (mozhe shitou guohe), another famous saying of Deng Xiaoping that highlights the experimental, pragmatic, and gradual nature of China’s reform. Fuyuan’s development trajectory illustrates well the role of local government as an active and pragmatic economic actor.

Local Land Management ­under a Contradictory Incentive Framework When the Fuyuan government designated coal, tobacco, grain, and pigs as the county’s four economic pillars in its annual work report in the Yearbook of Fuyuan, they did not point out that another equally impor­tant pillar was local land resources. In fact, a significant shift in the county government’s strategy for increasing local revenue started to take place at the beginning of the new millennium. The shift was to obtain a significant amount of revenue from local land sales and urbanization instead of from agricultural and industrial production. Local land markets became one of the most crucial revenue sources for the Fuyuan government. As pointed out previously, the land management reform beginning in 1986 not only made land a new subject of management for local governments but also created an institutional capacity for local governments to raise funds for urban development and industrialization. Through compulsory land requisition and a two-­tiered land market that the government mono­ polizes, local governments are able to expropriate land cheaply from farmers and sell the land to developers at very high prices.9 Since the current fiscal relationship between the central government and local governments allows a substantial part of profits from land sales to remain in local coffers, local governments are ­eager to sell as much land as pos­si­ble for their own po­liti­ cal and economic purposes, leaving less and less land for ­future needs. Reflected in the vigorous growth of “development zones” since the 1990s, land development in China has proceeded at a phenomenal pace. In China’s eco­nom­ically more developed regions, local governments ­adopted the “land finance” strategy as early as in the 1980s. “Land finance” (tudi caizheng) refers to the increasing reliance of local governments on revenue from land sale proceeds. In the new millennium, income from land sales has had an even more significant effect on local governments. Between 2001 and 2003, for example, land sale transactions made up an average of 35 ­percent of local revenue, and this climbed to more than 50 ­percent in 2007. In 2009, 35 ­percent of the revenue of the Beijing Municipality government in the first three seasons came from land sales (Yan Yan 2009, 42).

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As a hinterland county Fuyuan ­did not aggressively pursue land finance ­ ntil the beginning of the new millennium. Since then, like all other local u governments in China, it has increasingly relied on profits from the ­local land market. As is the case throughout China, rec­ords revealing the local government’s rising land sales and profits are very restricted. I was not able to obtain accurate data on land sale profits kept by the Fuyuan government, but the scattered information on the rapid expansion of local land transactions that I was able to acquire still reveals the eagerness of the local government to participate in land sales and the importance of land sale profits to local revenue. For example, Fuyuan’s first sale of land use rights took place in the county seat, Zhong’an, in 1993. Eight mu of land ­were sold for 699,300 yuan (Fuyuan xianzhi 1986–2000, 97). During 1993 a total of 217.96 mu of land was sold. In 2005 the County Bureau of Land and Resources pro­cessed the expropriation of 1,238 mu of farmland for urban development and industrial proj­ects (Yearbook of Fuyuan 2006, 218). In 2012 the bureau approved the requisition of a total of 4,594 mu of farmland just for an industrial park to be built on the edge of the county seat.10 Fuyuan had a meager revenue of 35.17 million yuan in 1988. With tobacco production, its revenue increased 188 million yuan, then reached 350 million yuan in 2004 as its local coal industry boomed (Yearbook of Fuyuan 1989, 315; 1998, 402; 2005, 207). In 2010 Fuyuan’s revenue soared to 2.16 billion yuan (Yearbook of Fuyuan 2011, 245). Considering that no major breakthrough took place in local agricultural or industrial production, we have reason to believe that the increase of local revenue can be attributed to excessive land development. However, it is very impor­tant to keep in mind that, compared with the eco­nom­ically more developed coastal regions, Fuyuan lags far ­behind in its attempt to develop the land market. Across the country, the land market has become a crucial ave­nue for local governments to raise funds for urban development and industrialization and, more impor­tant, to expand local autonomy and power. The situation is what You-­tien Hsing describes in her study of the urbanization pro­cess in the coastal region and major cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Chengdu: “land-­centered accumulation has also become the main aspiration, the tacit and explicit mandate, and the key strategy ­behind local state building” (2010, 5–6). In spite of their urge to seek revenue from land markets, local governments must follow the central policies of farmland preservation and

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environmental protection to survive po­liti­cally. As pointed out in Chapter 7, creating an institutional capacity for local governments to raise much-­ needed revenues to finance urban development and industrialization is only one of the goals that the central government aims to achieve through the land management reform; the central government has other concerns as well, including farmland preservation for national food security and environmental protection for more sustainable development. As with all previous governments, the current Chinese government is deeply concerned with national food security, especially when it compares China’s land resources with other countries. In 2015 Chen Xiwen, the director of the Central Work Team for Rural Issues (zhongyang nongcun gongzuo lingdao xiaozu), presented a series of statistics at a news conference to justifiy the concerns of the central government. For example, India’s population is one hundred million less than China’s, but India has 600 million mu more farmland than China; Rus­sia’s population is only one-­tenth of China’s, but Rus­sia has the same amount of farmland as China; the U.S. population is one billon less than China’s, but the United States has one billion mu more farmland than China does.11 As early as 1995 the central government had already established the “provincial governor’s grain bag policy” (mi daizi shengzhang fuzezhi) that required e­ very province to be self-­sufficient in grain. In 2006 the central government issued the Outline of the Eleventh Five-­Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development (guomin jingji he shehui fazhan dishiyige wunian guihua gangyao), indicating that preserving 1.8 billion mu of farmland for grain production by 2020 would became a mandatory target for government at all levels. The media in China often refer to this as the “farmland preservation red line” (gengdi hongxian). On August 13, 2008, the State Council passed the General Plan for the National Land Uses (2006– 2020) (quanguo tudi liyong zongti guihua gangyao), in which the farmland preservation red line of 1.8 billion mu was reaffirmed. Soon a­ fter, the central government a­ dopted another policy—­the “provincial governor’s farmland preservation target policy” (gengdi baohu shengzhang fuzezhi). Each provincial government has since been responsible for maintaining the total amount of its farmland as stipulated in its land use plan. The main mechanism through which the central government pushes local governments to achieve a balance between developing local economies and protecting farmland and the environment is integrated land use plans, which went into effect across China in 1998 when the revised Land

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Management Law was issued. Through t­ hese plans, two types of quotas are imposed on local governments: one for farmland preservation and one for construction land. The Land Management Law mandates that at the level of provinces and municipalities, the total amount of farmland has to remain constant or increase. The central government ­will decrease the next year’s construction land quota for any province that converts more farmland into construction land than is stipulated by its land use plan. ­Under a province, all levels of governments are also required to formulate their land use plans according to the princi­ple that the total amount of local farmland should not decrease due to industrial or commercial construction, and that at least 80 ­percent of farmland should be designated as basic agricultural land.12 In Fuyuan’s case, the county government formulated its first land use plan in 1996, which promised that by 2000 Fuyuan would preserve at least 1.4 million mu of farmland and limit its construction land to 199,650 mu, and that by 2010 it would maintain at least 1.38 million mu of farmland and limit its construction land to 232,500 mu (Fuyuan tudizhi 1999, 103–104). In 2013 Fuyuan’s second integrated land use plan, which covers the period from 2010 to 2020, was formed. In the second plan, the quota of farmland preservation in the county was set to 1.31 million mu.13 All of Fuyuan’s townships designated their basic farmland districts in accordance with the county’s farmland preservation plan, which in turn was approved by the provincial government. Each township government also needs to sign a contract with the county government stipulating its quota for farmland preservation. In addition to preserving the existing farmland, the County Bureau of Land and Resources is also responsible for reclaiming unused land or improving low-­quality farmland to make up for any loss of farmland due to construction. In other words, when a piece of farmland is permitted to be used for new construction, it must be offset by creating or improving farmland in another area. This is called “keeping a dynamic equilibrium in the total amount of cultivated land” (gengdi zongliang dongtai pingheng). Although they are u ­ nder ­great pressure to maintain a certain amount of farmland, local governments find that the most crucial quota is that for construction land. To control the annually increasing use of farmland for construction, the Land Management Law provides a detailed description of the hierarchy for assigning construction quotas. At lower administrative levels, land use plans must contain a portion of the quota set at the higher level. Thus, the Qujing Prefecture Bureau of Land and Resources annually

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assigns Fuyuan’s quota for construction land. In 1992, for instance, the Prefecture Bureau assigned Fuyuan County 740 mu of construction land, of which 430 mu could come from farmland and 310 mu from nonfarmland. In 1996 the quota was 608 mu, of which 270 mu ­were farmland and 338 mu nonfarmland (Yearbook of Fuyuan 1993, 180; 1997, 210). ­Under such a land management framework, local governments are torn between conflicting goals—­the urge to use land to generate revenue and attract investment, and the need to comply with the central farmland preservation policies. In his study of Taicang, a county in Jiangsu Province, southeastern China, Frank Pieke points out that u ­ nder China’s current land management system “the difficulties in implementing the policy of protecting agricultural land are made to rest squarely on the shoulders of local governments, yet it is acknowledged that ­these governments also have a responsibility for local economic development” (2005, 100). Located in the southwestern region, Fuyuan’s social, natu­ral, and economic conditions are very dif­fer­ent from Taicang’s. Nevertheless, in terms of local land management practices, the two counties share many similarities. As early as in the late 1980s, the Fuyuan County Bureau of Land and Resources put forward the slogan “guarantee food for livelihood first; promote construction second” ( yiyao chifan, eryao jianshe) to justify its work princi­ple. Yet, the slogan itself reveals the contradictory incentive framework u ­ nder which the local government manages its land resources and points to the strain caused by the two conflicting objectives of farmland preservation and land development.

Contention between the Central Government and Local Governments ­Eager to obtain more profits from land development, local governments are invariably dissatisfied with their construction quotas. They have frequently engaged in contestation and negotiation with the central government. An impor­tant reason why they are able to use vari­ous strategies to outmaneuver the central government lies in their firm control over the local bureaus of Land and Resources. The Local Bureau of Land and Resources as a “Ser­vice Section” As described in Chapter 7, the County Bureau of Land and Resources is charged with many management tasks.14 Nevertheless, it is considered to be and functions only as a “ser­vice section” (zhineng jigou) within the county bureaucratic system. Although the professional and technical training and

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guidance of its staff are provided by higher levels of land administration, such as the Prefecture Bureau or the Province Department of Land and Resources, the bureau’s personnel arrangement is deci­ded by the county government, which also provides salaries for the personnel. Moreover, ­under China’s current po­liti­cal structure, the Communist Party is still firmly in power and remains the primary decision maker for virtually all major social, po­liti­cal, and economic issues. The leadership core of the county government decides land issues closely related to major development agendas, often done through the mechanism of a special work team led by county leaders. A good example is the formulation of the county’s integrated land use plan. In prescribing how much farmland can be converted into construction land, this plan crucially affects local economic development. The County Bureau of Land and Resources did not draw up the plan; rather, the county government, with technical assistance from the Bureau and the Yunnan Institute of Agricultural Engineering, deci­ded on the plan. Only ­after that can the plan be submitted to the higher levels of administration for approval. Another example is the first national land survey conducted in Fuyuan in 1991. Considering this survey to be an impor­tant task required by the central government, the county government set up a special work team, composed of the deputy county major and the heads of fifteen other county bureaus, to take charge of the survey work, although the technical work was conducted by the County Bureau of Land and Resources. On other crucial issues, such as the construction of major industrial proj­ects and setting prices for the local land market, the county leadership also has the final say. As a result, instead of being an in­de­pen­dent organ­ization capable of supervising the local government’s land use be­hav­iors, the Bureau of Land and Resources is actually a technological tool for supporting the county government’s social, economic, and po­liti­cal agendas. When interviewing an official in the Fuyuan County Bureau of Land and Resources in 2003, I asked what he thought about the bureau’s work. He commented, “I think our work is to assist the county government’s central tasks.” For local authorities, the “central tasks” (zhongxin gongzuo) means the following ­things: increasing local revenue through developing the local economy, collecting taxes and fees, implementing the population control policy, and maintaining social stability. ­These tasks are the criteria for evaluating the local cadre’s po­liti­cal per­for­mance. Ten years ­later, the bureau continued to describe their work as following closely the social and economic

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agendas set up by the county government and serving the realization of ­these agendas. When planning their annual work in 2013, the bureau aimed to play an active role in facilitating the operation of two major land development proj­ects put forward by the county government in 2012. Fuyuan is in a mountainous region, and the county seat is located in a small valley in the mountains. As Fuyuan’s population increases, the county seat has become too crowded for any further industrial or commercial development. The county government therefore initiated two major proj­ects to solve the prob­lem of limited land resources. One proj­ect is called “moving the town up onto the hills” (chengzhen shangshan), aiming to expand the county seat by turning the hillsides on the north edge of the current county seat into commercial and residential districts. The bureau planned to requisition a total of 4,446 mu of farmland between 2012 and 2015 for this proj­ect. Called “moving the industry up into the hills” (gongye shangshan), the second proj­ect involves building an industrial park on the hills between the county seat and Housuo Township, which requires a total of 4,585 mu of land.15 Although considered two massive proj­ects, moving the town and the industry up into the hills is just one among many other land development proj­ects that the county government has been conducting or contemplating. To better control land requisition and the local land market, which involves complicated negotiation and contestation among more and more social groups, the county government took a further step—it established a land investment and development com­pany in May 2015. Managed jointly by the county government and the County Bureau of Land and Resources, this com­pany functions as a special work team set up by the county government to h ­ andle issues related to the land development. The com­pany’s primary work, as the county party secretary puts it, should revolve around the development agendas of the county government to ­handle land requisition and the local land market.16 In ­doing so, the com­pany in fact took away the most crucial part of the work that was originally managed by the County Bureau of Land and Resources. In other words, the county government was able to dominate all major issues related to land management and development through its control of the com­pany. Contesting the Integrated Land Use Plans With the local Bureaus of Land and Resources u ­ nder their control, local governments have many methods to easily exceed the construction quotas

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stipulated by the plans. One way is to use the city development plans to offset the land use plans. In addition to this, as Chen Xiwen points out, two other strategies are widely used by local governments.17 The first is called “breaking up the ­whole into parts” (chai). As required by the Land Management Law, any construction proj­ect using more than 550 mu of farmland must be directly approved by the State Council. Provincial governments can approve proj­ects ­under 550 mu. To avoid the central government’s investigation, a local government can break its large proj­ect into several smaller ones. For example, a proj­ect using 2,000 mu of farmland could be broken into four smaller ones, with each using less than 550 mu. Then the local government only needs to seek permission from the provincial Department of Land and Resources, which, unlike the State Council, usually supports local land development and gives a green light to proj­ects. The second strategy is referred to as “relocation” (nuo) and involves changing a piece of basic agricultural land into agricultural use land. Basic agricultural land is generally high-­quality farmland used for grain ­production, while agricultural use land may be used for a wide variety of purposes. If a proj­ect needs to use farmland that has been designated as basic agricultural land, it must be directly approved by the State Council, regardless of the amount of land being used. Some local governments secretly revise the zoning of basic agricultural land in their integrated land use plans so that a plot previously designated as basic agricultural land is redesignated as ordinary agricultural use land, thus avoiding the required approval of the State Council. ­Because of the outmaneuvering of local governments, implementation of the central farmland preservation policy has not been successful from the start. The central government began formulating the First National ­Integrated Land Use Plan in 1987. In 1993 the State Council approved the plan, which covered the period from 1985 to 2000. Guided by the national plan, the majority of provinces had completed their land use plans by the end of 1995. Although the central government hoped to use the integrated land use plans to balance the requirements of all land uses, it soon became clear that local governments generally did not follow the plans in their attempts to develop the local economy. As a result, the late 1980s to early 1990s witnessed the first round of a land development frenzy in China, which occurred in most parts of the country a­ fter Deng Xiaoping’s southern tour (nanxun) in 1992. Nationwide, local governments requisitioned

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farmland to create 8,700 special economic development zones (SEDZs) (Huang Xiaohu 2006, 18). The huge loss of farmland in the 1990s proved that the First National Integrated Land Use Plan did not work. To slow the rapid disappearance of farmland, the central government set out to revise the Land Management Law to make farmland preservation one of the basic national policies. By stipulating in considerable detail the nature, role, and administration of the integrated land use plans, the 1998 revised Land Management Law gave the plans prominent status in land management. Guided by this new law, the Ministry of Land and Resources formulated the Second National Integrated Land Use Plan, covering the period from 1996 to 2010. A strict hierarchy of approving local land use plans was also established. Despite the stricter l­egal restriction on land development, another round of SEDZ fever spread across the country from 1998 to 2003. To attract investors and boost their economies, local governments set up even more SEDZs. ­There are 2,862 counties in China. It is estimated that ­every county on average had at least two SEDZs between 2003 and 2007 (Tao and Wang 2010). To be sure, the difficulty in implementing the Second Land Use Plan lay not only in the re­sis­tance of local governments but also in the contradictions between the central government’s dif­fer­ent social and economic agendas in the rapidly changing contexts of the late 1990s. In addition to land issues, the central government had to focus on other, more imperative, social, economic, and po­liti­cal goals, such as the plan to improve the eco­ nom­ically less developed western regions (xibu da kaifa), the program of returning sloping farmland with an incline of more than 25 degrees back to nature for environmental protection (tuigeng huanlin), and the plan for small town construction (xiao chengzhen jianshe). All ­these agendas involved the use of millions of mu of farmland. Local governments ­were thus able to take advantage of contradictory central polices to seek more farmland than the quotas stipulated by the Second Land Use Plan. Local governments can also openly contest and negotiate with the central government about the formulation of integrated land use plans, which can be best illustrated by the formulation of the Third National Integrated Land Use Plan. In late 2004 the central government deci­ded to revise the National Integrated Land Use Plan for the third time. This pro­cess took more than three years and was full of contention and negotiations between the central government and local governments.18 Most local governments ­were ­eager to reformulate their integrated land use plans b­ ecause this would

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grant them a new opportunity to set higher construction land quotas. In their proposals, some local authorities set unusually high development targets to get more construction quotas. For instance, a provincial capital with a population of two million proposed that they become a metropolitan area of twenty million ­people in 2020. Another city, of which the combined area of its residential and business districts is no more than 125 square kilo­meters, proposed building a new district of 150 square kilo­meters. Even more unbelievable is the fact that a total of 183 cities proposed that they become modern international metropolitan areas in the near f­ uture (Tian 2007, 7). Faced with ­eager local authorities, the central government did not immediately begin the revision. Instead, it initiated a yearlong preliminary study during which large-­scale land surveys ­were conducted to obtain accurate data on local conditions. Also, the rules regulating the procedures of approving land use plans at dif­fer­ent administrative levels ­were refined, and pi­lot programs ­were run in selected cities. Despite such careful preparation by the central government, the competition for more land resources immediately became very keen when the central government tried to allocate construction quotas to dif­fer­ent economic sectors, administrative units, and provinces. Officials charged with drafting the Third Plan revealed that they had to negotiate with representatives from dif­fer­ent provinces and government departments on a daily basis. In most provinces the construction quotas had to be negotiated three to four times. Bargaining with major economic departments such as the Ministry of Construction, the Ministry of Transportation, and the Ministry of Railways was more difficult, requiring more than thirty negotiations (Tian 2007, 9). In the end, the result of ­these negotiations was unsatisfactory to the central government. The quotas requested by the local authorities far exceeded the central government’s original plan. As a result, the State Council rejected the first draft of the Third Plan in September 2006. It took another two years to redraft the plan. The State Council fi­nally approved it in August 2008. In addition to revising the integrated land use plans, the Ministry of Land and Resources also set up a special institution—­the General Office of State Land Supervision (quanguo tudi ducha bangongshi) in 2008, so as to effectively check the local development craze and implement the farmland preservation policy. Nine bureaus u ­ nder the general office ­were charged with supervising land development in dif­fer­ent regions across the country. Through this institution, the central government hoped to establish a mechanism to directly supervise and intervene in local land use be­hav­iors rather

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than ­going through the Provincial Departments of Land and Resources and their local bureaus, which ­were invariably controlled by local governments. However, the weakness of the new mea­sure was that it only dealt with the farmland loss prob­lem through administrative fiat instead of addressing the contradictory incentive framework faced by local governments. Despite the central government’s efforts over the past ten years, maintaining 1.8 billion mu of farmland continues to be difficult. During a lecture at China Agricultural University in June 2013, Chen Xiwen expressed concerns and worries about the red line of farmland preservation. According to Chen, between 2000 and 2002, the annual amount of farmland expropriated for urban construction in the w ­ hole country was two million mu. In 2013, however, the amount increased to more than four million mu. “­Under such circumstances, it would be very difficult to maintain 1.8 billion mu of farmland by 2020,” Chen commented.19 To sum up, although China’s land management structure is moving gradually from a previously fragmented authority to the current centralized administration, it still remains in flux as the central government and local governments continue to strug­gle for more power in controlling land ­resources. The laws and policies formed as a result of the recent reform of China’s land management system have definitely set up a new institutional framework for local authorities. However, ­these policy objectives, combined with China’s recent fiscal reform, make local governments operate in a framework of contradictory incentives. On the one hand, the revenue-­sharing agreement between the central government and local governments provides strong incentives for local governments to take land away from agriculture and reallocate it for industrial or commercial use in order to increase their revenue. On the other hand, the task of farmland preservation and environmental protection also falls on the shoulders of local governments. The result is ongoing contention and negotiation between the central government and local governments.

PART IV

AN EVOLVING LAND OWNER­SHIP SYSTEM IN THE REFORM ERA

CHAPTER 9

Negotiating Land Use Rights and Income Distribution in Agricultural Production

­ fter the implementation of House­hold Responsibility System (HRS) in the A early 1980s, farmers who cultivated their contracted land appeared to enjoy almost the same rights as landowners, except for the right to sell. However, in tracing Fuyuan’s path in agricultural production since 1982, I found that conflicts between collective land own­ership and the individual ­house­hold’s land use rights frequently arise, due to administrative intervention by local governments and village administrations. For local government, agriculture has always been an impor­tant source of revenue, although its contribution has been decreasing over the past de­cade due to the increasing importance of the local coal industry and land development. With the assistance of village cadres, the local government has per­sis­tently intervened in local agricultural production and thus infringed upon farmers’ land use rights. For the majority of Fuyuan’s rural residents, who generally lag b­ ehind in their attempts to develop local industry, farming has continued to be their primary means of making a living. They therefore have strug­gled constantly with the local government in order to maintain their production freedom. At the same time, common ground does exist between the government and farmers, making cooperation pos­si­ble from time to time, depending on social and economic circumstances. The cooperation is based on farmers’ desire for prosperity and the government’s need for more revenues as well as a good po­liti­cal rec­ord of local economic development. The interplay of conflict and cooperation over the past three de­cades reveals a complex pro­cess of agricultural production. But, during this pro­cess, farmers are generally at a disadvantage.

165

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Grain Production and Early Experiments with Tobacco (1982–1992) ­Until the late 1990s, agriculture had been the sole pillar of Fuyuan’s economy. In the Maoist era, most regions ­were required to be self-­sufficient in grain production, regardless of w ­ hether or not their land was well suited to growing grain. The majority of Fuyuan’s agricultural land was planted with traditional crops such as rice, corn, potatoes, wheat, and beans. The policy of “taking grain as the key link” ( yiliang weigang) was eased in the early 1980s ­after the implementation of the HRS. But farmers, village collectives, and the local government at all levels still needed to fulfill the state’s grain quotas. The 1980s and early 1990s therefore saw Fuyuan’s government struggling to increase grain production in order to fill its quota, as well as to feed its rapidly growing population. Since Fuyuan is located in a mountainous area, most of Fuyuan’s agricultural land lacks sufficient ­water resources, causing low grain yields. Fuyuan County had an average grain shortage of four million kilograms ­every year throughout the 1980s, and the county government had to buy grain from other regions with the permission of higher authorities. With the food rationing system, which was not abolished u ­ ntil the early 1990s, the county government was obligated to provide its urban residents with subsidized grains. In 1990, for example, it had to use at least 1.4 million yuan of its annual revenue to subsidize local urban residents by selling the grain at a price lower than the price it had paid (Yearbook of Fuyuan 1988–1990, 29). With such a ­great financial burden, the county government took increasing grain output as an imperative. As the county mayor put it in the 1990 annual work report, “speeding up agricultural development, especially the grain production, is the top task put in front of us” (29). In order to improve grain yields, the county government set up strict contracts with work targets in each of its townships. Th ­ ese targets included grain quotas and the adoption of a series of agricultural technologies such as improved corn and rice seeds, better fertilizers, use of plastic sheets to retain moisture in the fields, and starting seedlings in small containers. The contracts specified rewards and penalties for each township’s work per­for­ mance. For example, in 1992 ­every township government that had fulfilled its grain quota and improved its agricultural technologies as required was awarded 10,000 yuan. An additional eleven yuan w ­ ere awarded for ­every 10,000 kilograms of grain surpassing the production target. A penalty of

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5,000 yuan was imposed on townships whose grain production was below target, and the township head also had to pay a penalty of 100 yuan, roughly a township cadre’s monthly salary in 1992. Failure to implement any one of the required technological improvements also cost the township a 1,000 yuan fine.1 Meanwhile, the county government had also begun to increase its meager revenue by promoting tobacco production. In the early 1990s, with the abolishment of the food rationing system and the partial opening of the grain market, a substantial number of private grain traders w ­ ere allowed to conduct business in the countryside. This had alleviated the pressure for grain production in Fuyuan. The Fuyuan government then shifted its agricultural priority to tobacco, a product that can bring in high revenues b­ ecause its sale has always been a government mono­poly. Checking Fuyuan’s agricultural history, I found a total of only 540 mu planted with tobacco in Fuyuan in 1947. Since the P ­ eople’s Republic of China was established, tobacco production has steadily increased (see figure 9.1). Between 1982 and 1992, the tobacco growing area had doubled, from 50,000 mu to 126,000 mu, and tobacco gradually became the major, if not the only, source of local revenue. In 1992, for instance, total government revenue was 40 million yuan, of which 17.3 million yuan (42 ­percent) was generated by tobacco taxes and fees. As a county party secretary put it in 1992, “Our county’s revenue w ­ ill come from industrial enterprises in the long term; however, for the pres­ent, we can only rely on tobacco” (Yearbook of Fuyuan 1993, 20). The attempt to obtain more revenue eventually led to countywide compulsory tobacco production. The same practice spread across the w ­ hole southwest region, where the natu­ral conditions are suitable for tobacco production.

Compulsory Tobacco Production since the Early 1990s To ensure tobacco production, the county government ­adopted even stricter work contracts than grain production with the townships and administrative villages. During the tobacco growing and harvesting seasons, almost ­every township cadre, regardless of his or her work position, was mobilized to supervise and promote tobacco production. Due to the intensive work undertaken by township cadres, the award for each township that fulfilled the tobacco production quota was much higher than that for grain production. In 1992, for instance, the award was 100,000 yuan, ten times that for grain production (Yearbook of Fuyuan 1993, 20). Such highly administrated tobacco production had brought about the most frequent clashes and the

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Figure 9.1  Area of tobacco cultivation in Fuyuan, 1947–2013 Sources: • Data for 1947–1987 from Fuyuan Xianzhi (Fuyuan County Gazetteer) (1993), 143. • Data for 1992–2010 from Yearbook of Fuyuan (1993, 194; 1997, 231; 1998, 242; 1999, 264; 2001, 228; 2002, 236; 2003, 172; 2004, 178; 2005, 171; 2006, 253; 2007, 219; 2008, 214; 2009, 213; 2010, 217; 2011, 207). • Data for 2011–2013 from Yearbook of Fuyuan (2012), http://­w ww​.­q jfy​.­gov​.­cn​/­f ynj/nongyue​ /20121210/162645.shtml; Yearbook of Fuyuan (2013), http://­w ww​.­q jfy​.­gov​.­cn​/­f ynj/nongyue​ /20130802/152742.shtml; Yearbook of Fuyuan (2014) http://­w ww​.­q jfy​.­gov​.­cn​/­f ynj​/­gaikuang​ /­20141028​/­100155​.­shtml.

hardest negotiations between rural h ­ ouse­holds and the local government. A description of the production cycle of tobacco can illustrate the intense involvement of the local government in the pro­cess. Demarcating Tobacco Zones: The Uneven Distribution of Production Quotas As tobacco constitutes the single most impor­tant source of government revenue throughout Yunnan Province, quotas of tobacco production have been allocated to counties, townships, administrative village, and villa­gers’ groups since the late 1980s. However, the quotas ­were not evenly allocated among ­these administrative units, making quota allocation a complex pro­cess for

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both farmers and all levels of government. The uneven distribution of tobacco production is mainly caused by the specific soil and climate conditions required by this crop. Tobacco needs plenty of sunlight and moisture, and cannot survive in high altitudes. It also prefers sandy soil with a lower pH value, that is, slightly acidic. For ­these reasons, only ­those administrative units with suitable soil and climate conditions are assigned tobacco quotas. In Fuyuan’s case, all eleven of its townships receive tobacco production quotas, with the highest quota more than 25,000 mu and the lowest only 3,000 mu. For example, Fucun Township had a quota of around 17,000 mu in 2003. Among the twenty-­one administrative villages in Fucun Township, five w ­ ere not assigned tobacco quotas due to their unsuitable conditions. Meanwhile, Y Administrative Village was always assigned the highest quota. In 2005, for example, it grew 3,000 mu of tobacco as required. Even among Y’s eleven constituent villa­gers’ groups/zhaizi, tobacco was not evenly allocated: t­ hose at higher altitudes received smaller quotas or none at all, while more than half the tobacco was planted in the few villa­gers’ groups along a riverbank at the foot of the mountain that have sufficient sunlight and w ­ ater resources. As a result, h ­ ouse­holds in ­these villa­gers’ groups bore the highest burden of tobacco production and had the least freedom as to how they could use their contracted land. Similarly, within a villa­gers’ group/zhaizi, not all h ­ ouse­holds ­were allocated equal tobacco quotas; the quota depended on w ­ hether their land lay within the tobacco zones. In 2011, 109 among 161 administrative villages in Fuyuan ­were assigned tobacco production quotas. Tobacco zones are demarcated due to the need for large-­scale planting (lianpian bozhong). Tobacco is grown for its leaves. To ensure their quality, tobacco plants cannot be mixed with other crops in the same plot. If the pollen from other crops falls on tobacco plants it deteriorates the quality of the leaves. Large tobacco fields prevent this prob­lem. Separating tobacco plots from other crops also helps prevent the spread of diseases and pests, which has always been a difficult challenge in tobacco production. In 2003 a total of 2,030 tracts of farmland w ­ ere used for tobacco in Fuyuan. The largest tract was around 1,000 mu, and the smallest thirty to forty mu (Yearbook of Fuyuan 2004, 178). ­These tracts make up the tobacco zones. The size of the tobacco zones has increased significantly over the past de­ cade, while the number of zones decreased from over 2,000 in 2003 to 786 in 2011.2

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The decisions as to which areas w ­ ill be designated tobacco zones in a village are made by cadres of the administrative village and the leaders of villa­gers’ groups since they are most familiar with local land and ­labor conditions. Township officials focus on the total quota for the township, but they also closely watch the planning in ­every village and often step in if any prob­lem arises. Since tobacco production considerably decreases soil fertility, crop rotation is required e­ very few years. As a result, local cadres have to demarcate tobacco zones at least once ­every two years, which again requires a lot of work on the part of both village and township cadres. A ­ fter tobacco zones are chosen in e­ very villa­gers’ group/zhaizi, the next step is to convince ­those ­house­holds whose contracted land is located within the tobacco zone to grow tobacco. Why Are Farmers Unwilling to Grow Tobacco? ­Under the HRS, e­ very rural ­house­hold in Fuyuan received land in each of three grades: good, medium, and poor. On average, a ­house­hold received five to eight plots of land located in dif­fer­ent places in the zhaizi. A plot of ­ ouse­holds. If this plot hapthirty mu could thus be contracted to a dozen h pened to be designated as a tobacco zone, ­house­holds with their contracted land in this plot would then be required to grow tobacco. In other words, they had no freedom in crop choice. To be sure, farmers welcomed tobacco production in the 1980s and the early 1990s, ­because tobacco could provide a relatively higher income for rural families. With very limited opportunities for off-­farm work, no special skills, and meager financial resources, most ­house­holds did not have much choice in how they earned income. Even if the local government had not forced farmers to grow tobacco, g­ oing back to traditional crops would not have improved their lives ­because of the extremely low profit margins. For instance, farmers could obtain less than 200 yuan from a mu of corn in 1990, while the average income from a mu of tobacco was close to 400 yuan. In 1990 Shilbalianshan, a township in south Fuyuan, obtained about 400,000 yuan of ­revenue from tobacco and was able to provide electricity to most of its administrative villages. Villa­gers in Tianbao, an administrative village in Shibalianshan that produced high-­quality tobacco leaves ­because of its natu­ral conditions, bought several dozen TV sets in that year. This was considered a sign of g­ reat economic success by local standards (Yearbook of Fuyuan 1993, 20).

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However, growing a large quantities of tobacco can bring about many difficulties and prob­lems for villa­gers as well. Compared with traditional crops such as corn, rice, and potatoes, tobacco cultivation is very l­abor intensive, involving many more procedures. Most h ­ ouse­holds do not have sufficient ­labor power to take care of more than five mu of tobacco. In 2005, when pushed the hardest to grow more tobacco, each designated ­house­hold in Fuyuan was able to grow only an average of 3.24 mu (Yearbook of Fuyuan 2006, 253). In terms of raising seedlings, fertilizing, and controlling pests and diseases, tobacco production requires more technology than most crops. Moreover, its production costs are higher. Tobacco leaves must be cured ­after the harvest before they can be sold to local tobacco-­ purchasing stations. A common curing kiln is a coal-­fired oven about five meters high and two meters wide. During the curing procedure, the temperature in the kiln is kept at forty to sixty degrees Celsius. One kiln costs about 1,000 yuan and can cure no more than five mu of tobacco leaves. ­Until the beginning of the new millennium, the majority of rural ­house­holds in Fuyuan could afford the construction and fuel cost of only one kiln and therefore could grow four to five mu of tobacco at most. In addition to t­hese production difficulties, the fact that the government realizes a huge profit from tobacco while farmers receive only a very small part of the income increases farmers’ sense of unfairness. Also, while before the mid-1990s selling tobacco was a relatively smooth pro­cess, starting in 1994 farmers began to face a series of prob­lems selling tobacco, as I ­will discuss in further detail below. As more economic opportunities became available to farmers, such as working in the local coal mines; growing konjac, which is more profitable and less ­labor intensive; and seeking ­employment in the cities, villa­gers started to prefer other options to growing tobacco. Thus tobacco production had to be enforced by administrative o­ rders, creating ­great tension between the local government and villa­gers. Pushing Designated House­holds to Grow Tobacco Given all the difficulties associated with tobacco cultivation, the unequal distribution of tobacco quotas among h ­ ouse­holds has made the designated ­house­holds feel even more unfairly treated and unenthusiastic. It has always been challenging for village and township cadres to push farmers to grow tobacco. The villa­gers’ group leaders are the first to tackle this task. If they cannot solve the prob­lem, they hand it over to the cadres in the administrative

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village, who can then turn to the township government for help if needed. The township cadres usually ­handle the toughest cases. Village cadres generally do two ­things to persuade farmers to grow tobacco. First, they try to solve some of the ­house­holds’ practical prob­lems. A villa­gers’ group with a tobacco quota usually has several tobacco zones within its territory. It often happens that some ­house­holds have many of their plots located in the tobacco zones. Due to the intensive l­abor input for tobacco production, it is very difficult if not impossible for ­these ­house­holds to grow so much tobacco. In ­these circumstances, swapping land is a common solution. For example, one h ­ ouse­hold may have eight mu of land in the tobacco zone, and in the same villa­ger’s group another ­house­hold may be assigned two mu of tobacco and have another five mu of corn. The group leader would then ask the second h ­ ouse­hold to swap three mu of corn with three mu of the first h ­ ouse­hold’s tobacco. In ­doing so, the second ­house­hold takes over part of the tobacco quota assigned to the first. This strategy is also used to relieve the burden of h ­ ouse­holds that lack sufficient l­abor power for tobacco cultivation. The village cadres can ask ­house­holds with more ­labor power to grow more tobacco and let ­house­holds that lack ­labor power grow traditional crops that require less ­labor. In only a few cases, mainly ­house­holds in extremely poor economic conditions, financial aid can be provided in the form of fertilizer or money to build a curing kiln. The second ­thing village cadres do is “thought work” (zuo sixiang gongzuo). ­W hether it is an easy case or a tough one, persuasion is the most frequently used method by cadres at all levels. The practice of swapping land actually moves part of one ­house­hold’s work burden to another, which requires careful negotiation and persuasion. “Thought work” generally involves three issues. As one village cadre described it, “We use ‘feelings’ (qing), ‘reason’ (li), and ‘law’ ( fa) to persuade farmers to fulfill their responsibility.” “Feelings,” a short way of saying “personal feelings” (renqing), refer to the complex kinship, friendship, and other reciprocal relationships among the villa­gers. Village cadres might invoke idioms of community and kinship to persuade fellow villa­gers to comply with production o­ rders. “Reason,” as used by the village cadres, mainly focuses on asking designated farmers to take the interests of the w ­ hole into account (guquan daju) instead of only thinking about their individual f­ amily’s con­ve­nience. The interests of the w ­ hole, of course, only means that the village administration can fulfill their tobacco production quota. The use of “law” refers to vari­ous actions that the local government can take against the villa­gers. For instance, the cadres can

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threaten to terminate the land contract of the disobeying ­house­hold (although legally they are not allowed to do so), or the village administration ­will not issue the ­house­hold certain critical certificates in the ­future (such as marriage certificates, birth certificates, or residence registration). This combination of personal feelings, reason, and law generally proves effective in ­handling most prob­lems in the village communities. In most cases prob­ lems are solved; that is, the farmers give in ­after several sessions of “thought work.” If some ­house­holds are stubborn enough to plant other crops in their contracted land located in the tobacco zones, the cadres may pull out the seedlings. ­ Under ­ t hese circumstances confrontations between rural ­house­holds and local cadres intensify and verbal abuse or fights can erupt. However, in the end the cadres always win. The Closely Supervised Production Pro­cess The cadres’ work is not over a­ fter farmers have been forced to accept quotas. They must supervise the production pro­cess from beginning to end. Profit from tobacco depends not only on the quantity of tobacco leaves but also on their quality. Tobacco companies buy from the farmers on a forty-­ grade system.3 Prices vary a g­ reat deal among the dif­fer­ent grades of leaves. For example, the lowest grade of tobacco leaves was worth only 0.80 yuan per kilogram in 2005, while the highest grade brought about seventeen yuan per kilogram. In 2013 the highest grade was worth twenty-­five yuan per kilogram and the lowest grade ten yuan per kilogram. To ensure the quality of tobacco leaves and maximize their profits, local cadres closely supervise the ten-­month production cycle. January to April is the period for growing tobacco seedlings. In the late 1990s Fuyuan’s government started using new technologies to grow seedlings, such as growing them in small plastic bags that retain moisture and nutrition. Village cadres played an impor­tant role in persuading farmers to use ­these new methods. In 2003 the new technology was used to grow 54 ­percent of the seedlings in the county; this figure ­rose to 80 ­percent in 2004 (Yearbook of Fuyuan 2005, 171). Although e­ very ­house­hold is responsible for planting their own seeds in wooden seedbeds, each of which is about 8 meters long, 1.2 meters wide, and 0.3 meters high, all the seedbeds in a villa­gers’ group are put together in a field so that it is easy for the tobacco technician from the administrative village to check the seeds’ growing conditions. The technician is often a ­middle school or high school gradu­ate in the village and is trained by the county tobacco com­pany. He or she teaches

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villa­gers new technologies and informs villa­gers of any disease or nutrition prob­lems. ­A fter the seeds sprout, farmers transplant the seedlings into the tobacco zones. This is the most intensive work period for both farmers and cadres. The transplanting pro­cess must be finished by mid-­May to ensure ample sunlight in the growing season, which is crucial to the quality of tobacco leaves. Since drought often occurs in May, and most of Fuyuan’s land lacks an irrigation system, transplanting can be very challenging. Farmers must use ­cattle to carry ­water or carry w ­ ater buckets on shoulder poles to w ­ ater the newly transplanted seedlings. Pushing farmers to finish the transplanting as soon as pos­si­ble thus becomes the most difficult task for local cadres. In 2010, for example, a very serious drought occurred in Yunnan, and Fuyuan was one of the counties that had been affected most seriously. The survival of the transplanted seedlings became uncertain b­ ecause less than 15 ­percent of Fuyuan’s tobacco fields had access to an irrigation system. To cope with the situation, the county government and the county tobacco com­pany established a responsibility system ­under which the administrative levels of township, administrative village, and villa­gers’ groups w ­ ere assigned strict work targets. The aim was to ensure the survival of transplanted seedlings and “not to miss an administrative village in a township, or a villa­gers’ group in an administrative village, or a ­house­hold in a group, or even a plot among a ­house­hold’s tobacco fields” (Yearbook of Fuyuan 2011, 208). Villa­gers ­were pushed to carry w ­ ater for the seedlings from w ­ ater resources as far as five kilo­meters away. On May 4, 2010, all 130,995 mu of tobacco seedlings ­were transplanted and survived. From mid-­May to mid-­August the impor­tant tasks are pest and disease control and appropriately pruning the plants’ leaves. This period is relatively less stressful for both the villa­gers and the cadres. The tobacco technician ­will watch closely for any sign of insects or disease in their zones. Village cadres often push the farmers to prune extra leaves on the plants to ensure the quality of the remaining leaves. At the time of harvest in mid-­August farmers cannot simply pick the leaves as they wish. The tobacco technician determines which zones are ready for harvest. Moreover, t­here are certain preferred procedures for picking. The bottom leaves are usually picked first. Ten days l­ater leaves on the ­middle part of the plant are ready to be collected. The top leaves are picked last. Cadres or­ga­nize the harvest and make sure villa­gers follow the appropriate steps.

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Curing a­ fter harvest is the last impor­tant procedure that affects the quality of the leaves. The county tobacco com­pany frequently distributes brochures on the appropriate procedures of curing to h ­ ouse­holds that grow tobacco. The tobacco technician in each administrative village also offers assistance if needed. ­A fter curing, the tobacco technician guides farmers in roughly dividing the cured leaves into dif­fer­ent grades, and tying them in bundles of twenty. Only at this point are farmers ready to sell their tobacco. During such a tightly controlled production pro­cess, farmers have ­little freedom at almost ­every step of production. The purpose of this supervision and intervention is to obtain high-­grade tobacco leaves, which can result in high profits for the local government. Meanwhile, the burden of the close supervision becomes heavier and heavier for local cadres. Foot-­dragging or not following the required procedures have become the farmers’ major ways of protesting, making supervision costs very high for the local government. ­After Harvest: The Government’s High Revenue and Farmers’ Liabilities In China the tobacco and cigarette markets are a government mono­poly. ­Under this system, the central government and local governments enjoy high revenue generated by heavy tobacco taxes. In 2013 farmers could sell one kilogram of first-­grade tobacco leaves for twenty-­five yuan at most. ­However, one kilogram of tobacco leaves can make about forty packages of cigarettes, the retail value of which is more than 1,000 yuan. Clearly, tobacco is a high-­profit industry. The government charges heavy taxes for tobacco and cigarettes, including a special crop tax (nongye techan shui), an income tax (suodeshui), a value-­added tax (zengzhi shui), a business tax ( yingye shui), a municipal construction tax (chengshi jianshe fujiashui), and an education surcharge (  jiaoyu fujiashui). The sum of ­these taxes, generated by one f­ amily of products, adds up to a rate higher than 100 ­percent. Before the local coal industry boom, Fuyuan’s government obtained g­ reat financial benefit from tobacco. From 1987 to 1998 tobacco taxes represented 40 to 50 ­percent of Fuyuan’s total government revenue. Even ­a fter 1998, a sizeable portion of Fuyuan’s revenue depended on tobacco. For farmers, t­hings are quite dif­fer­ent. ­Under the market mono­poly, farmers face many liabilities when selling the tobacco they are ordered to grow. The first prob­lem is the bounded market. ­Every county government has their township governments set up purchasing stations. Farmers are

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required to sell their cured tobacco leaves within the bound­aries of their resident township. ­These regulations ensure that the township governments collect the full profit from tobacco sales within their territories, but this administrative control leaves farmers with no latitude to negotiate and maximize their income. The second prob­lem involves corruption among purchasing agents. The price of tobacco is deci­ded by its grade. However, the evaluation of tobacco is deci­ded by the staff at the local purchasing station. Farmers’ tobacco is often deliberately undervalued, for many reasons. In some cases the stations want to resell it to the cigarette factories as a higher grade to make more profit. Sometimes the stations undervalue the grade to protect their own interests ­because they could also face undervaluation when they sell the tobacco to the cigarette factories. Farmers who have connections with purchasing station staff can sometimes sell their tobacco as a higher grade and thus obtain more income. A few p ­ eople who have connections with the stations have become known as “tobacco mongers” ( yanfanzi), who may or may not grow tobacco themselves. During the purchasing season t­hese tobacco mongers buy tobacco from farmers and then resell it to the purchasing stations at a higher price. Some farmers are willing to sell tobacco to the mongers ­because they fear that, without any connections, the price they could get from the purchasing stations might be lower. I met a tobacco monger who had given up farming in the Huangnihe Administrative Village. The major part of his annual income came from mongering tobacco ­every autumn. “He ­doesn’t do any backbreaking work in the field; nevertheless, he makes as much money as a common tobacco farmer ­every year,” one of his neighbors commented to me. ­Every year in its annual work report, the county tobacco com­pany points out that they have worked hard with the local police to crack down on tobacco mongers. Nevertheless, the mongers have continued to exist throughout the past three de­cades. The third and most serious prob­lem of selling tobacco is farmers’ economic loss caused by the disconnection between the administered production and the market. Farmers cannot control how much they should grow; the local cadres assign the amounts. Neither can they control how much tobacco they sell; selling depends on how much the county tobacco com­pany is willing to buy. Farmers are completely at the mercy of the tobacco companies and factories.

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To understand such a situation, we need to examine the three stages in the history of Fuyuan’s tobacco production, during which farmers faced a variety of prob­lems in the monopolized market. The first stage, from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, was one of rapid development due to the increased demand for tobacco nationwide. The economic loss farmers bore at this early stage was mainly caused by lack of technology and experience. Fuyuan’s farmers ­were not yet able to grow high-­quality tobacco, resulting in income lower than for selling rice and corn. Farmers also had difficulties with pest control. Nevertheless, Fuyuan’s government eagerly promoted tobacco cultivation among farmers. In 1987 tobacco was grown on 77,100 mu in Fuyuan. This area tripled within ten years (see figure 9.1 on page 168). The county tobacco com­pany was able to buy so much tobacco from local farmers b­ ecause it had no difficulty selling to the cigarette factories that ­were quickly constructed by the provincial and prefectural governments. In fact, for a few years, t­here was even a shortage of tobacco. Consequently, some farmers, especially t­hose with no better way of earning cash, ­were motivated to grow more than their quotas. However, the thriving market did not last. Since the early 1990s large quantities of poor-­quality cigarettes saturated the market. Meanwhile, to tighten its control over the nation’s economy, the central government also began centralizing the tobacco industry, thereby limiting the number of cigarette factories and their output. Fuyuan’s tobacco production thus entered its second stage as the central policy of “double controls” (control on production area and output) began to be directly applied in the Yunnan region in 1998. Fuyuan’s tobacco-­growing area plummeted from 257,000 mu in 1997 to 129,000 mu in 1998. Even so, the remaining cigarette factories could not buy all the tobacco cultivated in the nearby counties. The county tobacco com­pany in turn decreased the amount it purchased from the farmers. Farmers suffered eco­nom­ically since they ­were prohibited by law from selling tobacco to anyone except their local county com­pany. Having ­little practical usage for h ­ ouse­hold consumption by e­ither ­human beings or domestic animals, this kind of flue-­cured tobacco becomes trash. Farmers’ grievances and re­sis­tance reached their peak during this period, with frequent collective protests in Yunnan Province. Since 2000 Fuyuan’s tobacco production has evolved into a relatively stable third stage. Fuyuan’s tobacco-­growing area has been kept to between 120,000 to 130,000 mu over the past fifteen years. Tobacco purchase is still

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by contract between the county tobacco com­pany and the farmers. Generally, farmers can sell most of the tobacco they grow; however, the disconnection between production quotas and the monopolized market occurs from time to time and continues to damage farmers’ economic interests. For example, from my interview with village cadres in Y Administrative Village in Fucun Township, I learned that Y Administrative Village was usually assigned a production quota of 200,000 kilograms, which is the yield of roughly 2,000 mu of tobacco ­under normal conditions. However, to make sure they can fulfill the assigned quota even with bad weather or insect pests, village cadres often order farmers to grow more—­usually 50 ­percent more than their allocated quota. Thus the ­actual planting area is about 3,000 mu. In a year of poor harvest, Y Administrative Village might be able to fulfill its quota, and farmers can sell all their products to the county tobacco com­pany. In a bumper year, however, the harvest far exceeds the quota, and the county tobacco com­pany does not buy the extra leaves. Farmers then have to bear the economic loss, although the extent of the loss is not as severe as in the previous period. To prevent massive protests in a year of bumper harvest, village cadres try to distribute the losses among all tobacco-­growing ­house­holds. This is pos­si­ble ­because harvesting tobacco takes several rounds; selling tobacco also takes several rounds. Cadres or­ga­nize each round of selling in their village, and they check to be sure ­every ­house­hold gets their turn to sell. In ­doing so, even if the purchasing station already met its needs before all the leaves are picked, e­ very ­house­hold can sell at least a part of their tobacco. To be sure, farmers do not wait passively for economic losses in selling tobacco; they also adopt vari­ous strategies to protect themselves. For instance, in a year of poor harvest many farmers ­will take advantage of the fact that ­every township government scrambles to fulfill its production quota. They ­will secretly sell their good-­quality tobacco to other townships or counties. In fact, cadres in dif­fer­ent townships or counties compete with each other and sneak into other townships or counties (in Fuyuan’s case, usually townships in neighboring Guizhou Province) to buy tobacco to fill their own quotas. Of course, the price is much higher than that set by the central government. A ­ fter selling their high-­quality tobacco leaves at black-­market prices, farmers then use the lower-­grade tobacco to fulfill their contract with their local purchasing stations. If the amount they sell is not enough, farmers use unfavorable natu­ral conditions as their excuse. Since harvest and crop failures can occur in dif­fer­ent places in the same year, farmers

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with bumper harvests might also secretly sell their high-­grade tobacco to the region where crop failure occurs. Recent Changes in the Management of Tobacco Production Facing unwilling and resisting farmers, local governments have had to make management changes b­ ecause of the high supervision costs involved in the current methods of tobacco production. Village cadres feel the burden of compulsory production most strongly since they are ­under pressure from both the farmers and the local governments. The contracts between the county tobacco com­pany and the farmers are not legally binding for ­either party. If farmers cannot fulfill their quotas during times of bad harvest, the county tobacco com­pany cannot penalize them. Instead, the county and township government press the village cadres to solve the prob­lem. In a year of bumper harvest the village cadres are the first ones confronted by farmers who cannot sell all their tobacco. As one village party secretary told me, “We village cadres are just like the ping-­pong ball, hit by both our higher authorities and the farmers.” Thus both the local governments and village cadres are e­ ager to find a way to improve this thorny situation. Another impor­tant ­factor leading to changes in tobacco production management is that, starting in the new millennium, more and more young p ­ eople in Fuyuan began to find off-­farm employment outside Fuyuan, as the rural populace in other regions did some time ago. When ­people left their homes for urban areas, t­ here was no way for the local government to force them to grow what they ­didn’t want to grow. To attract villa­gers to continue to grow tobacco, the government had to change its management practices. An impor­tant change was to provide substantial technological support and financial subsidies for tobacco production. Farmers are now provided with improved seeds and subsidized fertilizers and pesticides. In 2009 the county government and the county tobacco com­pany made the largest investment in tobacco production and processing—­a total of 245 million yuan ­were spent in building standard curing kilns, irrigation systems, and seedling-­ growing bases, as well as in buying 1,528 pieces of farm machinery (Yearbook of Fuyuan 2010, 217). Tobacco fields now generally have better irrigation facilities than fields of traditional crops. By 2011 more than half of the tobacco fields in Fuyuan ­were already plowed by the tractors owned by the tobacco com­pany. By 2012 the ­whole county had 262 technicians who could offer farmers help with tobacco cultivation and  102 curing technicians who could provide assistance with curing tobacco leaves. ­Because of ­these

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improvements, the percentage of high-­grade tobacco leaves in Fuyuan kept rising. In 2011, for example, 63 ­percent of tobacco leaves ­were graded as high quality, and the percentage ­rose to 72 in 2013. ­These improvements helped farmers to obtain better prices for the tobacco they grew.4 Another change was encouraging some h ­ ouse­holds to become large-­ scale tobacco growers. With the technological assistance mentioned above, many h ­ ouse­holds can now grow fifteen to twenty mu of tobacco, compared with three to four mu in the 1990s (Yearbook of Fuyuan 2011, 208). The government hoped that a gradual concentration of tobacco cultivation would make a series of issues easier, such as their supervision tasks, the use of farm machinery, and the prevention and control of pests and diseases. ­Until the beginning of the new millennium, tobacco cultivation in Fuyuan spread over more than two thousand plots. Over the past de­cade, the number of tobacco zones was reduced to around seven hundred, and the average size of the zones increased considerably. Despite ­these changes and improvements, the major prob­lem with tobacco production is that the lion’s share of profits is still taken by the government; the profit that farmers could obtain from growing tobacco is still very ­little. Across the country, the price for tobacco leaves r­ ose 13 ­percent in 2011 and 20 ­percent in 2012. In Fuyuan, a kilogram of cured tobacco leaves could sell for 18.930 yuan in 2011, and the price ­rose to 25.58 yuan in 2013. Even with this increase, farmers could earn about 2,000 yuan per mu in 2013. Put another way, as a farmer told me, during a production cycle of seven months, one can earn about thirty-­ four yuan (less than seven U.S. dollars) a day by growing tobacco. The g­ reat gap between what the government earns and what farmers can obtain has continued to demotivate farmers to grow tobacco. As more and more young ­people leave for urban jobs, the county tobacco com­pany has had to hire p ­ eople to grow tobacco or leave the task of cultivation to older generations of farmers. The ­future of tobacco production in Fuyuan thus remains uncertain.

Another Round of Conflicts over Crop Choice (1998–2006) Tobacco’s potential contribution to Fuyuan’s economy was reduced ­after the implementation of the central government’s tobacco policy of “double controls” in 1998. This policy aimed at controlling the local cultivation area and output in order to improve the quality of tobacco. Fuyuan’s tobacco production quota shrank considerably. ­A fter reaching its production peak of 257,000 mu of tobacco in 1997, Fuyuan was allowed to cultivate only 129,000

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mu in 1998, almost a 50 ­percent drop (see figure 9.1 on page 168). Tobacco’s contribution to local revenue consequently dropped from 40 to 50 ­percent in the 1990s to 20 to 30 ­percent in the new millennium. To broaden the source of its revenue beyond tobacco, the Fuyuan government began to experiment with other cash crops, as well as to promote the local coal industry. It was within this context that the local government and farmers once again contested and negotiated on what and how to g­ row. Short-­lived Ginkgo Production The first alternative cash crop that the Fuyuan government experimented with was ginkgo. To be sure, ­there ­were already some experiments with ginkgo before 1998. In the mid-1990s many county and township officials visited other regions and provinces to observe their development of vari­ous cash crops. Observation of other provinces’ development strategies led the Fuyuan government to decide to experiment with ginkgo. In 1995 thirteen administrative villages in Fucun Township w ­ ere chosen to experiment with its cultivation and ­were given a quota of roughly 10,400 mu to be planted.5 In July 1998, a­ fter being affected by the “double controls” policy, Fuyuan’s government formally designated ginkgo as the fifth economic pillar of the county, in addition to the existing four pillars of tobacco, coal, grain, and animal husbandry, although ginkgo’s economic effects remained to be seen at that time. Therefore, from the very beginning, ginkgo production was the local government’s decision. It became another compulsory crop for local farmers in addition to tobacco. However, farmers resisted growing ginkgo for very practical reasons. ­Until the government made it compulsory, ­there was no tradition of growing gingko in Fuyuan, although wild ginkgo trees w ­ ere scattered around the county. Farmers simply had no experience in growing this plant. More importantly, ginkgo trees take too long to generate any economic benefit. The economic value of ginkgo lies primarily in the seeds, although ginkgo leaves are also useful. Wild ginkgo saplings do not mature and go to seed for several dozen years. With the assistance of modern technology, the saplings can bear seeds in about eight years, but farmers generally do not want to wait such a long period for a product with uncertain market prospects. Despite farmers’ protests, the local government insisted on planting ginkgo. By 1998 a total of 70,000 mu of ginkgo saplings ­were planted in Fuyuan. The county government aimed to gain ­great economic value from ginkgo products such as medicines and drinks.

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Prob­lems began to emerge for both the farmers and the government. First of all, entering the market was not as smooth as the local government had expected. The ginkgo products that they expected to have ­great economic value ­were medicines containing the chemical compounds in ginkgo seeds, which are believed to cure heart disease and high blood pressure. However, it takes many years for a new medicine to pass all the tests required by the National Drug Administration Bureau before it can enter the marketplace; the Fuyuan Ginkgo Development Com­pany staff told me that it could take eight to ten years. Moreover, even for other products such as ginkgo drinks and teas, Fuyuan’s local ginkgo pro­cessing factory had a long way to go to before the quality of its products could meet the requirements of the market. The Fuyuan Ginkgo Development Com­pany was in charge of ginkgo planting, pro­cessing, and marketing, but it was composed of personnel temporarily transferred from dif­fer­ent departments of the county government. Without sufficient knowledge of marketing or management, ­these unmotivated employees stumbled in managing the pro­cessing factory and developing markets. ­Things ­were worse on the farmers’ side. Given their doubts and frustrations, the majority of farmers simply did not expend much effort in taking care of the saplings planted in their fields. ­A fter a ­couple of years with no income from the ginkgo trees, village cadres also found it very difficult to push farmers to do further work. As a result of negligence, large quantities of saplings did not survive. For the young trees that survived, farmers did hope to obtain some income from them. As the ginkgo leaves can be pro­cessed to make ginkgo drinks or ginkgo tea, the county’s Ginkgo Development Com­pany initially promised to buy leaves from farmers. However, the com­pany never ­really succeeded in organ­izing the production and sale of the ginkgo drinks. As a result, it could not buy all the leaves the farmers grew, which made the unenthusiastic farmers even angrier. Since ginkgo saplings ­were interplanted among corn, some farmers figured out a way to express their frustration. Before the agricultural tax was abolished in 2003, ­these farmers turned in the unsalable ginkgo leaves instead of corn to pay the agricultural taxes for the land on which ginkgo and corn ­were interplanted. They claimed that the government should take what it ordered farmers to grow. The gloomy market and the unenthusiastic farmers caused Fuyuan’s ginkgo production to end around 2001. The local government did not push farmers to plant more ginkgo saplings. Fuyuan’s government l­ater took ad-

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vantage of the newly issued central policy of “returning agricultural land to forest” (tuigeng huanlin) to appease farmers. Aiming to protect China’s deteriorating natu­ral environment, this policy ­orders that trees be planted in agricultural land with low yields where t­ here is serious soil erosion. Much of Fuyuan’s agricultural land is dry mountain slopes. Fuyuan’s government designated t­ hose slopes with ginkgo saplings as the land that should be returned to forest. Starting in 2002, farmers who contracted t­ hese slopes w ­ ere ordered to not grow any crops t­ here but to plant trees instead. The existing ginkgo saplings w ­ ere counted as part of the work of tree planting. To compensate farmers, the government annually provided 150 kilograms of grain ­ ere renewed for another eight per mu for eight years. In 2007 the terms w years. In addition, a one-­time payment of fifty yuan per mu was offered to farmers to buy tree saplings. By implementing this central policy, Fuyuan’s government achieved two ends at once—­appeasing farmers and fulfilling the requirement of the central government. Thriving Konjac Production While the Fuyuan government was struggling with the thorny situation caused by ginkgo production, it also noticed the thriving production of another crop by local p ­ eople—­konjac. Konjac is a traditional cash crop in Fuyuan. Its cultivation history can be traced back at least one c­ entury. As a plant of the genus Amorphophallus, it is native to the tropical and subtropical zones of the Eastern Hemi­sphere. China is one of its original locations; it can be found in many of China’s southern provinces including Yunnan. Konjac is grown for its large, starchy corm, which is rich in nutritional minerals and vitamins. The corm can be pro­cessed into konjac powder and made into vari­ous products such as konjac curd, noodles, and jelly. Before 2000 konjac was grown by individual ­house­holds for their own use, but its production had been scattered ­because the majority of farmers did not grow it. Large-­scale growing of konjac started in Laochang Township. ­A fter land was allocated to rural h ­ ouse­holds in 1982, a few families in a zhaizi called Hongshashi in Laochang began to use one to two mu of their contracted land to grow konjac. This was considered relatively large-­scale cultivation, given that farmers often grew konjac in a very small plot such as 0.1 mu. The konjac t­ hese farmers grew was not for their own use, but for sale in nearby markets. The cash income for ­these families was quite sizable compared with that of their neighbors who grew corn and potatoes.

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For instance, in the early 1980s a f­ amily growing two mu of konjac made 3,000 yuan a year. At that time the average per capita income in Fuyuan was only 300 to 400 yuan. Inspired by the konjac farmers’ ­success, many farmers in this zhaizi began to grow konjac. By 1994 all forty-­three ­house­holds in Hongshashi grew konjac; the average size of their konjac plots was one mu. Hongshashi was consequently called the “konjac village” by locals. ­A fter other farmers in nearby zhaizi joined in konjac cultivation, ­Laochang Township became a konjac production base in the county. By 1995, 250 mu of the 300 mu of konjac in Fuyuan w ­ ere in Laochang. In 1997 Laochang had 700 mu of the 1,000 mu of konjac in Fuyuan.6 However, selling konjac products during this period was mainly limited to Fuyuan’s local markets. Some farmers tried to sell their products in neighboring counties, but their profits ­were reduced by transportation costs and lack of product publicity. In 1997 the konjac phenomenon in Laochang Township came to the attention of the county government. A ­ fter it had started to face revenue losses caused by the “double controls” tobacco policy, and while it was coping with gradually emerging prob­lems brought about by ginkgo production, Fuyuan’s government deci­ded to take a chance with konjac production. It hoped that konjac could bring better economic results. In 1999 Fuyuan’s government began to promote konjac production. The county government designated personnel from the administrative villages, townships, and the county seat to learn konjac production skills from experts in agricultural schools and research institutes at the provincial capital. Demonstration fields w ­ ere soon set up across the county in the hope that farmers would use more scientific methods for growing konjac. The next steps the county government took w ­ ere setting up factories for pro­cessing raw konjac into more refined products accepted by outside markets and establishing connections with outside markets. Although the county government actively promoted konjac cultivation, village cadres did not ­really need to push farmers to grow konjac. By 2000 konjac production quickly spread from the Laochang area to the entire county. In Yizuo Administrative Village in Fucun Township, for example, only scattered plots w ­ ere planted with konjac before 2000. By 2005 konjac was grown by 90 ­percent of Yizuo ­house­holds, though the sizes of konjac plots varied. Farmers’ enthusiasm about growing konjac is primarily based on two reasons. The first is this crop’s good market prospects. Konjac prod-

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ucts have sold very well in international and domestic markets. With almost no calories but high in fiber, konjac powder is used as a diet food believed to cure many diseases. The market demand for konjac is increasing in both China and Japan, which are currently the two major konjac-­producing and consuming countries in the world. Second, konjac is not a new, unknown crop for local farmers; they have ­either grown it or have at least seen ­others growing it. Farmers thus feel more secure when growing konjac. Moreover, konjac production is much less ­labor intensive than tobacco. When growing konjac, farmers generally need to choose good seeds, select a plot with fertile and permeable soil that is not in direct sunlight, and annually rotate plots of konjac with other crops. Cultivation requires only routine weeding, fertilizing, and tilling, so farmers do not have to spend the ­whole crop season laboring in the field as they must when growing tobacco. Despite their enthusiasm about growing konjac, most konjac-­growing ­house­holds in Fuyuan have been small-­scale growers, lacking funds and technology and vulnerable to shifts in the market. Since 2000 the local government has played an impor­tant role in assisting farmers in solving prob­ lems in production and marketing, making cooperation between rural ­house­holds and the government pos­si­ble. The local government has provided assistance mainly in four areas—­funds for seeds, technology for cultivation and disease control, setting up pro­cessing factories, and establishing publicity for Fuyuan konjac. Konjac’s production cost is very high for an ordinary h ­ ouse­hold, since one mu of konjac seed cost between 1,500 and 2,000 yuan in 2003 and at least 4,500 yuan in 2013. In 2015 high-­quality seeds for a mu of cultivation cost about 6,000 yuan. Well-­to-do h ­ ouse­holds could afford to plant only two to three mu in 2003. Funds for expanding production have been largely raised by the local government through vari­ous channels. To encourage villa­ gers to grow konjac, very poor families who wanted to plant konjac could receive a two-­hundred-­yuan subsidy from the county government for the seeds in 2003. Also, konjac cultivation involves more risk than traditional crops ­because root disease can easily wipe out an entire plot. So far t­here is no known cure for this disease. Losing an entire plot of konjac is a devastating financial blow for any ordinary ­house­hold. This is one of the reasons why the average f­amily is willing to grow no more than a few mu. The local government was able to establish a stable relationship with a number of research institutions, including the Yunnan Agricultural Science Acad­emy,

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Yunnan Agricultural University, and Qujing Prefecture Agricultural School. Researchers and technicians have been invited frequently to Fuyuan to teach farmers technologies to prevent root disease. In addition, a brochure on konjac growing was written and widely distributed to farmers in 2007, and a handbook for pests and disease control was finished in 2009. By 2010, through almost a de­cade of strug­gle, farmers ­were able to keep the occurrence of konjac root disease to u ­ nder 15 ­percent of all the cultivation areas in Fuyuan. If konjac is to be sold to outside markets, fresh konjac corms must be pro­cessed into more refined products than just the curd usually consumed by local residents. When konjac production increased in the late 1990s, farmers w ­ ere not yet able to raise enough funds to build a private pro­cessing factory; instead, they sold their konjac corms to the pro­cessing factory that the local government helped build. This first private pro­cessing factory was built in 1999. The county government offered substantial help to the factory through an interest-­free loan of 1.2 million yuan7 and a low-­rent building site. In 2005 a second konjac-­processing factory was constructed with an outside investment of 15 million yuan, which the county government took pains to negotiate. A few years l­ater, a third factory was set up, also with substantial support from the government in terms of building site and loan interests.8 To promote and sell konjac products, the local government also actively searched for and established connections with the outside marketplace. In 2004, a­ fter two years of preparation, the county government or­ga­nized the Third National Konjac Cultivation and Trade Symposium in Fuyuan to bring more publicity to Fuyuan’s konjac and attract outside investors. It has also tried to establish cooperative relationships with Japa­nese companies in the hope of bringing Japa­nese investment to Fuyuan and exporting Fuyuan’s konjac products to the Japa­nese market in the ­future. In 2007, ­after three years of effort, the county government managed to register the trademark “Fuyuan Konjac” with the National Administration Bureau of Industry and Commerce. At pres­ent, farmers do not have to worry about selling their products. As long as konjac root disease does not occur, farmers can generally expect a good income. In recent years, a net profit of roughly 3,000 to 4,000 yuan can be made from one mu of konjac. Unlike tobacco, the konjac market is not monopolized by the government. ­There are no special taxes or fees associated with konjac products, so the local government and local pro­cessing

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Figure 9.2  Fuyuan’s konjac production, 1994–2013 Sources: • Data for the period of 1994–1997 ­were provided by local officials. • Data for 1998–2000 from Fuyuan Xianzhi (1986–2000), 115. • Data for 2000–2010 from Yearbook of Fuyuan (2001, 52; 2002, 239; 2003, 41; 2004, 55; 2005, 42; 2006, 89; 2007, 54; 2008, 59; 2009, 198; 2010, 198; 2011, 192). • Data for 2011–2013 from Yearbook of Fuyuan 2012, http://­w ww​.­q jfy​.­gov​.­cn​/­f ynj/nongyue​ /20121210/162645.shtml; 2013, http://­w ww​.­q jfy​.­gov​.­cn​/­f ynj/nongyue/20130802/152742.shtml; 2014, http://­w ww​.­q jfy​.­gov​.­cn​/­f ynj​/­nongyue​/­20141028​/­101858​.­shtml.

factories cannot make huge profits at the expense of farmers’ forced ­labor. Also, farmers do not face the same liabilities a­ fter harvest as they do when selling tobacco. For t­ hese reasons, Fuyuan konjac production kept expanding (figure 9.2). In 2005 the average h ­ ouse­hold income from konjac was 4,517 yuan, and this ­rose to 13,900 yuan in 2013. Konjac production surpassed tobacco for the first time in 2006, with output valued at 210 million yuan versus 200 million yuan for tobacco. As of 2013, 17 ­percent of farmers in Fuyuan grew konjac, and the output value of konjac increased to 420 million yuan, while that of tobacco was 400 million yuan.9 In promoting the local cash crop of konjac, Fuyuan’s government made gains both po­liti­cally and eco­nom­ically. With taxes from local pro­cessing factories, the local government enjoyed considerable income. Now, as one

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of China’s largest konjac production counties, Fuyuan’s government also obtained recognition from higher authorities for their economic and po­liti­cal achievements. The ­future of Fuyuan’s konjac production ­will depend on the market and the relationships among the government, farmers, and local pro­cessing factories that, while privately owned, are supported by and connected with the local government in many ways. U ­ ntil the farmers have formed their own economic organ­ization with sufficient collective funds and a broader social network, it is likely that they w ­ ill continue to rely on the local government for marketing, technology, and funding.

More Government Agricultural Proj­ects (2006–2014) In the new millennium Fuyuan’s government put even more focus on finding new alternative cash crops, or to use the slogan of the government, on “adjusting its agricultural structure” (tiaozheng nongye jiegou). Starting in 2006 it promoted the development strategy of “one enterprise in a township, one product in a village” ( yixiang yiye, yicun yipin) and required that ­every township find a way to develop its own enterprise and e­ very administrative village choose a cash product and encourage all its villa­gers to grow the product. This strategy is actually an emulation of the development pattern in eco­nom­ically more developed regions. In China’s coastal regions, such as Jiangsu, Zhejiang, or Guangdong Province, many townships and villages benefited eco­nom­ically by focusing on one product. For example, some of them would produce only clothes buttons, luggage, or furniture. In the suburbs of Beijing, Donggao Administrative Village ­adopted a similar strategy and has focused solely on violin production since 2003. Donggao produces almost 200,000 violins a year. B ­ ecause of their large-­scale production, ­these townships and villages gained the skills of production efficiency, reduced prices, and improved product marketing. Their strategy of getting rich became a model for China’s vast interior, less-­developed regions. Fuyuan’s government was no exception. Urged by the county government, the townships and the administrative villages experimented with a variety of cash crops such as medicinal herbs, fruits, and vegetables. Farmers ­were encouraged or even forced to grow ­these new crops. When ­every administrative village started to experiment with their own products, ­things ­were more difficult than the county government had expected. At the township level, the better-­off townships ­were often the ones with their own coal mines that therefore had no interest in experimenting with other enterprises; townships without coal mines w ­ ere unable to set up

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a commercial or industrial enterprise. At the administrative level, a series of “goat villages,” “vegetable villages,” and “piglet villages” formed. However, the county government had difficulty helping each village connect with an outside market. The villages ­were on their own to tackle marketing. Take Y Administrative Village in Fucun Township as an example. Around 2000 it encouraged a villa­ger to contract a barren hill owned by one of the villa­gers’ groups. By supporting the contractor with meager funding and pear saplings, the village administration hoped to develop this two-­hundred-­mu hill into an orchard. Their goal was to form a fruit-­production base in the village and set up a fruit-­processing factory that could provide jobs to villa­gers and increase their incomes, and also bring income to the village administration. While I was in Y Administrative Village in 2003, the pear trees grew very well and most had begun to bear fruit. However, the immediate prob­ lem for the orchard contractor was raising funds to build a refrigeration unit for fruit storage. Without space to store and refrigerate the fruit, pears could only be sold at nearby markets immediately ­after harvest, making it impossible to realize the village cadres’ goal of setting up a fruit-­production and pro­cessing base. When the county government started to promote “one ­enterprise in a township, one product in a village” in 2006, cadres in Y Administrative Village ­were excited and hoped that their two-­hundred-­mu orchard could eventually make Y a “pear village.” Nevertheless, the local government considered the pear business too small and not worthy of investment. The village cadres and the contractor ­were thus still on their own in solving the prob­lems they faced. Within less than two years, other administrative villages’ experiments with cash products ended in a similar way. ­A fter the unsuccessful promotion of “one enterprise in a township, one product in a village,” Fuyuan’s government resumed its old strategy, that is, it would experiment with a few cash crops first and, depending on the result, promote the crops countywide or drop the experiment. Among the cash crops it experimented with, walnuts became successful. Like ginkgo, the idea of growing walnuts came from the observation of the development strategies of other regions. In 2007, according to the order of the county government, around 10,000 mu of walnut trees ­were planted in selected administrative villages. The government provided rural ­house­holds with technological support and subsidies for saplings and fertilizers. Some rural ­house­holds chose to grow walnuts, and some w ­ ere simply ordered by their administrative villages to grow them. Fortunately, Fuyuan’s natu­ral conditions suit the walnut trees, and most tree saplings not only survived

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but grew well. The local government then deci­ded to expand planting walnut trees. By 2013 close to 240,000 mu of walnut trees ­were already planted in Fuyuan. It is expected that ­these trees ­will begin to bear edible fruits in a few more years. Officials in the County Forest Bureau are optimistic that, in about ten years, the output value of walnuts w ­ ill be the same as tobacco and konjac.10 In 2010 another new fruit—­blueberries—­was introduced in Fuyuan. Blueberries ­were not consumed by most ­people in China ­until very recently when imported from abroad, so the fruit is considered fancy and expensive. Farmers who grew blueberries in other regions could obtain profits as high as 10,000 yuan per mu. Considering that this was equivalent to the profit from four mu of tobacco, the county agricultural bureau deci­ded to grow 2,000 mu of blueberries in Zhong’an Township first. As g­ rowing blueberries requires more technology and funds than most cash crops, the bureau let a commercial blueberry cultivation com­pany manage the blueberry proj­ect. Land was rented from rural ­house­holds, and then the companies hired local villa­gers to work for them. By 2013 the area for growing blueberries expanded to almost 5,000 mu (Yearbook of Fuyan 2014).

Government Administrated Agriculture and Farmers’ Encroached Land Use and Income Rights In tracing the trajectory of Fuyuan’s agricultural development since 1982, I have depicted a complex pro­cess of contestation, negotiation, and cooperation between rural ­house­holds and the government. The most contested issues have been what to grow and how to grow it. Although rural h ­ ouse­holds obtained their shares of contracted farmland through the HRS in 1982, collective land own­ership continues to facilitate administrative intervention by the local government in agricultural production. To obtain more revenue, the local government, assisted by village cadres, has per­sis­tently promoted cash products that ­will eventually result in long-­term, large-­scale production and create more profits. ­Because of such intervention in agriculture, rural ­house­holds do not yet have complete freedom in using their contracted land and setting their own production levels. It is impor­tant to keep in mind that this phenomenon is not limited to the southwest region where tobacco production prevails. In many regions, local governments are also actively involved in agricultural production for the purpose of fulfilling the shifting economic agendas of the central government and seeking more revenues. In this situation local governments often treat agricultural production as proj­

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ects that they should initiate and take full control of (Gao 2014; Gong 2014; Philip Huang 2014b). For t­hese reasons, farmers’ land use rights have not been complete, even in the new social and economic context of post-­Mao rural China. In the face of such administrated agriculture, farmers ­don’t just accept passively what has been imposed on them. They use vari­ous strategies to resist. In Fuyuan’s case, farmers used foot-­dragging and not fulfilling technological requirements to resist the compulsory tobacco and ginkgo production, causing local governments to adjust or even drop their plans. Meanwhile, from time to time, cooperation also exists between farmers and the local government. However, such cooperation is not seamless; rather, it is constantly changing and subject to negotiation. Farmers do not simply accept any cash crop imposed upon them; they are more willing to cooperate with the government when it comes to crops that they believe w ­ ill bring economic benefit. Looking at the cultivation pattern in Fuyuan, I also found that the major crops before the 1980s w ­ ere rice, potatoes, and corn. Three de­cades ­later, a dif­fer­ent pattern appeared—­tobacco and other cash crops such as konjac, fruits, and vegetables are now grown in more than half of Fuyuan’s farmland, while grains account for less than half of the growing area. Cash crops, instead of grains, have constituted a major source of agricultural income for both farmers and the local government. With the same cultivation pattern similarly appearing in most rural areas of China, China’s agriculture is moving t­oward high-­value crops that require intensive l­abor and capital input (Philip Huang 2010). This change, however, does not necessarily bring sufficient benefits to farmers. Over the past de­cade the mode of “com­pany  + farmer” is commonly ­adopted in cash crop production in many regions in China. ­Under this model, a few flagship companies (longtou qiye), supported or introduced into the local area by the government, establish relatively stable contractual relationships with rural h ­ ouse­holds. The rural h ­ ouse­holds provide the companies with raw agricultural materials or primary products; the companies are responsible for pro­cessing and marketing the products. This mode overcame many prob­lems associated with farmers’ limited access to outside markets, but to a large extent it also resulted in an income distribution mode ­under which the government and commercial companies are the major beneficiaries of high-­value agriculture, and farmers obtain very ­little. Tobacco production is the most typical example. In Fuyuan and other southwest areas, tobacco has contributed significantly

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to the revenues of government at all levels. The government-­monopolized tobacco companies also obtain huge profits. But as recently as 2014, villa­gers can obtain no more than 2,500 yuan from a mu of tobacco ­a fter seven months of hard ­labor. Other cash crops are similar. The three konjac-­ processing companies in Fuyuan, for example, all had sales of over 30 million yuan and profits and taxes of several million yuan in recent years. A ­house­hold in Fuyuan made an average profit of no than 14,000 yuan from their konjac production in 2014. This is very ­little, compared with what the local government and the factories obtained. Although farmers’ agricultural incomes have continued to rise over the past three de­cades, farmers’ rights to obtain sufficient and fair incomes have been encroached by the government, whose policies and regulations often put farmers at a disadvantage when selling their products, and who often collude with commercial companies to maximize their profits at the expense of farmers.

CHAPTER 10

Contesting Land Transfer Rights and Income Distribution in the Land Market

Two types of markets exist for farmland in China. The first type, officially called the land market for agricultural land use rights, is discussed in Chapter 6. The government promotes this type of land market to encourage the renting, subcontracting, or swapping of farmland to achieve large-­scale farming and more efficient farmland management. In such a market, transactions ­don’t change the collective own­ership of the land, and the involved land must remain for agricultural uses. In this chapter, I examine the second type of land market, which is officially referred to as the “conversion of farmland to nonagricultural use” and is for selling rural land for urban development and commercial uses. Since its establishment in the early 1980s, the second type of land market has caused tremendous controversy and unrest nationwide. I w ­ ill explore how the government monopolizes this type of market through compulsory land requisition and a two-­tier market structure, the harsh social and economic realities rural residents face when their land is taken by the government, how the rural populace has been resisting the government’s land requisition, and the ambivalent role played by village cadres in land requisition and development. By examining t­ hese issues, I hope to reveal how this type of land market has changed over the past three de­cades as a result of conflict between the government, farmers, and rural communities.

How Does the Market for Selling Farmland for Nonagricultural Use Work? According to the Chinese Constitution and the Land Management Law, land in China is categorized into two types: urban land owned by the state 193

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and rural land owned by the village collectives. As industrial and commercial proj­ects used land at an unpre­ce­dented pace and scale in the post-­Mao reform era, most cities ran out of land. Farmland owned by village collectives became the major supply of land for urban development. The market for selling farmland for nonagricultural use was thus created by the government. To avoid certain ideologically tainted terms such as “sale” or “market,” the Chinese government and its propaganda have not used a more straightforward term, such as “the market for agricultural land own­ership rights”; instead, the po­liti­c ally correct euphemisms such as “conversion” or “convey” are used. By creating this land market, the central government intended to introduce a market mechanism into the management of the nation’s land resources, provide land for rapid urban development and transformation, and, more importantly, provide the government at all levels with an institutional capacity to collect funds for urban development and other social and po­liti­cal agendas. As pointed out in Chapter 7, in its reform of the nation’s land management since 1986, China’s central leadership a­ dopted a gradual approach of separating land own­ership rights from use rights. As a result of this approach, public own­ership of the land has always been upheld by the Chinese Constitution, and the two types of land market involve only the transaction of land use rights. In the par­tic­u­lar market for selling farmland for nonagricultural use, public own­ership of rural land remains unchanged; instead, the market involves transferring own­ership rights from the village collectives to the state. Once the land becomes state owned, only the landuse rights are sold on the market. The buyer, ­whether a citizen or an enterprise, obtains the right to use the land for a specific length of time, but the state retains own­ership. The operation of the market involves three steps—­compulsory land requisition, the primary market, and the secondary market. The land requisition policy was formed in 1953 to guarantee the land for national construction proj­ects. The government continues to monopolize land supply through compulsory land requisition in the reform era. Although the village collectives have been the primary ­owners of rural land, they have no ­legal right to sell their land. Instead, the state, represented by local governments at or above the county level, requisitions land from village collectives so that land own­ership transfers from the original rural collective to the state. Once its own­ership has changed from rural collective to the state, a piece of land may enter the “primary market” ( yiji shichang), which is the first of a two-­

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tier market system. At the primary market, a local government may e­ ither allocate the land’s use rights to vari­ous state enterprises and public organ­ izations or “convey” (sell) the rights to developers at much higher prices. The government is in a mono­poly position and plays a decisive role in setting land prices and other related terms. By paying the land sale price, buyers, usually developers, obtain the land use rights from the government for a fixed period (forty years for commercial land, fifty years for industrial land, and seventy years for residential land). ­A fter obtaining land from the primary market, developers may “transfer” (zhuanrang)1 or “contract” (chengbao) the use rights they obtained at the primary market to other users in return for payment. They may also use their land use rights as collateral (diya). This tier of the land market is called the “secondary market” (erji shichang). The price of land use rights in the secondary market is substantially higher than in the primary market. Moreover, the period for the “transfer” cannot exceed the original term stipulated at the primary market. The government is generally not involved in transactions at this tier, except for land registration, ­legal protection, and taxation. Through its policy of compulsory land acquisition and its control over the primary market in a two-­tier market system, the government takes firm control over the market for “converting farmland to nonagricultural use” and has since obtained huge profits from land sales.

The Unbalanced Distribution of Land Sale Proceeds All states retain the right to requisition land, but the impor­tant questions are how the state uses that right and on what terms and who benefits from the increase in land value or suffers from the decrease. As land sales often constitute a large part of their extrabud­get revenues,2 local governments across China assume a predatory role during the pro­cess of “converting farmland into nonagricultural use,” resulting in a huge gap between what the government and rural residents obtain from land sales. As stipulated by the 1998 Land Management Law, farmers whose land was acquired are compensated through a package that includes three components. The first is compensation for the loss of land. This part of compensation is six to ten times the value of the average annual output of the acquired land calculated over the three years preceding the acquisition. The second is resettlement subsidies. Generally, each farmer could be compensated six to ten times the value of the annual output from the acquired land. Local governments may raise the resettlement subsidies to make sure that farmers w ­ ill be able to

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maintain their same standard of living. However, the total value of the first two components cannot be more than thirty times the previous three-­year average output value of the acquired land. The third component is compensation for loss of plants and attachments to the acquired land, such as buildings. This package is very unfair to farmers. By calculating only the value of the land used for agriculture, this package generally excludes farmers from benefits brought about by land development. Also, the price of any land is largely deci­ded by its location and by an area’s social and economic development level. For example, the market value of a plot along a township’s main street is certainly much higher than a plot on a remote mountain. Based only on the crop output value, the compensation package does not accurately reflect the vari­ous values of land in dif­fer­ent locations. More often than not, the majority of the acquired farmland is located in suburban areas of a city or a town. Farmers ­there do not necessarily conduct traditional farming; instead, aiming at city customers, farmers tend to try a variety of ways to improve their cash income, such as growing “green” crops without pollution, or using their farm­house, orchards, and home-­style cooking to attract tourists. Thus the output value of the expropriated plot is often much higher than that of traditional crops, but the government tends to disregard this difference. H Township in Fuyuan offers a good example of how farmers have been compensated according to the 1998 Land Management Law. In 1998, approved by the county government, the H Township government deci­ded to develop the farmland along both sides of the town’s main street, so that they could sell the land use rights to ­people who wanted to build stores along this street. A ­ fter their land was expropriated, farmers w ­ ere compensated 16,800 yuan per mu of paddy and 8,000 yuan for dry land. A ­ fter providing basic infrastructure such as ­water, electricity, and roads on the acquired farmland, the township government then sold the land for 400,000 yuan per mu. Both local and outside ­people could buy the land use rights for a term of seventy years. As estimated by local villa­gers, the costs for land requisition and infrastructure construction ­were no more than 100,000 yuan per mu, so the government’s profits w ­ ere around 300,000 yuan per mu at the primary market. This example is by no means a rare or particularly corrupt case in the national context; rather, such government practices are ubiquitous and appear to be almost standard ­under China’s current land market system.

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Although a g­ reat challenge in analyzing the distribution of land sale incomes in China is the unavailability of accurate data, especially at the national level, we still can form a rough picture of the ­great profit gap between the government and farmers through the numerous local cases provided by scholars and the news media in China. In 1997, for example, the Jiangsu Province government expropriated rural land to build a highway connecting Shanghai and Ningbo City. Farmers’ compensation fees w ­ ere 5,000 yuan per mu. Three years l­ater, when the Shanghai-­Ningbo highway was listed on Hong Kong’s stock market, its estimated land price was 120,000 yuan per mu, twenty-­four times the compensation cost.3 In the administrative village of Liangjiashan, Zhejiang Province, farmers received an average of 25,000 yuan per mu as compensation for their acquired farmland. The local government was able to sell the land use rights for up to one million yuan per mu due to the increased demand for land from booming local industry and commercial enterprises.4 From the first issuance of the Land Management Law in 1986 to the first revision of this law in 1998, the national ratio between the government’s land sale price and compensation to village collectives and farmers averaged 30:1. ­A fter the Land Management Law was revised in 1998, the compensation standard was raised, and the ratio decreased to 12:1.5 In general, compensation received by farmers ­under the 1998 Land Management Law accounts for less than 10 ­percent of the land sale price at the primary market.6 The situation has not improved significantly in the new millennium, although a series of policy readjustments and local experiments with new compensation methods occurred.7 In Fuyuan, starting in 2012, farmers whose land was expropriated could be paid up to 74,000 yuan for a mu of paddy and 60,000 yuan for a mu of dry land.8 But still, the gap between what farmers and the government obtain is significant. Farmers’ nationwide re­sis­tance to compulsory land requisition has become the top f­actor causing social unrest in the reform era. In addition to a very low standard, farmers face other compensation prob­lems as well. Among them is that the compensation fees are further divided between the farmers and their village collectives. According to the Land Management Law, village collectives and collective members share compensation, but it does not specify to the share that each party receives. Without adequate accounting and auditing systems at the levels of both the administrative village and villa­gers’ groups, compensation retained by the village cadres is often abused and can become a source of corruption.

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Examples of village cadres embezzling land compensation fees are frequently exposed by the news media. Dif­fer­ent levels of governments can also take away part of the farmers’ compensation. The township, county, and prefecture governments can all use vari­ous pretexts for taking a cut of the compensation, making farmers receive even less than the compensation specified by the 1998 Land Management Law. In Henan Province, for example, when farmers’ land was acquired to build a natu­ral gas pipeline, the central government provided compensation of 20,000 yuan per mu, which was allocated to the province, prefecture, county, and township governments. At each level a portion was retained for financing that government’s public ser­vice. The final amount received by farmers was only 5,000 yuan per mu (Ding and Song 2005, 26). In Zhangyi County, which shares a border with Fuyuan on the west, 1,300 mu of farmland ­were expropriated to build a major highway connecting Yunnan and Guizhou in 1998. This requisition took land from 957 h ­ ouse­holds. However, seven years passed and villa­gers had received no compensation. What made villa­gers even more anxious was that land in adjacent Fuyuan County had also been expropriated for the same highway construction, and villa­ gers ­ t here had already received their compensation. Villa­ gers in Zhangyi began to appeal to their county government. In 2006 the county government told ­these villa­gers that their compensation had been sent to the township government. When the money fi­nally arrived in the hands of the villa­gers, it was only one-­third the amount stipulated by the county’s 1999 compensation policies. When a reporter inquired about this difference, the township government offered no explanation.9 In addition to the meager compensation and vari­ous encroachments, another major f­actor triggering farmers’ discontent is the inconsistency in compensation over time and across space. Take again H Administrative Village in Fuyuan as an example. From 1987 to 1998, four land acquisitions occurred ­here.10 H Administrative Village is a social and economic center for nearby rural communities. It includes the town seat and a rural market that convenes t­ here once a week. In 1987 the first requisition took place when the township government deci­ded to build a new paved road through the village to improve traffic conditions during market days. At that time, the central government had no formal standard for compensation. Not surprisingly, the township government simply took some farmland from local ­house­holds without giving them any cash compensation. The township government’s explanation was that the road benefited all local residents ­because

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it improved transportation conditions for market day. ­A fter the land requisition, cadres in H Administrative Village did try to find ways to compensate ­those whose land was taken. The village had kept some land that was originally contracted to villa­gers who l­ater left for urban jobs. Such extra land was then offered to ­house­holds whose land was taken away, but only ­those whose acquired land was more than a mu w ­ ere eligible for such compensation. For ­t hose whose acquired land was less than a mu, their loss, to use a village cadre’s words, was a “­free contribution” (wuchang gongxian) to local development. In 1988, two years ­after its issuance, the Land Management Law stipulated a rough compensation plan. As result, when the second requisition occurred in H Administrative Village in 1995, farmers ­were offered 3,500 yuan per mu of paddy and 2,900 yuan for dry land. This time land in two villa­gers’ groups was expropriated to build a railroad. The third requisition took place in 1997 in order to build a road connecting H Township and Weishe City in Guizhou Province. The compensation was 8,600 yuan per mu of paddy field and 5,800 yuan for dry land. In 1998 the county government deci­ded to expropriate farmland for the fourth time to turn the road built in 1997 into the new main street of the township since the old main street was narrow and winding. To shift the town’s social and economic activities to the new main street, they deci­ded ­there should be stores along the street. The county government then acquired farmland along the street. By then the Land Management Law had been revised and the compensation standard was raised nationwide. As a result, the compensation for this fourth acquisition was 16,800 yuan per mu of paddy and 8,000 yuan for dry land. From 1987 to 1998, a period of eleven years, substantial changes occurred for farmers in terms of compensation for land acquisition in H Administrative Village. This improvement in compensation left farmers whose land was expropriated at earlier times feeling very resentful since they received much less compensation than farmers whose land was acquired at a ­later time. Moreover, the compensation that farmers receive hardly reflects market conditions and varies greatly from case to case, mainly depending on the type of land development proj­ect. While profitable proj­ects such as commercial and housing developments are able to pay a higher compensation to farmers, proj­ects for public transportation and infrastructure may not. When ­these dif­fer­ent proj­ects occur in the same village, the government and village administration simply treat them as if they w ­ ere the same, which has given rise to much social tension within the village. More importantly,

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such inconsistency in compensation is not an isolated phenomenon in Fuyuan; it exists nationwide.

Rural Populace’s Re­sis­tance to an Unfair Land Market As of 2004, as pointed out by an article in ­People’s Daily, forty million farmers had lost their land to compulsory land requisition.11 Since ­People’s Daily is the CCP’s propaganda organ, the ­actual number could be higher. Farmers whose land has been requisitioned are often called “three-­without farmers” (sanwu nongmin): “they want to farm but are without land; they want to work but are without a job; they want to enjoy social welfare but are without a share” (wunong wudi, shangban wugang, dibao wufen). ­These harsh economic and social conditions have caused rural unrest nationwide. If the heavy tax burden commonly triggered rural protests in the 1990s, land requisition appears to be paramount in villa­gers’ objections in the new millennium. For instance, in 2002 more than 80 ­percent of ­legal cases filed by farmers against local governments in Zhejiang Province w ­ ere related to land acquisition (Ding and Song 2005, 31). In a city in northeastern China, 70 ­percent of farmers’ appeals to the government in 2004 had to do with land acquisition. Moreover, ­these appeals ­were often collective, well or­ga­ nized, confrontational, and long lasting.12 From 1998 to 2002 farmers’ appeals to the government in an interior province increased fivefold.13 In 2003 the complaints related to land issues received by the Petition Department (xinfangchu) of the Ministry of Agriculture increased 1.7 times compared with 2002, and the number of ­people ­going to Beijing to file complaints increased 10 ­percent, despite that year’s SARS epidemic.14 Despite the wide re­sis­tance, the government ­didn’t slow down the speed of land requisition in the new millennium. Between 2001 and 2003 the annual amount of farmland expropriated for urban construction in the entire country was two million mu, but that amount increased to more than four million mu in 2013.15 Given China’s current speed of urbanization and industrialization, two million farmers are losing their land each year. Over the next de­cade, it is estimated, the number of landless farmers ­will increase to seventy million (Tao and Wang 2011). Discontent regarding land requisition has become the most impor­tant reason for farmers’ collective actions. According to a survey conducted by the Chinese Acad­emy of Social Sciences in 2013, in recent years more than one hundred thousand mass protests, each involving more than one hundred ­people, have occurred each year.

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Sixty ­percent of ­these mass protests reportedly centered on land loss caused by the government’s compulsory land requisition (Zhou Qiren 2014). Fuyuan’s situation is similar to elsewhere in China. Farmers whose land was expropriated have had to endure harsh realities. Take the 1998 land acquisition in H Administrative Village in Fuyuan as an example. The cash compensation was 16,800 yuan per mu. Since e­ very villa­ger in H Village received slightly over one mu of land in the 1982 land allocation, a villa­ger whose land was taken could receive roughly 16,800 yuan. As villa­ gers calculated for me in 2003, this amount of money could only support a person for seven to eight years around that time. Villa­gers ­didn’t know what to do when the money was used up. While the local government encountered ­little re­sis­tance when it requisitioned land in the 1980s, clashes between farmers and the local government occurred frequently as land development proceeded rapidly across the county in the new millennium. Farmers have become more and more aware of their land rights and the resources available to aid their re­sis­tance and are therefore becoming more active. The county seat and township seats are the settings where conflicts break out most frequently due to their faster pace of urbanization and industrialization. Land requisition seldom takes away only one f­amily’s land in a rural community; it often affects at least a number of families in a community, or sometimes even an entire community. Villa­gers’ protests about land requisition are therefore often collective actions, although individuals also act. Most collective protests are well or­ga­nized. The leaders are often ­people in the community who have received more education, are more knowledgeable of the government’s policies, or have more social resources, such as one of the few high school gradu­ates in the village, a veteran of the ­People’s Liberation Army, a local teacher, or a successful private enterpriser. More often than not, the organizers of collective protests are village cadres, especially the leaders of the villa­gers’ groups. The multirole that village cadres could play in land requisition and development ­will be discussed in detail in the next section. Suffice it to say ­here that village cadres have been a special and impor­tant force in the competition for land transfer rights and land sale profits in the land market. Led by the organizers, villa­gers adopt all pos­si­ble strategies to achieve their social and economic goals, including using survival discourse, obstructing construction, holding demonstrations, using the news media, seeking

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alliances with a higher authority, or filing lawsuits, as described below.16 A local cadre once commented to me, “Nowadays many peasants are cunning and unruly ­people (diaomin). It is hard to control the situation once a conflict breaks out.” Discourses on the Right to Survival and Fairness When villa­gers demand fair compensation, survival is the most impor­tant discourse they use to challenge the government. “We need to eat, we want to survive” ( yao chifan, yao shengcun) has become a symbolic slogan, often put on posters and banners, during protests of injustice among rural populations. Their emphasis on the right to survive makes it difficult for the government to dismiss them as simply causing trou­ble. Fairness is another strong argument for villa­gers demanding more compensation or even demanding to share the benefits of land development. Villa­gers’ strong sense of unfairness is not only triggered by the harsh social and economic real­ity they have to face a­ fter land requisition but also by the unjustified profits obtained by the government and developers. More than once I heard Fuyuan villa­gers say that they w ­ ere willing to endure the economic losses caused by public interest proj­ects such as transportation, irrigation, or railways, but they w ­ ere strongly opposed to housing and commercial proj­ects that would bring huge profits to the government and developers but not to rural populace. Between 2003 and 2004 I observed part of a long-­lasting dispute involving eight ­house­holds and the X Township government in Fuyuan. The township government expropriated land from three villa­gers’ groups in 1998, in order to build a new main street in the township seat, as well as to sell plots along the new main street for ­people to build stores, entertainment centers, or private residences. Over one hundred mu of dry land was expropriated, involving more than seventy h ­ ouse­holds. Villa­gers ­were given a meager compensation of 5,000 yuan per mu. When villa­gers ­later learned that the land would be sold for more than 300,000 yuan per mu, they ­were outraged. One-­third of the ­house­holds refused to accept the cash compensation offered by the government; instead, they requested a ­free ­house site along the main street so that they could open stores of their own and enjoy some of the benefits brought about by land development. As of 2004, when I left the field, ­there ­were still eight ­house­holds who refused to take the cash compensation and insisted on a ­free ­house site.

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“Planting Houses” and Other Strategies before Land Requisition To increase their compensation, villa­gers often used the strategy of unlawful private reclaiming. For example, a w ­ oman in H Township told me that before a small plot of hers was expropriated in 1998, she simply expanded the plot’s size by reclaiming some wasteland around her plot so that she would receive more compensation. However, this strategy is useful only when ­there is available wasteland to reclaim. Another widely used strategy is to increase the value of the attachments on the ground. In Fuyuan, a common practice is to plant fruit trees on the land when farmers hear news of a pos­ si­ble land requisition b­ ecause compensation for trees is higher than for grain crops. In more wealthy rural areas, when villa­gers can afford it, they would use vari­ous social connections to get their village cadres’ approval and quickly construct shabby ­houses on the land to be acquired or add one or more stories to an existing ­house. Since compensation for a ­house can be as high as twice the value of its construction cost, farmers can increase the amount of money they receive. Called “planting ­house” (zhongfang), this strategy became very popu­lar in the late 1990s in China (Wu Yi 2004). More than a de­cade ­later, it is still widely used. On the Web site of the state-­run news agency, Xin­hua, reports on such “planting h ­ ouse” phenomena are common. On June 21, 2014, for example, the news agency exposed a large-­scale h ­ ouse planting in Jinping County, Yunnan Province.17 Expecting that their farmland would soon be expropriated by the county government, more than fifty h ­ ouse­holds, including both ordinary villa­gers and village cadres, constructed over sixty ­houses in their paddy within several days. To outsiders, it looked like a brand-­new village was suddenly erected from the ­middle of a large paddy. Villa­gers built ­these ­houses in such a hurry that they c­ ouldn’t even find enough wood beams to support the ­houses, so the ceiling beams of the ­houses ­were made of bamboo. The Jinping County government was outraged by this “blatant cheating be­hav­ior.” It soon sent down an inspection team to investigate the villa­gers and cadres involved in this incident. Six months l­ater, in December 2014, another large-­scale h ­ ouse 18 planting took place in Zhengzhou, Henan Province. In a village called Shifo, villa­gers and cadres started a construction frenzy when they learned their entire village would be expropriated. The majority of ­house­holds added more than one story to their h ­ ouses. The reporters found that no buildings in the village w ­ ere lower than three stories, and the highest

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building had eleven stories. ­These new buildings ­were very shabby; most of them w ­ ere just building frameworks with outside walls and win­dows. Th ­ ese examples ­were so blatant they immediately caught the attention of the government. However, in less obvious cases of h ­ ouse planting, villa­gers can indeed increase their compensation. Obstructing Construction When a development proj­ect takes away a large portion of a community’s land, one protest strategy has been for villa­gers to camp on the construction site for a long period. This was the case during my fieldwork in Y Township in Fuyuan. In March  2004 construction of a major steel mill took away more than two-­thirds of the land in an administrative village, including both farmland and part of the village’s residential area. Villa­gers in the affected villa­gers’ groups camped on the construction site for more than three months, demanding food, housing, and fair compensation. Sometimes el­derly ­people lay down in front of tractors and bulldozers, preventing them from moving. When local cadres attempted to move them away, the old ­people and surrounding villa­gers would cry out, “Cadres are beating ­people!” Villa­gers argued with or sometimes physically confronted local cadres and construction workers in the ­middle of screaming ­women and crying ­children. A similar situation occurred around the same time in Luoping, a county sharing borders with Fuyuan. In 2003 a local power plant acquired a tract of forest owned by a village group in Luoping. However, two years ­a fter the acquisition the villa­gers had not received any compensation except for 3,000 yuan to subsidize the elementary school in their zhaizi. Hundreds of villa­gers brought their cooking woks, food, and bedclothes to the construction site and lived t­ here for months, preventing construction of the power plant.19 Villa­gers’ obstructing construction can sometimes lead to deadly confrontation. One of the deadliest confrontations in recent memory took place in an administrative village called Fuyou in Jinning County, Yunnan Province, in 2014 and received wide media attention. In 2011 the local government planned to expropriate farmland to build a logistics center for the distribution of manufactured goods.20 Fuyou Administrative Village expected to lose 1,787 mu of farmland. Unsatisfied with their low compensation, villa­gers refused to let the government take away their land. The standoff lasted for three years, at times flaring up into violent clashes. Construction work at Fuyou had been effectively blocked by villa­gers.

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In June 2014 thousands of villa­gers holding hoes and sticks forced to leave Fuyou the construction crews, police, and government officials who had attempted to evict them. On October  14 trucks full of men that the government claimed to be construction crews arrived in Fuyou to confront the villa­gers, and the clash resulted in a death toll of eight, including six construction workers and two villa­gers, and the injury of eigh­teen ­people. Demonstrations Or­ga­nized collective demonstrations that take place at the social and po­liti­ cal centers of a town or city have been a very common and power­ful weapon used by resisting rural populations. However, most protesting villa­gers would not call their actions a “demonstration” (shiwei); instead, they would say they ­were lodging a complaint (gaozhuang). As I learned from local ­people, few organizers appear openly in the demonstrations. Rather, they often adopt alternative strategies. For example, they may do farm work in the field at the time of the demonstration or go to the market so that many p ­ eople can confirm that they w ­ ere not involved in the protest. The p ­ eople participating in the demonstration are often the el­derly, ­women, and c­ hildren, shouting out their requests and telling officials and onlookers about their plight. During my stay in Fuyuan County I was not able to observe a demonstration related to land requisition. However, local newspaper reports and my connections allowed me to learn how collective demonstrations w ­ ere or­ga­nized and carried out in a land dispute that took place not far from Fuyuan. This case involved Baodu Administrative Village in the Qilin District, Qujing City, and its eighth villa­gers’ group (hereafter referred to as the Qujing case). This case was examined in Chapter 4 to illustrate the relationship between the administrative village and its constituent villa­gers’ groups in terms of land rights. ­Here I ­will focus on villa­gers’ demonstration strategies in this dispute. In this case, a total of 34.5 mu of farmland in the eighth group was taken away by the Baodu Administrative Village to build a factory. Seven years ­after their land was taken, villa­gers in the eighth group had still not received any compensation. ­A fter many collective appeals to the district government had failed to solve their prob­lem, villa­gers deci­ded to take stronger action, and they held three public demonstrations within a month. On June 3, 2002, holding a banner that read “Return our land,” more than two hundred villa­gers marched to the main gates of the two factories. Villa­gers blocked the gates with stones, chained the gates, and held

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their position for three days. During this period the factories w ­ ere not able to operate. Villa­gers fi­nally left u ­ nder the persuasion and coercion of the district government. Feeling that the district government would not solve their land issue, villa­gers appealed directly to the mayor of Qujing City but ­were deeply disappointed by the mayor’s suggestions for solving the prob­lem. On July 18 more than fifty villa­gers held a sit-in demonstration in front of the city hall but ­were completely ignored by the city government. The next morning more than two hundred villa­gers demonstrated in front of the city hall and blocked all entrances. Police arrived and arrested some of the villa­gers. In the after­ noon more than fifty villa­gers went to the police station to request the release of their fellow villa­gers. A physical confrontation broke out between the police and the villa­gers. The arrested villa­gers left the police station in the ­middle of the riot. Although their land issue was not resolved when I left the field, ­these large-­scale demonstrations had considerable impact on local society, especially when local newspapers reported on the incidents. The Qujing City government was put in the spotlight, forcing them to return to negotiations with the villa­gers. Seeking Allies at Higher Levels of Government Appealing to higher authorities (shangfang) is another major strategy of rural populations. Appeals can be individual or collective. During my fieldwork I heard many stories of appeals. In May 2003 more than one hundred Fuyuan villa­gers waited outside the Yunnan Province government offices for a month b­ ecause of compensation and resettlement prob­lems caused by major road construction in the county seat. The Fuyuan County government was the target of their complaints. Villa­gers first appealed to the Qujing City government, which offered l­ittle help, so they turned to the provincial government to get their prob­lems solved. In Xuanwei, a county adjacent to Fuyuan to the north, villa­gers affected by a large land acquisition took their petitions to Beijing (Guo 1999). ­There are social and po­liti­cal reasons ­behind farmers’ preference for appealing to higher authorities. More than two de­cades of economic and po­liti­cal reforms, especially fiscal reforms, have resulted in differentiation of interests between the central government and local governments. As pointed out in Chapter 8, while all levels of government are actively engaged in pursuing high profits from a monopolized land market, the central government has other concerns, such as farmland preservation and environmental

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protection, and, more importantly, it wants to tighten its control over the huge revenue coming from the land market. Since 1996 the central government has issued a series of laws and policies to supervise local governments’ land use be­hav­iors as well as to channel more revenue to the central government. The rural populace clearly perceives the difference between the policies and regulations promulgated by the central government and the ­actual practices of local governments. The central government’s policies have become a weapon farmers use to challenge local governments. Kevin O’Brien and Lianjiang Li (2006) identified this strategy as “rightful re­sis­ tance,” ­under which the aggrieved farmers exploit gaps between the central government’s policy and rhe­toric and the practices of local governments to defend their rights and interests. Farmland preservation stipulated by the Land Management Law and some central policies of freezing construction proj­ects that use farmland are almost invariably quoted by farmers when writing their complaints. Nationwide, local governments try to prevent the rural populace from knowing new central or provincial policies, but farmers actively seek information on the updated policies. Based on their knowledge of the central policies, many villa­gers feel that the central government is on their side and that it is the local governments who distort the favorable policies. They tend to believe that the higher authorities could bring local governments ­under control if the higher authorities ­were aware of the situation at the local level.21 In fact, from time to time a few cases are indeed solved by higher authorities. When the media exposed a number of t­ hese cases, especially t­ hose solved by the central government, it provided ­great encouragement to villa­gers nationwide; however, the real­ity is that most appeals to higher authorities do not yield results in  the villa­gers’ ­favor. This is ­because higher authorities simply cannot ­handle the vast quantity of local prob­lems, so they rely on the cooperation and support of lower-­level administrations in a wide range of social, po­liti­ cal, and economic ­matters. The few cases in which higher authorities have intervened ­were often for propaganda purposes. ­Under most circumstances the higher authority advises petitioning farmers to obtain a solution at the local level: the central government persuades farmers to go to their provincial government for an appropriate solution; the provincial government then hands the case to the prefecture government. In the end, farmers’ petitions end up at the county government’s office. Even so, with few other options, farmers tend to view lodging complaints with higher authorities as one weapon in their repertoire of re­sis­tance.

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Using the Media In pres­ent-­day China it is very easy to learn about vari­ous conflicts and disputes caused by land acquisition through the media. Th ­ ere have been more and more reports on compulsory land requisition. Criticism of local governments is common in the media discourse. To be sure, when local governments are both the agents for enforcing central policies and for supervising the enforcement, the effects of media exposure are limited. However, many Chinese news outlets have been trying to pursue sensitive stories despite intense censorship pressure. As the University of Hong Kong’s China Media Proj­ect commented on journalists’ reports on a land conflict in Shandong Province, “We can still find plenty of examples of how journalism is alive and kicking.”22 Many news outlets are famous for exposing wrongdoings in land requisition and other social injustices. At the national level, tele­vi­sion programs such as Focal Interview ( Jiandian fangtan), News Investigation (Xinwen diaocha), and Insight (Kanjian); newspapers such as The South Weekend (Nanfang zhoumo), The Beijing News, and The 21st ­Century Report on Economy; and magazines such as Life Week (Sanlian sheng­huo zhoukan), Caijing, and South Review (Nanfeng chuang) are all widely known for their willingness to reveal farmers’ difficulties caused by local governments’ wrongdoings. Even ­People’s Daily prints such reports from time to time. In Yunnan Province, the Weekly of Yunnan Po­liti­cal Consultative Conference (Yunnan zhengxie bao) and ­others frequently report on land requisition issues. In addition to the traditional media, the Internet has become another channel through which p ­ eople share vari­ous experiences and points of view. Many villa­gers now post their appeals on major government Web sites such as ­those of the state-­run news agency of Xin­hua and ­People’s Daily. Although a few exemplary cases revealed by the media cannot fundamentally change the harsh real­ity faced by the rural populace, the media have been an impor­tant recourse for rural populations revisiting unfair treatment. Using ­Legal Channels In the reform era, ­legal channels have begun to play an increasingly impor­ tant role in h ­ andling many issues in ordinary p ­ eople’s lives such as marriage, property, and contracts, but it is still rare for ordinary ­people to challenge the government in court. This is especially true in the area of land requisition, in which the government’s economic and po­liti­cal stakes are so high that it

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­ ill mobilize all apparatuses to suppress p w ­ eople’s re­sis­tance. In my fieldwork in Fuyuan, I did not learn of any case in which villa­gers sued the government over land requisition. However, such cases do exist in other parts of China, confirmed by the compilations of ­legal cases published regularly by the Supreme ­People’s Court (zuigao renmin fayuan). ­Here is a brief description of one case compiled by the Supreme ­People’s Court. In 1998 the Yanliang District23 government of Xi’an City planned to build a shopping center and acquired sixty-­five mu of farmland from the Xiaoliang Villa­gers’ Group in Mazhang Administrative Village. The district government’s proposal for land requisition was approved by the Xi’an City government. The Xiaoliang Villa­gers’ Group had 134 rural ­house­holds and 126 mu of farmland. More than half of the group’s land was taken away for the shopping center proj­ect. Villa­gers ­were offered a meager compensation of 7,800 yuan per mu. Considering the compensation unfair, thirty-­t wo ­house­holds in the group sued the Xi’an City government for illegally issuing a land requisition approval to the district government. At the city court, citing a recent act passed by the Ministry of Land and Resources, the villa­ gers accused the district government of unlawful land requisition. Issued in early 1998, this act prohibited local governments from rushing to acquire more farmland before the issuance of the revised Land Management Law in late 1998, which raised the standard of land requisition compensation. Since the villa­gers’ accusation was solidly based on the central policy, the city court had no choice but to rule that the city government’s approval of the district government’s land requisition was unlawful. However, the city court did not revoke this approval; instead, it ordered the city government to take appropriate remedial mea­sures. Without specifying what remedial mea­sures should be taken, the court in fact left the city government much leeway in manipulating the compensation rate. Nevertheless, with this court verdict in hand, the villa­gers ­were able to proceed with their fight for more compensation. ­Under China’s current po­liti­cal system, local governments po­liti­cally and financially control courts within their jurisdictions and have ­great leverage with them. As a result, the government easily has the upper hand over villa­gers in lawsuits. However, the fact that ordinary ­people can challenge the government according to administrative law has considerable impact on the ­future of state-­society relations in China. The significance of villa­gers’ ­legal actions against the government lies not simply in the results but also in the action per se, which can set an example for other ­people in similar situations.

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Ambivalent Village Cadres Village cadres play multiple and ambivalent roles in compulsory land requisition and the land market. On the one hand, they often comply with and assist the government in land requisition. Since they are very familiar with local land and population conditions, village cadres can confirm the bound­ aries of their administrative village or villa­gers’ groups, as well as each ­house­hold’s land-­holding status. Together with township cadres, they deal face-­to-­face with villa­gers whose land is to be requisitioned. They must persuade or even coerce each and ­every ­house­hold to accept the government compensation package and assist with resettling villa­gers ­after requisition. On the other hand, village cadres, especially t­ hose in villages located in eco­ nom­ically more developed areas, sometimes attempt to gain more control over land resources in their territories by leading collective action against the government’s land requisition or by bypassing the government and becoming land developers themselves, depending on specific circumstances. Village Cadres as Land Developers With no social or po­liti­cal organ­izations to represent their interests, villa­ gers have no say in the government’s land requisition plan. When land requisition occurs, their protests focus primarily on compensation. With the involvement of village cadres, however, the re­sis­tance to the government’s land seizures can take dif­fer­ent forms. An effective strategy at the village community level is the shareholding system (tudi gufen hezuozhi) created by village cadres in Xiabo Management District in Luocun Township, Nanhai City, Guangdong Province.24 The management district of the 1990s in Guangdong is equivalent to the current administrative village. Like many villages in eco­nom­ically more developed areas, Xiabo faced a dilemma. On the one hand, agriculture could only generate very low incomes. Most villa­ gers actively engaged in nonagricultural businesses and earned the majority of their income from off-­farm jobs. Farmland in the village was generally not well maintained. On the other hand, the land’s market value kept surging in this area of very limited land resources and rapid economic development. Cadres realized that leaving the collective land in a half-­idle state was a tremendous waste. In 1992 they tried to pool the land of all individual rural h ­ ouse­holds together and transform villa­gers’ land use rights into shares. Every­one in the village over sixteen years old was entitled to one land share,

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and t­ hose younger than sixteen years w ­ ere entitled to half a share. The land was then divided into three categories: farmland, land for industrial development, and land for commercial housing construction. Farmland was rented out or subcontracted to agricultural companies or farmers migrating from the interior regions. On the land designated for industrial and real estate businesses, the village built factories, restaurants, ­hotels, and offices for lease or for their own use, and thus obtained large profits. As shareholders, villa­gers received profits obtained from agriculture as well as from industrial and commercial businesses. This system soon spread over Guangdong Province and ­later to other coastal provinces, including Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shandong. ­Under this system, all land in the village has a designated purpose, and the economic interests of all individual rural h ­ ouse­holds are bound together. If the government attempts to expropriate the village’s land by decree or at an extremely low price, village cadres can easily mobilize the entire village to resist the government’s land grabs (Cai 2003). More importantly, the shareholding system led to an unstoppable grey land market in the southeast region. U ­ nder the Chinese Constitution and the Land Management Law, any piece of rural land can only enter the land market when it is requisitioned by the government and changes its own­ership from rural collective to state own­ership. However, when administrative villages in the southeast region leased their collectively owned land to businesses or companies to build factory buildings and offices, or when they themselves built apartment complexes, offices, and factories for lease, they actually bypassed the government to become the land developers themselves. The leased land remains collectively owned, but the lease is often long term, from ten years to thirty years, and the profits from land leasing are solely controlled by ­these village collectives. From the point of view of potential buyers, they could obtain the land use rights for a fixed period from the grey land market and at much lower prices than the government-­monopolized land market. But of course a series of liabilities are also associated with t­ hese buildings and apartments constructed by village collectives. For example, they do not have the formal land use rights certificates issued by the government, they cannot be transacted at most lawful real estate transaction offices, they cannot be put up as collateral for bank loans, they face a series of ­legal prob­lems when issues of succession or inheritance occur, and buyers often need to provide up-­front full payment when purchasing the property. For ­these reasons, ­these buildings and apartments are often called “minor property” (xiao chanquan),

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meaning they have limited property rights. Despite t­ hese liabilities, the grey market for such “minor property” has expanded so rapidly that the government simply cannot control it. The large demand from potential buyers and the g­ reat difference between the compensation for land requisition and the ­actual market value of the land motivated village collectives, and sometimes even township governments, to bypass higher levels of government to become land developers themselves.25 In regions where the shareholding system was not a­ dopted, village cadres also tried to emulate the practices of cadres in the southeast region. This was pos­si­ble b­ ecause of the dif­fer­ent categories of rural land stipulated by the Land Management Law. According to this law, rural land is divided into three subcategories: 1) farmland; 2) collective construction land (nongcun jiti jianshe yongdi), which is designated for industrial and commercial development; and  3) nonagricultural land, which includes wasteland, hills, grassland, and rivers. With the use and maintenance of farmland closely monitored and supervised by the central government, construction land and wasteland easily became targets for the grey land market. So instead of directly confronting the government’s land requisition, local cadres often sold the use rights of their construction land secretly to outside developers. The grey market for rural construction land thus constituted an effective mechanism for village cadres to control profits generated by their collectively owned land. Facing an unstoppable situation, Guangdong became the first province to acknowledge the rights of village collectives in participating in the land market. In October of 2005, with permission from the central government, Guangdong Province issued regulations on the circulation of village ­collectives’ construction land. This was a milestone in the history of land management in China, breaking the government’s mono­poly of the land market and profits. ­Under this policy, village collectives in the coastal region can legally participate in the land market. By 2007 buildings and apartments constructed by village collectives had provided housing for approximately seventy-­ one million ­ house­ holds in the country, accounting for housing for about 250 million p ­ eople (Tao and Wang 2011). In 2008 the right of village collectives to participate in the land market was acknowledged at the national level by the Resolution of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee on Some Major Issues in Rural Reform and Development (often referred to as the “2008 Resolution”), which was passed by the Third Plenary Session of the Seventeenth Central Committee of the

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Chinese Communist Party. The 2008 Resolution is a landmark t­ oward the development of a land market that could eventually allow rural residents to share in the profits associated with land development.26 Village Cadres as Leaders of Collective Action against Land Requisition In many land conflicts, village cadres became leaders of collective ­action. This is especially true for leaders of the villa­gers’ groups. Unlike administrative village cadres, who are often appointed by the township governments, most group leaders are directly elected by the villa­gers. At the bottom rung of the administrative ladder and with a meager monthly subsidy from the government, group leaders have much less to lose in leading fellow villa­gers to resist land requisition and are often the organizers of collective actions, as well as the representatives of their groups when disputes occur. In the case of Xiaoliang Villa­gers’ Group vs. Xi’an City Government in Shaanxi Province discussed previously, the group leaders represented their communities to sue the local governments. In the case of Fujiacun Agricultural Cooperative vs. the X Township Handicraft Cooperative in Fuyuan County discussed in Chapter 4, the head of the cooperative (equivalent to the current villa­gers’ group) filed an administrative complaint against the Handicraft Cooperative that took a piece of land from the cooperative in 1956 and sold the plot to another com­pany in 1995. In the Qujing case, discussed in both Chapter 4 and earlier in this chapter, the leader of the eighth villa­ger’s group did not lead the demonstration against the government, but when the local government sued the seven villa­gers who had or­ga­nized the protests, the group leader testified in court that the group’s land was taken away by the Baodu Administrative Village without the group’s agreement. In short, as leaders of bounded communities, leaders of the villa­gers’ groups tend to have a much stronger motivation than administrative village cadres to defend the group’s land.27 With much to gain from their assistance to the government’s social, economic, and po­liti­cal agendas, administrative village cadres may not be particularly concerned with the loss of land in a specific villa­gers’ group and thus are less likely to take action against land requisition, but cases of defiance do exist, especially for t­ hose cadres whose land was also expropriated. The strategy of “planting ­houses,” for example, is pos­si­ble only with the permission or acquiescence of the administrative village, ­because ­every ­house­hold who plans to build a ­house needs to obtain the approval of their

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administrative village before construction begins. The sudden erection of over fifty shabby ­houses in the ­middle of rice paddies in JinPing County in Yunnan Province, as described earlier in the chapter, reveals well how ordinary villa­gers and administrative village cadres can work together to demand more compensation. It is also impor­tant to keep in mind that cadres in an administrative village are not a monolithic group. While some cadres may support the government or developers in land requisition, o­ thers may disagree and take action to defend their communities’ interests, and still ­others may secretly sell land to developers without the knowledge of their villa­gers’ groups. The famous Wukan protests in 2011 illustrate well the complex motivations and be­hav­iors of administrative village cadres in land development.28 Wukan is a coastal administrative village in Guangdong Province with seven villa­gers’ groups. While some administrative village cadres sold over 3,200 mu of farmland in Wukan to developers without the knowledge of fellow villa­gers, other administrative village cadres w ­ ere actively involved in organ­izing protests to demand that they get their land back.

Government Domination and Policy Readjustments The Joint Action of Government Apparatuses For the government, the key word for defending the current land requisition and market system is “development.” Since Deng Xiaoping made his famous statement, “Development is the absolute princi­ple” ( fazhan caishi ­ ill yingdaoli), local governments have always claimed that land development w benefit rural society b­ ecause industrial and commercial establishments built on the expropriated land ­will stimulate the local economy and provide off-­ farm jobs to the rural population. However, the hard fact that farmers are generally excluded from the prosperity brought about by land development has made such justification increasingly difficult. During my fieldwork, I often heard the local government claim that the government and the developers provided the basic infrastructure—­electricity, ­water, and roads—­and thus increased the value of the land, and that villa­gers could do anything to increase the value of the land and therefore w ­ ere entitled to the value increment at the time of land sale. Villa­gers, however, did not agree with this reasoning. As some ­people commented to me, “If we farmers ­were allowed to buy land at a price as low as the government currently pays, we could also make big money from selling it.”

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In addition to the development discourse, “governing the nation through law” ( yifa zhiguo) is another discourse that the government employs to defend the current land market system when facing rural re­sis­tance. The discourse on the rule of law has three implications. First, it urges the rural populace to obey the law. Protesting villa­gers, especially ­those obstructing proj­ect construction and holding public demonstrations, are often accused of committing unlawful acts. Second, it shows the government’s intention and capability of using the law to control society. Third, it justifies the government’s suppression of rural re­sis­tance as following the law. Employing dif­fer­ent discourses is just one strategy that the government uses to maintain its domination over the land market. The joint action of dif­fer­ent government apparatuses is another more effective strategy for controlling the land market. Take land requisition at the county level as an example. A successful and smooth requisition of land is both eco­nom­ically and po­liti­cally impor­tant to the county government. When a major proj­ect needs to expropriate farmland, it is very common for that proj­ect to be designated as the county government’s central task for the current period. All levels of administration—­county, township, administrative village, and villa­gers’ groups—­are mobilized to enforce the land acquisition. At the county level, a special lead team (lingdao xiaozu) comprising key figures of the county leadership is usually appointed to or­ga­nize and coordinate the ­whole pro­cess. This team can recruit cadres from any section or branch of the county government as long as the person is considered impor­tant and competent for the task. In the township where the proj­ect is located, the majority of township cadres must assist the lead team’s work. If the proj­ect is initiated and or­ga­ nized by the township government, personnel at the county level may not get involved but can step in when assistance is needed. Since key figures in the administrative village are always appointed by the township government, cadres of the administrative village where land is to be expropriated are also at the county government’s command. In most cases administrative village cadres and group leaders ­will assist the local government in confirming village bound­aries, persuading villa­gers, and resettling villa­gers ­after the acquisition, although village cadres could also have dif­fer­ent ideas on how their land should be developed, as discussed in the previous section. In short, when farmland in a community is to be expropriated, villa­gers ­will encounter pressure and suppression from e­very level and many sections of the government, not just the County Bureau of Land and Resources.

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In addition to the four levels of administration, the county government can deploy special organ­izations to e­ ither mediate disputes or suppress protests. The County Petition Bureau (xinfangju) is at the county seat; its duty is to ­handle written complaints and accept office visits from rural residents. To a certain extent this bureau can mediate disputes and prevent public protests. In e­ very township minor disputes related to land acquisition can be solved at the ­Legal Assistance Office (sifasuo). When a conflict or protest does occur, the local government has other social resources—it can obtain help from the local Public Security Bureau and the County Court, which have considerable deterring effects on villa­gers. For example, on the day that villa­ gers’ ­houses are torn down or crops in the field are razed, police from the Public Security Bureau and personnel from the County Court are usually sent to the scene to deter or even arrest villa­gers who try to protect their ­houses or crops from being demolished. The court can also help the local government end long-­lasting disputes. The government may sue a villa­ger or a group of villa­gers in court, using vari­ous accusations such as obstructing lawful construction or disrupting public order. In the Qujing case described previously, the seven villa­gers who or­ga­nized the demonstration w ­ ere arrested by police soon ­after the villa­gers’ protest at city hall. In court ­these villa­gers ­were accused of attacking government organ­izations and disturbing the public order; each was sentenced to one to three years in prison with two years of probation. This certainly had a strong deterring effect on other participating villa­gers. On some occasions the government may encourage other p ­ eople to sue the defiant farmers. For instance, if a developer buys a plot from the local government, he might encounter re­sis­tance from villa­gers when starting construction. Assisted by the local government, the developer may sue the villa­gers for infringing on his use rights to the plot. Once the County Court pronounces the villa­gers guilty, police from the court’s Executive Bureau (zhixing ju) can enforce the verdict and force villa­gers out of the expropriated plot. U ­ nder ­these circumstances, any further re­sis­tance ­will result in arrest. Taking advantage of the connections among its own branches and sections, the local government may also adopt the method of indirect intervention. Resisting villa­gers face not only coercion from local cadres, accusations in court, or police arrest, they also may find it difficult to obtain an ordinary birth certificate for their newborn child or to apply for ­house construction approval; further, one of their ­family members may be dismissed from a job. In short, by involving all the government apparatuses, the local

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government holds the advantage when dealing with villa­gers’ re­sis­tance. The above strategies reflect the resources that the local government may employ when enforcing land requisition. At higher levels of government, the power and apparatuses that may be employed are even more diverse and far reaching. Major Policy Changes and New Prob­lems Despite its advantage over rural residents when enforcing land requisition, the Chinese government is facing the daunting task of maintaining China’s social and po­liti­cal stability. Land requisition, along with rural poverty and cadre corruption, has caused nationwide re­sis­tance and protests. The per­sis­ tent, long-­lasting, and well-­organized rural re­sis­tance has forced the government to re­adjust the current land market system to prevent landless farmers from creating enormous social and po­liti­cal prob­lems for years to come. Some major changes in land policy have occurred over the past de­cade to respond to widespread rural unrest; meanwhile, new issues and prob­lems associated with ­these policy changes have also appeared. The first major change has been the ac­k now­ledg­ment of the rights of rural collectives to participate in the land market. At pres­ent, balancing rural residents’ share and the government’s value-­capturing share in land sale profits is considered to be the most crucial step in solving the conflict between the government and rural populace. If higher compensation provides some alleviation to the conflict, the fundamental way to solve social unrest caused by the current land market system is to allow rural communities to participate in the land market. Breaking the mono­poly of the government over the primary land market would solve two major issues: it would let rural residents have a say in the operation of the land market and obtain a fair share of the benefits brought about by land development, and it would contain the urge of local governments to expropriate rural land extensively. Land policies put in place by the 2008 Resolution provided an outline for developing a land market that could eventually benefit both urban and rural residents. The second major change is the improvement of land requisition compensation. During the Maoist era, farmers w ­ ere provided with extremely low compensation when their land was requisitioned by the government. For example, the 1953 regulations on land requisition stipulated that farmers whose land was expropriated could be paid the value of their yields for three to five years; regulations issued in 1958 decreased the compensation to two to

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four years. In the post-­Mao era, between the early 1980s and early 1990s, the compensation increased to twenty times the previous three-­year average output value of the expropriated land. In 1998 the Land Management Law was revised to re­adjust the compensation standard. As a result, farmers could be compensated for no more than thirty times the previous three-­year average output value of the acquired land. Despite the gradual increase, the amount of compensation that farmers received was minimal compared with the profits that the government and developers received from land development. Such compensation did not provide landless farmers any long-­term financial support. Even Chen Xiwen, the director of the Central Work Team for Rural Issues, commented, “we can imagine that the annual yield of a mu of farmland is about seven to eight hundred yuan, or no more than a thousand yuan. Thirty times the previous three-­year average output value of a mu of farmland is only thirty thousand yuan. Without their land and ­houses, what can t­ hose farmers do with this amount of money? It is impossible that they ­don’t protest.”29 On March 14, 2004, the Chinese Constitution was revised for the fourth time in the history of the ­People’s Republic. One of the revisions concerned land requisition and compensation. The wording in the previous Article 10, Section 3, of the constitution was changed from “the state may, in accordance with the law, requisition land” to “the state may, in accordance with the law, requisition (zhengshou) land or take over land for use ­ ill provide compensation.” Although only a few words (zhengyong) and w ­were added to the new constitution, this revision had g­ reat implications for China’s ­future land requisition system. First, the issue of fair compensation had now been formally acknowledged and put before the government. Second, a difference was now made between “requisition” and “take over for use.” “Requisition” refers to the pro­cess in which land own­ership is transferred from the collective to the state, while “taking over for use” means the government may use the land for a limited period of time without changing the land own­ership. Making this distinction enables the government to provide dif­fer­ent and more appropriate compensation for rural land taken away for dif­fer­ent purposes. Five months a­ fter the constitution was revised, the Land Management Law was also revised to acknowledge the issue of compensation and made a distinction between “requisition” and “take over for use.” Nevertheless, how to further revise the Land Management Law to increase the compensation has been hotly debated among government officials

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and scholars in China since 2004. The revision plan of the Land Management Law was submitted to the Legislative Committee of the P ­ eople’s Congress in 2009, 2010, and 2012 for discussion. But none of the revision plans was passed. At pres­ent, some local governments continue to compensate farmers using the standard of thirty times the previous three-­year average output value of the expropriated land, but many o­ thers have improved the standard. In Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province, for example, the local government paid rural residents one hundred times the previous three-­year average output value of the acquired land.30 Moreover, while the compensation price was previously calculated only by the crop output value of the land, some local governments raised the compensation standard by calculating not only the agricultural output value but also ­factors such as the type of land, soil quality, rural residents’ previous investments, and regional differences in land market prices. Also, other new compensation methods have also been developed. For example, instead of offering a lump-­sum payment, many regions have begun to provide monthly payments and skills training to farmers whose land was acquired, which can better solve many long-­term issues faced by landless farmers. Starting in 2006, more methods of resettling landless farmers ­were ­adopted, including providing jobs, housing, and social welfare. ­These new methods, however, also provide some local governments with even more effective ways to deprive farmers and strengthen their own control of rural land resources. “Let farmers live in the towns” (rang nongmin jincheng) or “letting farmers live in apartments” (rang nongmin shanglou) are two typical examples. In many regions villa­gers ­were persuaded or forced to give up their old h ­ ouses and farming plots and move into new apartment complexes in township seats. Some local governments gave apartments in exchange for village h ­ ouses, while ­others asked farmers to pay a certain amount of money for the new apartments. When villa­gers ­were concentrated in the apartment complexes, the local governments could expropriate the land of an entire community easily. Local governments often claimed that this new method provided fairer and higher compensation, b­ ecause farmers ­were turned into urban citizens and could enjoy urban life. In real­ity, the pro­cess of evicting villa­gers from their old communities was often coercive. Farmers who had moved into towns often faced many social and economic difficulties, especially ­those of old age and without any skills for urban jobs.31 At pres­ent, ­there is no uniform law or policy on compensation for land requisition. Rural experts in China expect that a major revision of the Land

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Management Law ­will be ­under way around 2017, when some pi­lot proj­ects initiated by the central government to reform rural land management end. It is expected that the new revised Land Management Law ­will stipulate a much higher compensation standard than the current thirty times the previous three-­year average output value of a mu of farmland. The third change in land policy in recent years is the significantly increased term of farmers’ land contracts and the formally acknowledged land use rights of farmers. Since the implementation of the House­hold Responsibility System in the early 1980s, farmers’ land contracts have been renewed three times: in 1985, 1999, and 2008. Now farmers have a contract term of at least seventy years. Also, starting in 2012, the central government planned to spend the next five years completing the pro­cess of issuing uniformed land use rights certificates to rural ­house­holds across the country. This is an enormous proj­ect, involving huge amounts of funds and a large number of personnel. The cost for issuing the certificates is estimated to be eight yuan per mu of farmland; ­there are now 800 million mu of farmland waiting to be surveyed and listed on land certificates. With a formal land certificate, farmers should be able to better defend their land use rights ­under many circumstances.32 In short, largely controlled by the government rather than market mechanisms, the current land market is still a partial market. But it is also evolving rapidly, due to the strug­gles of rural communities and villa­gers over the past three de­cades. With the further revision of the Land Management Law around 2017, we could expect that more specific reforms would be conducted in three major areas—­land requisition, the rights of village collectives to enter the land market, and rural residents’ rights over both their contracted farmland and ­house plots (zhaijidi). ­These changes may help create a new platform on which the government, rural communities, and villa­gers can continue to contest and negotiate among one another on how to divide the benefits from land development.

CHAPTER 11

Concluding Reflections

This ethnography represents more than a de­cade of effort to seek to understand two issues regarding the profound transformation that China has under­gone during the ­People’s Republic period. First, since the founding of the ­People’s Republic of China in 1949, how have the two formative processes—­the socialist movement since the 1950s and a market economy emerging from the post-­Mao reform—­intertwined with complex cultural patterns and long-­held traditions to produce multiple sources of enforceable norms and multilayered state-­society relations? Second, within the above context, how do norms—­formal and informal, official and unofficial, traditional and modern—­shape social actors’ perceptions and choices and at the same time become redefined by the actions of social actors? I have used the changing face of rural land own­ership in China as an entry point to explore ­these issues. The central question of this research is how the current rural land own­ ership system in China was formed and has evolved through contestation among such social groups as the socialist state, rural settlements/natu­ral villages, and rural families. Based on my field findings, I have argued that ­going beyond state policies and programs to learn the under­lying, and yet often overlooked, roles played by natu­ral villages and rural families is crucial for understanding this central question. I used village-­level data to demonstrate that the state, with its pressing social and po­liti­cal agendas, is only one major force that created the current land own­ership system. Also playing roles ­were natu­ral villages with enduring social and cultural identities and rural ­house­holds with long-­held ­family economic logics and egalitarian attitudes ­toward such critical life resources as land, both of which have 221

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per­sis­tently maintained their domains within the socialist land own­ership system. Due to the combined impact of ­these forces, the resulting land own­ership system is not simply an eco­nom­ically costly and po­liti­cally alienating one imposed by the socialist state from above, but also a structure that has adapted to or even strengthened key ele­ments in traditional land property relations. To be sure, the tradition is by no means static or fixed. Expressed through local culture and practices, it has articulated and interacted with the wider po­liti­cal economy from the 1950s to the pres­ent to reinforce itself and metamorphose in a socialist context. As ­these forces continue to compete for control over land resources in the post-­Mao era, land property relations remain volatile. “The land own­ership relation may now be seen as a tripartite one monopolized by no single party—­state, collective, or household—­each of whose powers are in flux” (Selden 1993b, 195). This situation makes the development pattern of China’s rural land own­ership system differ from the separate projections of both Marxist-­ Leninist and Western liberal analyses. In this concluding chapter, I first summarize the impacts of each of ­these major forces on China’s rural land own­ership system and then show why simplistic definitions or labels often fail to fully capture the essential characteristics of this system, which ­were produced in the social context of a rural China that has been distinguished by deep cultural patterns and constant contestation among social interests.

State Land Management: Domination, Pragmatism, and Central-­Local Differentiation The Chinese state has been a complex po­liti­cal entity throughout its management of land resources over the past six de­cades. On the one hand, it has been a power­ful force dominating rural land property relations; on the other, social and economic realities in rural China also forced it to adopt a pragmatic approach and make major compromises when pursuing its social and po­liti­cal agendas. By initiating land reform from the late 1940s to the early 1950s and collectivization programs in the 1950s, the state is the most obvious force that has fundamentally changed the structure of rural land own­ership in China. Its domination in rural land property relations has continued in the post-­Mao reform era, manifesting mainly in its expanded and firmer control over national land resources through the overhaul of the nation’s land management system since 1986. With the establishment of the State Bureau of Land Management and its corresponding departments

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and bureaus at the provincial, municipal, and county levels, a centralized system of land management was created, fundamentally changing the fragmented situation in the Mao era, where land was managed and controlled by a variety of government agencies. In 1998 the State Bureau of Land Management was turned into a new Ministry of Land Resources, further expanding the state’s control over land resources. Land management was also technologically modernized and updated in the areas of land surveys, data analy­sis and storage, land registry, land use planning, collection of land taxes and fees, and conflict resolution. Furthermore, the reform made land reemerge as a commodity, a­ fter the Chinese Constitution had banned land transactions for several de­cades. Enabled by two mechanisms—­compulsory land requisition and a two-­tier market system—­the government at all levels expropriates land cheaply from rural areas and then sells it to developers at much higher prices. In d ­ oing so, the government rakes in huge profits for urban development and industrialization, and more importantly, for achieving its other social and po­liti­ cal agendas. The state’s domination in rural land property relations in the reform period also manifests in local governments’ intervention with agricultural production. My field investigation reveals that although rural h ­ ouse­holds in the southwest obtained their share of contracted farmland through the House­hold Responsibility System (HRS) in the early 1980s, they are still not completely ­free to use their contracted land or set their own production levels. Instead, the local government continues to administrate local agriculture to increase their revenue and to survive or even excel in the new po­liti­cal and economic context ­shaped by the post-­Mao fiscal reform. As a result, the past three de­cades witnessed the compulsory production of a series of cash crops, such as tobacco, ginkgo, and ­others in Fuyuan and other rural southwest areas. Such administrated agriculture remains a feature of a rural economy in China’s interior regions, where local governments have fewer opportunities to obtain profits from nonagricultural sectors. The state’s continual dominance in rural land property relations, however, should not make us overlook its pragmatic approaches ­toward land management when encountering re­sis­tance from rural society. Due to this pragmatism, the state made a series of compromises between its ideological princi­ples and social and economic realities in rural China. It withdrew considerably from its attempt to reor­ga­nize the fundamental land property relations among natu­ral villages and institutionalized the land holding

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arrangement of “bounded collectivism.” It acquiesced to the continuity of long-­held norms that have constructed domestic property relations through genders and generations. It eventually acknowledged an underground lease system experimented with by rural families in the late 1970s and legalized the system as the House­hold Responsibility System and promoted it nationwide. The state has also continually revised the Land Management Law since 1984, which has gradually put the issue of fair compensation for land requisition at the forefront of China’s land policy agenda. Such pragmatism also led to a gradual reform approach that accommodates the needs of both an emerging market economy and socialist princi­ ples. As a result, the reform of land management in China is based on two preconditions—­the rejection of outright privatization of its property system and the separation of land own­ership rights from use rights. In the countryside, the HRS did not change collective own­ership of rural land; farmland was distributed to rural ­house­holds through contracts. In urban areas, the central government formed a market for land use rights that allows urban land to be leased, sold, or rented for a term of at least seventy years. But urban land remains ­under state own­ership. In short, by limiting all experiments and reforms to the realm of land use rights, the government has sought to avoid changing the structure of public own­ership in the hope of avoiding fundamental and turbulent po­liti­cal changes. ­Because of this pragmatic and gradual approach, a considerable degree of local experiment and leeway became pos­si­ble and has constituted an impor­tant ­factor causing continuous policy change and reform. In addition to its dominance and pragmatism, the complexity of the state as the reform initiator and operator also lies in the central-­local interest differentiation. In other words, the state can hardly maintain itself as a monolithic entity when dif­fer­ent levels of government have been competing for the control of land resources. A series of economic and po­liti­cal agendas motivated the central government’s decision to overhaul its land management system in the post-­Mao era. Th ­ ese agendas included tightening the central control of national land resources, rationalizing and economizing land use nationwide, creating an institutional capacity for local governments to raise revenues for urban development and industrialization, maintaining national food self-­sufficiency, and protecting the environment for sustainable development. ­These agendas, however, created a contradictory incentive framework for local governments. As developing the local economy and accumulating more revenue became overwhelming tasks for local governments

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in the reform period, seeking profits through land development, or so-­called “land finance,” has become a pattern of local governments. Meanwhile, local governments must also cope with mandatory central policies of farmland preservation and environmental protection to survive po­liti­cally. This situation has resulted in a differentiation of interests between the central government and local governments. The strained central-­local relationship further reveals that the Chinese state has not been a monolithic entity exerting complete control over the past six de­cades.

Bounded Collectivism: Implications, Applicability, and F­ uture Paths ­Today at least two million rural settlements/natu­ral villages are estimated to exist in China’s vast rural areas. This ethnography proves that a critical step t­oward understanding the structure of the current land rural own­ ership system in China is to distinguish analytically between natu­ral villages and state-­imposed administrative structures. ­These two kinds of villages have ­shaped and or­ga­nized rural land property relations in very dif­ fer­ent ways. To explore the interaction between ­these two types of organ­ izing forces in the pro­cess of building collective land own­ership, my research has built on three major areas of scholarship on rural China and seeks to understand some of the impor­tant issues raised by scholars in ­these areas. The first area is the historical and anthropological research on pre-1949 rural communities in China (e.g., Duara 1988; Fei 1939; Fei and Zhang 1945; ­Gamble 1963; Huang 1985 and 1990; Martin Yang 1945), which proves that the rural settlement before 1949 had been a fundamental organ­ization node of rural life and often exhibited distinctive identities in vari­ous ways; therefore it should be treated as an impor­tant analytical unit. My research inquires what happened to ­these communities and their land when the collective land own­ership system was established in rural areas a­ fter 1949. The second area that I drew on is anthropological studies on late imperial culture and rural grassroots practices, especially t­hose classic works on kinship, lineage, popu­lar religion, marriage, and f­ amily (e.g., Ahern 1973; Baker 1968; Cohen 1976; Fei 1939, 1948; Freedman 1958, 1966; Hsu 1948; Kulp 1925; Lin 1947; Sangren 1987; James Watson 1975, 1985; Rubie Watson 1985; Arthur Wolf 1974; Margery Wolf 1972). Th ­ ese works provide an impor­tant foundation for understanding how ordinary ­people lived their lives and what basic cultural patterns ­shaped ­people’s be­hav­iors, in other words, for understanding what being Chinese means (Cohen 2005b). The third area consists of studies of China’s rural socialist transformation

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a­ fter 1949. Extensive and thorough research has been conducted on the impacts of the modern force of socialism on rural society and the drastic changes to state-­society relations as rural China underwent pro­cesses such as land reform, collectivization, the ­Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution (e.g., Chan, Madsen, and Unger 1992; Friedman, Pickowicz, and Selden 1991; Oi 1989; Potter and Potter 1990; Ruf 1998; Selden 1993a; Siu 1989). Based on t­ hese works, I explored the relationship between the torrents of socialism and the riverbanks of long-­held cultural patterns and traditions. Sometimes the torrents overran the riverbanks and changed the direction of the river; sometimes the torrents ­were contained and channeled by the riverbed. Bounded collectivism, was formed as a result of the interaction between the socialist transformation and deep cultural patterns and practices. This ethnography is based on the histories of Fuyuan’s natu­ral villages over the past sixty years. It demonstrates that zhaizi, the natu­ral village in Fuyuan and other southwestern rural areas, continues to maintain its social and cultural identity and physical territories even in a socialist context. In sharp contrast to frequent changes in the state-­imposed rural administrative structure, zhaizi in Fuyuan showed considerable stability in both their land status and collective identities. During the ­People’s Republic period, as in the period from the late Qing to 1949, the physical bound­aries and the collective identities of zhaizi have been strengthened and highlighted by vis­i­ble and invisible landmarks and a series of practices. In this study I paid par­tic­u­lar attention to three ele­ments, while other ele­ments and ­factors await more research. The first ele­ment is restricted community membership. Although villa­gers’ practices and perceptions of who could be defined as a native resident of a zhaizi varied before and ­after 1949, community membership has always played an impor­tant role in deciding who could receive a share of community land, both during the Land Reform in the early 1950s and when the HRS started in the early 1980s. Per capita farmland also differed among zhaizi, deci­ded by the amount of land owned by each community. The second ele­ment is ancestral graves, which have served as impor­ tant landmarks of each zhaizi and which have given villa­gers a sense of entitlement to the land where the graves are located, not just of the graves themselves. The third ele­ment is popu­lar religions. Deities worshipped in Fuyuan, such as the earth god or the white dragon, are territorial b­ ecause they define the bound­aries of the community and are worshipped as if they ­were officials holding territorial posts. The collective worship activities func-

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tion as a princi­ple focus of local identity based on the natu­ral settlements and annually confirm a zhaizi community’s territory. To reveal the formation of bounded collectivism, I traced the social and economic status of three Fuyuan zhaizi (one large, one medium, and one small) through the dif­fer­ent historical stages of establishing socialist land own­ership in rural areas, including the land reform, early collectivization, the ­Great Leap Forward campaign, the ­People’s Commune period, the ­Great Cultural Revolution, the HRS implementation in the early 1980s, and further administrative reform in the post-­Mao era. I found that over the past six de­cades, administrative arrangements in Fuyuan changed more than a dozen times. ­These three zhaizi ­were assigned to dif­fer­ent districts, communes, and brigades, and ­were given dif­fer­ent administrative names. But in terms of population composition, location, distinctive identities, and land property relations among the communities, ­these zhaizi remained generally stable. More importantly, this ethnography reveals that zhaizi identities and their physical bound­a ries ­were maintained not merely through the per­sis­tence of the ele­ments described above, but also through the interaction between zhaizi communities and the state-­initiated collectivization program. Such interaction enabled t­ hese communities to obtain new social, economic, and po­liti­cal mechanisms to reinforce their claims over land within their traditional territories and resulted in bounded collectivism, a landholding structure in which most zhaizi/natu­ral villages became the production teams, the lowest-­level rural administrative and land management units, as well as the primary locus of l­abor and income distribution, in the collective era. This incorporation into the state administrative structure provided natu­ral villages with new social, economic, and po­liti­cal mechanisms to maintain both their traditional territories and solidarity among community members. As production teams ­were turned into the villa­gers’ groups in the post-­Mao era, territorial relations among the groups continued to match with ­those among the teams. With their control over land, neither the previous production teams nor the current villa­gers’ groups are arbitrarily created administrative units, but fundamental, stable components of the rural po­liti­ cal structure in China. Bounded collectivism has had ­great implications for how the current two levels of village administration—­the administrative village and its constituent villa­gers’ groups—­share land rights in the post-­Mao era. As a well-­organized unit supported and legitimated by the government and with

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adequate staff and reasonable work division, the current administrative village is charged with a range of social, economic, and po­liti­cal responsibilities, including land management. Compared with the previous production teams, the current villa­gers’ groups have a loose po­liti­cal structure. Nevertheless, villa­gers’ groups have been vested with certain exclusive land rights, due to the legacy of bounded collectivism. The groups’ rights manifest primarily in areas such as land allocation and the distribution of any benefit derived from the community land. Whenever pos­si­ble, the higher levels of administration, including the administrative village and township government, try not to interfere with t­ hese rights. Land rights are thus shared by the current two levels of village administration—­with the administrative village ­handling most land management issues and the villa­gers’ groups enjoying relatively exclusive own­ership rights over land within their territories. Bounded collectivism has also caused differentiation among village cadres. Elected directly by fellow villa­gers, leaders of the villa­gers’ groups have close ties with their native communities and tend to view t­ hings in terms of the interests of their communities. On certain impor­tant village ­matters, leaders of the villa­gers’ groups may behave differently from the administrative village cadres who appear to be more active and vis­i­ble in the local po­liti­cal scene and are often regarded as government agents. Such differentiation among village cadres suggests a more complex po­liti­cal mechanism and state-­society nexus in con­temporary rural China than previous studies have shown. My research focused on China’s mountainous southwest region, but on this basis it is pos­si­ble to speculate on the applicability of the concept of bounded collectivism to other regions. In south China, including the southwest region that encompassing Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan Provinces; the central part of China that includes Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi, and Anhui Provinces; and the coastal region that includes Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong Provinces, the size of most rural settlements/natu­ral villages is small or medium ­because of ­these regions’ natu­ral and geographic characteristics. Most communities in t­ hese regions have several dozen ­house­holds and a few hundred p ­ eople. ­These f­ actors contribute to close social and economic ties that facilitate the creation of a collective identity. Moreover, in the southern regions, land re­distribution brought about by both the land reform in the 1950s and the HRS in the 1980s was limited within the bound­aries of natu­ral villages.1 Based on t­ hese facts and data, I believe that land property relations among natu­ral villages in Fuyuan represent t­ hose

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in most rural areas in south China and bounded collectivism has formed in most rural areas in south China. In the north, however, the situation appears to be somewhat dif­fer­ent. Many, if not the majority of, northern natu­ral villages consist of several thousand ­people and cover a large territory. ­Because of their large population and territory sizes, most natu­ral villages ­were turned into brigades in the Maoist era and changed into administrative villages in the reform period. ­Under ­these circumstances, I think a slightly dif­fer­ent form of bounded collectivism formed in the northern region. Similar to the very large zhaizi in Fuyuan, northern communities also had exclusive control over land within their territories. Land readjustment occurred among the production teams/ villa­gers’ groups within an administrative village, but not among administrative villages. Ellen Judd’s book Gender & Power in Rural North China (1994) discusses in detail how land was divided in Huali Village in Shangdong Province in 1984 through the HRS. Huali was an administrative village with more than three thousand residents. Judd noticed, “although land is nominally state-­owned, it is a community resource that is held within the community—­the only seepage that occurs is through marriage and the ties ­women maintain with their natal families” (1994, 32). Friedman, Pickowicz, and Selden’s study (1991) of Wugong Village, a large northern community of more than two thousand p ­ eople in Hebei Province, provides a detailed history of Wugong during the ­People’s Republic. Yet, following the authors’ scrutiny of land reform and collectivization, we find no evidence that Wugong’s land was given to other communities or that Wugong was split into dif­fer­ent administrative units, even during the most radical periods of the PRC. Based on this information, it may be concluded that the major difference between bounded collectivism in north China and south China lies in that many, if not most, northern natu­ral villages became production brigades/administrative villages, while most southern communities formed production teams/villa­gers’ groups. Despite ­these differences, limiting land allocation and benefit distribution within a community, be it through a production team or a brigade, was a common practice for all natu­ ral villages in China’s vast rural areas. I also want to point out that this book focuses on farmland. However, two other types of land—­house plots (zhaijidi) and forest land—­a lso await careful study. Like graveyards, h ­ ouses and h ­ ouse plots have been generally treated as quasi-­private property, even during the most radical socialist periods. Like farmland, ­house plots also involve complex contestation and

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negotiation among the village communities, rural families, and the state. Forests, woods, and hills involve very a large amount of land in ­every community and have therefore caused equally intense competition among natu­ral villages, state forest farms, and higher levels of rural administration such as the township or county government. What has made t­ hings more complicated is that the policies regarding forests and hills since the 1950s have been dif­fer­ent from ­t hose on farmland, and major reforms of forest rights started in 2008. It is expected that ­there ­will be more significant changes in the near f­ uture. While I hope more research w ­ ill be conducted on ­these two types of rural land, I also think the concept of bounded collectivism can provide a very general framework to understand both h ­ ouse plots and forest land. On the impor­tant issue of ­whether and how bounded collectivism ­will change in the ­future, we need to watch closely for the impacts of urbanization and migration. The impacts seem to be twofold. On the one hand, the overwhelming majority of farmers in Fuyuan who have migrated to cities are unwilling to give up their shares of contracted land in the absence of a sound social security system that extends to rural mi­grants and in light of continuing concerns about unstable off-­farm employment opportunities. ­A fter moving to the cities, some rural mi­grant workers hired other ­people to till their farmland, while ­others simply let the land go idle. Giving up one’s share of contracted farmland is rare among rural mi­grants. I think this attitude and practice represent t­ hose of the majority of the rural populace in China’s interior regions. Moreover, the rapidly rising land prices and the huge profits brought about by the land market over the past two de­cades have caused rural communities and their members to guard their community land even more carefully. Conflicts and disputes among communities over land resources are common, as is the re­sis­tance of village communities to the government’s land expropriation. As long as communities and their member families do not give up their land, bounded collectivism is likely to continue. On the other hand, rural mi­grant workers have come to represent about 30 ­percent of China’s urban population. As China rises to become the world’s largest economy, it is estimated that nearly 67 ­percent of the population w ­ ill live in urban areas by 2030, which means 280 million rural residents w ­ ill move to the cities within two de­cades.2 This raises an impor­ tant question: When most rural residents e­ ither move to cities or their native places become cities, ­will bounded collectivism still exist? If so, in what form?

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Rural Families: Power and Predicament in a Market Economy It is well known that individual h ­ ouse­holds lost their privately owned land during the pro­cess of collectivization in the 1950s and 1960s and w ­ ere thereafter obligated to participate in collective l­abor for more than two de­cades. However, this d ­ oesn’t mean that rural families completely lost control over how land property relations ­were to be defined during the socialist period. The resilient ­family economic organ­ization is a key source of farmers’ proclivity for in­de­pen­dent ­family farming and a range of ­house­hold enterprises. The trajectory of rural socialism in China is therefore one in which rural families never stopped struggling with the government for more production freedom. From their re­sis­tance to collectivization in the 1950s and 1960s, to their secret experimentation with an underground lease system in some poverty-­ridden regions that eventually led to the legalization and nationwide implementation of the HRS in the early 1980s, to their continuing contestation and negotiation with local governments about agricultural production in the post-­Mao era, rural ­house­holds have per­sis­tently demanded more land use rights and defended their status as the primary production unit. As a result of this per­sis­tence and resilience, in­de­pen­dent ­family farming has become an irreversible trend in the post-­Mao era. In 1984 rural ­house­holds received a contract term of fifteen years for the farmland they received ­under the HRS; their contracts ­were renewed for an additional thirty years in 1999. When rural ­house­holds’ contracts ­were renewed for the third time for another seventy years in 2008, many rural experts in China said this could be an indefinite term. Moreover, the ­family has always functioned as a framework for constructing property relations, including land, in the domestic realm. Despite tremendous social and economic changes during the P ­ eople’s Republic period, the ­house­hold always maintained its property-­holding status. My research reveals that both the land reform in the 1950s and the HRS in the early 1980s followed the same grassroots princi­ple of land re­distribution, that is, land allocation was calculated in terms of individual entitlement but made to ­house­holds and effectively held by h ­ ouse­holds. In other words, the ­house­hold always constituted the receiving unit; the land rights of the individual ­were thus abstract. Once rural ­house­holds received their shares of farmland, they had considerable leeway to arrange land property relations within the ­family. For example, the division and succession of land within a ­family used long-­held

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norms regarding f­ amily property division; the government at all levels generally refrains from intervening. This is especially so in Fuyuan and other rural southwestern areas, where the land policy is one of “no increase of land when the f­amily size increases; no reduction of land when the ­family size decreases” (zengren bu zengdi, jianren bu jiandi). No major land readjustments occurred in Fuyuan ­after 1982, and each ­house­hold has kept the share of land it originally received for more than two de­cades despite changes in ­family composition caused by birth, death, or marriage. Division of land within a f­ amily is thus inevitable when parents age or die, or when c­ hildren grow up, marry, and set up their own ­house­holds. In general, farmland is passed from one generation to another mainly through males; d ­ aughters are excluded from inheriting f­amily property, including land. As this ethnography describes, the division and succession of land can occur between the f­ather and sons in the same h ­ ouse­hold that originally received land in 1982, or occur between the ­father and his sons’ ­house­holds that separately received their land in 1982 but belong to the same f­amily (   jia), which involves the transfer of land use rights between administratively and legally in­de­pen­dent ­house­holds. Rarely, land may also pass from one lineage member to another agnatic member. Village authorities and the government generally consider ­these arrangements “­matters within the ­family” and do not intervene. Meanwhile, my field data also reveal that changes did occur in the new millennium with the increase of off-­ farm employment, the expansion of wealth and consumerism, the emergence of a youth culture, and new laws that emphasize individual rights and gender equality. ­These changes, which often involve ­women and the younger generation who desire to assert their individual property rights, are certain to encounter re­sis­tance and thus cause conflict among ­family members. While rural families have reemerged as the primary units of agricultural production and their land contract terms have been extended, my study also shows that they c­ an’t yet fully secure their land rights and, more importantly, poverty continues to exist due to profound social, historical, and po­liti­cal ­factors. The greatest threat to rural ­house­holds’ land rights is the compulsory land requisition of recent de­cades. As the government has taken massive amounts of farmland from rural families for urban development, landless farmers have faced harsh social and economic conditions. As of 2011, forty to fifty million farmers have lost their contracted farmland to the ­ ill reach at least government’s land expropriation.3 By 2030 this number w 110 million.4 In many interior regions, rural h ­ ouse­holds’ land use rights can

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also be infringed upon by aggressive local governments, which constantly intervene in agricultural production in order to increase their revenue. The government’s intervention in agricultural often ­causes economic loss for farmers. In addition to t­ hese prob­lems, my field observations reveal some f­ actors that have constrained the productivity of small ­family farms formed ­after the implementation of the HRS, such as a high l­abor surplus that leads to farmers’ semi-­unemployment, land fragmentation reducing production efficiency and increasing the difficulty of mechanization of farm work, lack of funds and technology that prevents farmers from moving t­ oward larger-­ scale production, and the dilemma of small farmers versus big markets. Constrained by all t­ hese ­factors, small-­scale farming often provides only a subsistence livelihood with very limited economic prospects. Although three de­cades of reform in the post-­Mao era have lifted 250 million ­people out of absolute poverty, it has not changed the fact the majority of China’s population, which is mostly rural, is still very poor. The economic predicament faced by the majority of rural ­house­holds has deeply affected their attitude t­oward agriculture and land. On the one hand, the fact that most prosperous families do not rely on farming but on off-­farm work opportunities makes farmers unenthusiastic about farming. On the other hand, for most rural ­house­holds who do not have access to off-­farm jobs or who lack the resources to set up a ­family business, land is essential for survival. It is a safety net that ensures a livelihood in spite of job loss, health prob­lems, old age, and other life challenges. As a result, most farmers are unwilling to give up their contracted farmland through land transactions. This ambivalent attitude ­toward land and farming has become a major obstacle to the development of both agriculture and a land market in China.

A System That Defies Simplistic Labels The dissolution of the Soviet Union and other Eastern Eu­ro­pean countries in the late 1980s and early 1990s attracted considerable scholarly attention and brought postsocialist studies into being. Similarly, the social, economic, and po­liti­cal changes caused by China’s post-­Mao reforms are often described as “postsocialist” by many scholars. However, unlike the Eastern Eu­ro­pean countries that experienced significant economic slowdowns during their postsocialist po­liti­cal and economic reforms, China has achieved the world’s highest growth rates in the past three de­cades by pursuing a

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course officially described as a “socialist market economy.” To a large extent, China’s current economic development can be attributed to a property regime that has evolved decisively and gradually from strict state and collective own­ership ­toward a mixed, “fuzzy” system pervaded by contracting, auctioning, shareholding, lease holding, and vari­ous other forms (Oi and Walder 1999). As Katherine Verdery notes, “The example of China ­after 1978 shows how thoroughly a socialist regime might diversify its property relations while still calling itself socialist or communist” (2003, 47). It is indeed challenging to pin down the characteristics of China’s land own­ership system in the complex, discordant, and ever-­changing context of post-­Mao China. I therefore caution against applying simplistic labels to encapsulate the system. Let’s first take a look at the label of “socialism.” The socialist state’s role in forming collective land own­ership in rural China has been ironic. Marxism-­Leninism emphasizes that the party-­state should take the primary role in building the foundations of a socialist economy. The state has certainly been the most vis­i­ble and power­ful force in forming rural collective land own­ership. Represented by local governments, it intervenes in agricultural production, that is, in how rural h ­ ouse­holds should use their contracted land. It also retains ultimate control over land resources, especially in the sale or permanent transfer of land. However, my study has also shown that while the state relentlessly attacked all kinds of “old” and “feudal” institutions and norms such as private property own­ership, popu­lar religions, and kinship networks, it still incorporated natu­ral villages into its rural administrative structure and made them the lowest-­level collective land management unit. In d ­ oing so, the state actually institutionalized a collectivism that emphasized the exclusivity of the land rights of natu­ral villages and reinforced the collective identities of t­ hese communities. While the state forced individual families to give up their privately owned land, it nevertheless allowed the f­ amily to continue to own property and refrained from intervening in domestic property relations. Empowered by long-­held traditions, both natu­ral villages and rural h ­ ouse­holds obtained certain degrees of control over land resources. The resultant land own­ership system has produced a complex state-­society nexus at the village level. Th ­ ese facts led me to conclude that although building a socialist land own­ership system and rejecting private land own­ership in rural China was a social and po­liti­cal movement directed by an ideological framework of Western origin, to a large extent the movement has followed long-­held traditions that

Concluding Reflections     235

have or­ga­nized both community and f­ amily life. With both natu­ral villages and rural families leaving their imprints on the structure of the rural land own­ership system, the current system was formed through a power interplay among the socialist state, village communities, and rural families, rather than completely following the logic of a socialist movement or long-­held traditions. As such, applying a sweeping, vague concept of socialist land own­ership derived from Marxism-­Leninism to the situation in rural China not only overlooks the deep embeddedness of the current system in local culture and the complex interactions among all social forces, but also overemphasizes the party-­state’s power. Then can the label “postsocialism” be applied when describing and explaining current land property relations in rural China? My answer is no. Due to the advance of capitalism in its vari­ous guises and to the spread of neoliberal discourses into new settings, exclusive private property has long been closely linked to the emergence of modern, market-­driven economies and viewed as a fundamental princi­ple of social organ­ization. Private property is understood as the optimum reconciliation of economic efficiency, liberty, and justice, and therefore as the ultimate direction and goal of non-­ cap­i­tal­ist economies (Macpherson 1978). The intellectual sources of this notion of exclusive private property can be traced back to thinkers such as John Locke, David Hume, and Adam Smith. Even Marx and Engels, in countering such a liberal paradigm with their socialist alternative, ­were largely constrained by it. From the vantage point of this Western liberal paradigm, all other property arrangements seem unclear, irrational, or eco­ nom­ically inefficient (see Hann 1998; Verdery 1999). Privatization proposed by Western liberal economists in their attempts to transform the economic systems of the former Soviet Union and many Eastern Eu­ro­pean countries largely rests on such an ideological premise. China’s reform of rural land property relations, however, did not follow this route of privatization, which can be illustrated by the fact that some assumptions under­lying the label postsocialism simply fail to capture the real­ity in rural China. The first assumption of the label of postsocialism is the dissolution of the Communist Party. But the Chinese Communist Party and its government at all levels are still firmly in power. Through its economic and social reforms in the post-­Mao era and assisted by modernized management institutions at vari­ous administrative levels, the government continues to exert a firm control over the essential component rights of land own­ership such as use, transfer, and income rights.

236     Concluding Reflections

Another assumption about postsocialist reform is that it entails privatization, or decollectivization. Decollectivization in Eastern Eu­ro­pean countries resulted in private land own­ership. But outright land privatization did not take place in post-­Mao China. From the early 1950s to the pres­ent, China has maintained public land own­ership ­under the banner of socialism. The first and most impor­tant post-­Mao rural reform, the HRS, differed significantly from land privatization in East Eu­rope in two key aspects. First, the HRS did not abolish collective own­ership of rural land; it only distributed land to individual ­house­holds through contracts. When rural families became the primary units of production, they obtained land use rights. But they cannot sell their contracted plots for profit or change them to nonagricultural uses. With rural collectives remaining the l­egal ­owners of rural land, and with village cadres and local governments continuing to aggressively interfere with agricultural production, the HRS mainly means the end of forced collective l­abor. Second, while an equal per capita land holding did not occur in Eastern Eu­ro­pean countries ­because land was privatized mainly through the pro­cess of land restitution in which land expropriated by the government was returned to its original ­owners (Hann 1993a and 1993b; Humphrey 1999; Verdery 2003), the HRS aimed to achieve egalitarian landholding among farmers. U ­ nder the HRS, land allocation at the village level followed grassroots princi­ples that reflected the prevailing attitudes and values of most farmers t­ oward the distribution of such critical life resources as land, rather than the government directives. Th ­ ese princi­ples recall the logic guiding ­people’s economic be­hav­iors in small moral communities, such as a “subsistence ethic” and “safety first,” as noted by James Scott (1976). Across the country, equal land allocation among all eligible community members, regardless of age or gender, was a key princi­ple of land distribution u ­ nder the HRS in the early 1980s. The ever-­changing nature of the rural land own­ership system in China is one more reason why we should be cautious about applying the existing labels to encapsulate this system. The continuous contestation among local governments, village communities, and rural ­house­holds in agricultural production and the land market has caused constant change in how the essential component right of land own­ership (such as use, transfer, and income rights) are shared and divided among ­these major rural alignments. It therefore remains to be seen how China’s land own­ership system ­will evolve in the ­future.

Concluding Reflections     237

­Because of ­these reasons, China pres­ents a unique case to study the diverse development and transformation of socialism in dif­fer­ent parts of the world. The results of this in-­depth ethnography may be compared to the cases of other postsocialist or late socialist countries where the issue of property rights is at the heart of controversies concerning reform and where high expectations have been placed on the law to resolve social conflicts. While some scholars consider that China’s route might be “an alternative exit from communism which does not require a volte-­face from an extreme collective property model to an equally extreme version of the liberal model” (Hann 1998, 19), ­others believe that it is unsustainable and that China ­will be forced into a more precise definition of property rights as it enters a further stage of economic development. My research contributes to the exploration of the above questions in par­tic­u­lar, and the complexity, fluidity, and historical contingency of the concept of property over time and across space in general. It can also help us reflect upon the theoretical usefulness of analytical frames that are dominated by a series of stark contrasts, such as cap­i­tal­ist vs. socialist, socialist vs. postsocialist, public vs. private, or modern vs. traditional. This study uses China’s rural land own­ership as an entry point to explore the social and cultural forces involved in the transformation that China has under­gone during the ­People’s Republic period. It demonstrates that instead of being simply a static property regime imposed by the state from above, current rural collective land own­ership in China is a hybrid resulting from the power interplay among the socialist state, with its changing social, economic, and po­liti­cal agendas; village communities with enduring social and cultural identities; and resilient rural families, with resilient economic organ­ izations and a per­sis­tent egalitarian attitude ­toward land. Each of ­these forces has left a strong imprint on this system and exerted varying degrees of control over land rights. This has caused a more complex po­liti­cal mechanism and state-­society nexus at the village level than previous studies have shown. As the world’s most populous country, with very limited land resources; a developing country with the most rapid economic growth in the world over the past three de­cades; one of the last self-­proclaimed socialist countries that has vested formal own­ership rights to rural land in the collective from the 1950s to the pres­ent; and a country in which significant po­liti­cal changes, diverse social conflicts, and popu­lar re­sis­tance have­

238     Concluding Reflections

o­ ccurred since the post-­Mao reform began, China is undergoing its most critical transition. Its rural collective land own­ership system, together with other social and cultural systems, w ­ ill no doubt experience further and unpredictable transformations. I hope this research ­will prompt more researchers to explore ­these complex transitions, which I believe can contribute to a better understanding of fundamental issues relating to social change and development in developing countries.

Notes Chapter 1: Introduction 1 To date, neither the Chinese government nor any other organ­ization has conducted a systematic survey to confirm the precise number of “natu­ral villages.” On January 11, 2014, Li Wei, the director of the Development Research Center of the State Council, estimated that ­there ­were 3.6 million natu­ral villages in China in 2000 and that the number had decreased to 2.7 million in 2010 due to urbanization and consolidation over the past few de­ cades. See http://­news​.­sohu​.­com​/­20140111​/­n393343229​.­shtml (accessed 12/18/16). Another estimate is based on information from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (gongye he xinxihua bu), gathered from its proj­ect “Setting up Telephone Lines for ­Every Village” (cuncun tong dianhua gongcheng). In 2011, the ministry provided telephone ser­vice for ninety thousand natu­ral villages, thereby connecting an additional 4 ­percent of t­ hese communities with telephone ser­vice. By this estimation, ­there are currently more than two million natu­ral villages in rural areas. Data at http://­dgj​.­miit​.­gov​.­cn​/­n11293472​/­n11293877​/­n11302021​/­n13735246​ /­13735584​.­html. 2 In October 2008, with the opening of the Third Plenary Session of the Seventeenth Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, the Resolution of the CCP Central Committee on Some Major Issues in Rural Reform and Development (often referred to as the 2008 Resolution) was passed, which further warrants farmers’ land use rights by providing farmers a contract term of at least seventy years. The resolution also acknowledged the rights of rural collectives to participate in the land market, which was monopolized by the government. 3 See Chen Xiwen’s news conference on February 1, 2013, about the No. 1 Central Document regarding rural development issues. The conference was or­ga­nized by the State Council Information Office of China. The link to the conference is http://­w ww​.­scio​.­gov​.­cn​/­x wfbh​/­x wbfbh​/­wqfbh​/­2013​/­0201​ /­index​.­htm. 4 Three sources provide the information on the total number of natu­ral villages in Fuyuan: (1) Yunnansheng Fuyuanxian Dimingzhi (The Annals of Names of Places in Fuyuan County, Yunnan Province), which states that ­there are 1,788 natu­ral villages in Fuyuan; (2) Fuyuan tudizhi (The Annals 239

240     Notes to Pages 13–28

5 6 7

of Fuyuan’s Land Resources), stating that ­there are 1,686 natu­ral villages; and (3) Yearbooks of Fuyuan, in which the total number of natu­ral villages in Fuyuan appeared to be dif­fer­ent in dif­fer­ent issues. For example, the number is 1,756 in issues published before 2009, and 1,782 in issues published from 2010 to 2014. This book adopts the number provided by Yunnansheng Fuyuanxian Dimingzhi ­because the annals determines the total number of natu­ral villages in the county according to the names of all natu­ral villages it recorded between 1981 and 1983. In 1994 one Chinese yuan equaled about US $ 0.12. It equaled about US $ 0.16 in 2015. Yearbook of Fuyuan (1995), 291. Data on Fuyuan’s population, area, and population density come from Yearbook of Fuyuan (2004), 55; Fuyuan xianzhi, 86; and Yearbook of Fuyuan (2014), available on the Web site of the Fuyuan Government, http://­w ww​.­q jfy​ .­gov​.­cn​/­f ynj​/­gaikuang​/­20141028​/­100155​.­shtml.

Part I: Two Kinds of Villages 1 Before the mid-1930s, another intermediate level, the district, was added between the county and the township levels in many parts of China, including Yunnan Province. Chapter 2: Zhaizi, the Per­s is­t ent Natu­r al Village in Fuyuan 1 See Chapter 3 for the pro­cess of establishing a formal administrative structure in rural areas and incorporating zhaizi communities into this formal structure. 2 The hukou system, which was implemented in 1955 and has been maintained ­until the pres­ent, is a ­house­hold registration system that binds the rural population to the land. With this system the state achieved nationwide control over mobility, residency, rationing, and employment. A hukou was in fact a locality license that allowed its holder to access geo­ graph­i­cally confined social welfare, local public goods (such as schools and hospitals), and crops at subsidized prices. Control of this system has gradually been loosening during the post-­Mao reform period, which has brought about significant social and economic changes, including increased rural migration to the cities. 3 See Chapter 3 for the impacts of the Four Fixed Policy on the formation of the bound­aries of teams/zhaizi. 4 From the 1950s to the late 1980s government employees and urban residents ­were eligible to buy grain at a price much lower than the market price. This access to low-­priced grain was made pos­si­ble by government subsidies.

Notes to Pages 29–45     241

5

6 7

8 9 10 11

12

13

If a ­family ­doesn’t have a son, it could arrange an uxorilocal marriage for one ­daughter. In that case, the parents ­will live with the ­daughter and her marrying-in husband. But this type of marriage constitutes only a very small percentage of all marriages. See Chapter 5 for detailed discussion on ­women’s land rights in the ­family and zhaizi. Feng shui is the traditional geomancy in China. It emphasizes the importance of choosing appropriate locations for graves, shrines, or housing. According to feng shui, a good site can channel the good natu­ral energy forces, or vital airs (qi), to p ­ eople’s benefit. See Bruun 1996, Feuchtwang 1974, Freedman 1979, and R. Watson 1988. The common Chinese saying “five grains” refers to rice, two kinds of millet, wheat, and beans. This is dif­fer­ent from many other places in China, where shennong is worshipped as the god of five grains. Villa­gers in mountainous areas usually use goats for sacrifice, while lowland villa­gers prefer pigs. Both the green dragon and white tiger are power­ful deities in the local religion. The two hills on the east and west of the Wu graveyard happen to be called the Green Dragon Mountain and the White Tiger Mountain. To the north of the graveyard is a local Buddhist ­temple. ­These landmarks are regarded as very auspicious feng shui signs that have the power to bring good fortune. I discuss two types of disputes in this research. The first type includes the cases I observed in the field or learned about from local ­people or local documents; the second includes cases I learned about through published materials such as journals, books, newspapers, or TV programs. To preserve the privacy of in­for­mants, the sources for the first type of dispute are not identified, and pseudonyms are used throughout for names of places and ­people. Zhang is a traditional Chinese unit of length. One zhang equals 3.33 meters.

Chapter 3: Zhaizi and the Making of Bounded Collectivism 1 During my fieldwork, I heard many stories of vio­lence and antagonism that occurred during this period. Hai Zuoliang, a native Fuyuan novelist, wrote a novel titled Menghua Jiayuan (The Dream Homeland) (2001). This novel is widely believed by ­people in Fuyuan to be a realistic description of the events that took place during the turbulent period of the late 1940s to early 1950s. 2 ­These data come from interviews with retired village cadres. Land re­distribution was calculated in terms of individual entitlement, but was made to h ­ ouse­ holds and effectively held by ­house­holds.

242     Notes to Pages 45–59

3

This information comes from author interviews with elder village cadres in the current Desheng Administrative Village, April 2003. 4 At the Chengdu Conference in March 1958, the central leadership, as Mao had suggested, passed the Central Committee’s Opinions on Merging Agricultural Production Cooperatives into Larger Cooperatives. 5 Interview with retired village cadres in Desheng Administrative Village, 2003. 6 The number of ­people who died during the ­Great Leap Forward remains controversial. See Frank Dikotter (2011) and Carl Riskin (1987). 7 Data from interview with retired village cadres in Huangnihe Administrative Village, 2004. 8 Owner­ship as defined by the Sixty Articles needs to be treated with caution. Throughout the ­People’s Republic, the state has always had strong control over the essential component rights of land own­ership (such as use, income, and transfer rights), manifest in its intervention in agricultural production and control over the sale or permanent transfer of land. For this reason, I refer to the production team as the lowest-­level land management unit, although the Sixty Articles designates the team as a land-­owning unit. I thank Mark Selden for encouraging me to think about the nature of the team’s land own­ership rights and to clarify and refine my discussion of rights. 9 The number of zhaizi did not coincide with that of production teams ­because of the existence of very large and very small zhaizi. Very small zhaizi are scattered in deep mountains, so several of them often formed a production team. A very large zhaizi with a population of several thousand typically formed a production brigade with several teams. 10 Some zhaizi communities ­did not rec­ord in documents the bound­aries set up by the 1962 Four Fixed Policy; some simply lost the documents. 11 Being born in the community was not necessarily a condition for being recognized as a team/zhaizi member. In addition, d ­ aughters and wives of community members who lived in the zhaizi at the time of land allocation received shares. However, wives who married into a zhaizi ­after 1982 ­were not given any land. ­Daughters who married out into another community left their shares of land to their natal families. See Chapter 5 for a more detailed description of how land was distributed at the village level in Fuyuan in 1982. 12 Such towns (zhen) are much smaller than townships. 13 The village committees in Fuyuan, as well as in Yunnan’s other regions, ­were dif­fer­ent from ­those in other parts of China. First, they ­were much smaller, consisting only of several zhaizi. Second, while the village committees in other parts of China handled major issues of village management, Fuyuan’s village committees w ­ ere created to help the cadres in the xiang coordinate ­matters among the zhaizi. The real management power lay in the xiang.

Notes to Pages 60–68     243

14 ­There are many reasons why the po­liti­cal reform in Yunnan lagged ­behind the rest of China. While it is beyond this chapter to explore ­those reasons in depth, Yunnan’s unique condition of being a frontier province with the most ethnic minority groups can account for the local leaders’ cautious attitude ­toward po­liti­cal reform. 15 The names of townships and administrative villages in Yunnan tend to follow a pattern. A township is often named ­a fter a major zhaizi where the township government is located. For example, Huangnihe Township is named a­ fter the zhaizi of Huangnihe. Moreover, the administrative village to which Huangnihe belongs is also named ­a fter Huangnihe, although this administrative village comprises the zhaizi of Huangnihe, Pingdi, and more. 16 It is impor­tant to note that land distribution at dif­fer­ent stages resulted in dif­fer­ent benefits: only the land reform of 1946–1953 distributed land own­ership rights to rural ­house­holds; ­under the House­hold Responsibility System, farmers obtained land use rights only while land remained collectively owned. 17 Although the central government relinquished direct control over agricultural production following implementation of the HRS in the early 1980s, some local governments at the natu­ral village level have actively engaged in administering local agricultural production in order to increase revenue for themselves and boost local incomes. In southwest China, for example, compulsory tobacco production has been prevalent since the mid1980s. Tobacco can generate high revenues through sale to a government mono­poly. Local governments may also encourage or even force farmers to grow vari­ous kinds of cash crops that can boost incomes compared with subsistence crops of corn, wheat, or rice. See Chapter 9 for a detailed discussion. Chapter 4: The Administrative Village 1 One yuan equaled about 0.12 U.S. dollars in 2005 and 0.16 U.S. dollars in 2014. 2 Information on the salaries in 2005 and 2014 was provided by local cadres in telephone interviews in in August 2005 and May 2014. 3 In southwest China, tobacco is a cash crop that can bring ­great revenue for local governments. To push for rapid growth of the local economy and to obtain higher revenue, local governments, assisted by village cadres, or­ga­nize and sometimes even force villa­gers to grow tobacco according to the government’s economic plan. Each ­house­hold whose land is located in tobacco-­growing zones is assigned a certain tobacco production quota. But village cadres no longer or­ga­nize the ­labor pro­cess, which is left to each ­house­hold. See Chapter 9 for details.

244     Notes to Pages 68–84

4 ­Until the reform of rural taxes and fees began in 2003, eliminating most local taxes, village cadres held this responsibility. 5 The Fuyuan region lacks ­water resources. In many mountainous areas, villa­ gers build cisterns to store ­water for drinking and other daily uses. 6 I thank Brendan Forde for comments that helped refine my discussion of the po­liti­cal role and capacities of the villa­gers’ groups. 7 The number of zhaizi ­didn’t coincide exactly with that of the groups ­because of the existence of very large and small zhaizi. Very small zhaizi often formed a villa­gers’ group, while a very large zhaizi could form an administrative village, which was further divided into villa­gers’ groups. 8 See Chapters 2 and 5 for how community membership is defined in zhaizi/ natu­ral villages. 9 The Chinese government introduced the ­family planning policy (also known as the “one-­child” policy) in 1979 to reduce the rapid population growth. The policy was formally implemented in urban areas in 1983. However, it allowed exemptions for several cases, including rural ­couples, ethnic minorities, and, more recently, parents with no siblings. Rural c­ ouples in Fuyuan are usually allowed to have two ­children. The local government imposes fines on c­ ouples that have more than two ­children, but many ­couples are willing to pay the fine in order to have more ­children. The “one-­ child” policy was amended by the Chinese government in 2015. From January 1, 2016 on, all ­couples are allowed to have two ­children. 10 Data from telephone interview with local cadres in May 2015. 11 See Chapter 10 for a detailed discussion on compulsory land requisition and the land market. 12 Tobacco sales are monopolized by the government, and tobacco can provide an impor­tant source of revenue for local governments. Forced tobacco production has been widespread in the southwest region during the reform era. 13 See Report of China’s Urban Development, 2011, compiled by the Chinese Acad­emy of Social Sciences. Information from the report is quoted on the official Web site of Caijing magazine (http://­w ww​.­caijing​.­com​.­cn​/­2011–08–09​ /­110804337​.­html). See Chapter 10 for the operation of compulsory land requisition and the current controversial land market. 14 See Chapter 10 for the types of assistance that administrative village cadres can provide. 15 Administrative villages that are formed by a single large natu­ral village ­will not encounter this kind of prob­lem. 16 See “Qiming daitou naoshizhe bei panxing; wei jiejue tudi zhengyong jiufen, juzhong baiyuren weidu qujing zhengfu” (Seven Leaders in a Riot W ­ ere Sentenced: Hundreds of ­People Besieged the Qujing Government Due to Land Requisition Dispute), Dushi shibao (The City Times) January 27, 2003,

Notes to Pages 85–107     245

A3. Dushi shibao is a newspaper published in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province. 17 Data from telephone interviews with local residents in February 2015. Chapter 5: What Is u­ nder the Control of the ­F amily? 1 See Kate Zhou (1996, 46–75) for a detailed discussion of the creation of the House­hold Responsibility System. 2 See Chapter 9 for a detailed discussion of the contestation among local government, village collectives, and rural h ­ ouse­holds in agricultural production. 3 The Rural Land Contract Law and a detailed explanation can be found at http://­w ww​.­npc​.­gov​.­cn​/­npc​/­flsyywd​/­jingji​/­node​_ ­2211​.­htm (in Chinese) and at http://­w ww​.­china​.­org​.­cn​/­china​/­LegislationsForm2001​-­2010​/­2011​- ­02​/­12​ /­content​_ ­21907969​.­htm (in En­glish). 4 Dou is a traditional Chinese unit of dry mea­sure for grain. One dou equals one decaliter. 5 See Cohen (1976, 2005c) for the pro­cess and dynamics of f­ amily division in Chinese families. 6 In a ­family with no sons, the ­family usually arranges an uxorilocal marriage for one ­daughter. The parents ­will live with the ­daughter and her marrying-in husband. In this case the d ­ aughter can inherit the land held by her parents. 7 See Cohen’s definition of danguo (2005c, 119–120): “Danguo involves separation in eating and economic life, but it is not the same as f­ amily division or fenjia. With danguo certain domestic responsibilities, such as funding the marriages of younger siblings, are still shared, and t­ here remains at least the potential for reunification in the face of economic adversity.” 8 Each son receives an equal share, regardless of the number of members in his ­house­hold. 9 Yunxiang Yan (2003) gives a detailed discussion on this new trend of establishing in­de­pen­dent families and caring for el­derly parents in the reform era in north China. 10 Pseudonyms are used for names of ­people in this example. 11 Guoji, or “agnatic adoption,” was not involved in this case. 12 Pseudonyms are used. 13 Guoji, or “agnatic adoption” was not involved in this case. 14 Only ­under the following conditions could ­women be considered as ­house­ hold heads and receive land in the 1982 distribution: (1) a ­woman whose husband was a government employee, and therefore was not eligible to receive land, could represent her young, unmarried ­children to receive land; (2) a w ­ oman with young, unmarried ­children and whose husband had died

246     Notes to Pages 107–135

before 1982 could be a ­house­hold head; (3) if a ­family had no son and an uxorilocal marriage had been arranged, the ­daughter could receive land from the zhaizi. 15 Pseudonyms are used for the names of ­people in this case. 16 Yearbook of Fuyuan (2014) is available on the Web site of the Fuyuan Government, http://­w ww​.­q jfy​.­gov​.­cn​/­f ynj​/­f z​/­20141028​/­100445​.­shtml. 17 Yunxiang Yan (2003, 2005) provides detailed discussions of the active role played by ­women and the younger generation in defending and redefining rights to ­family property in the context of the post-­Mao era. Chapter 6: The Economic Resilience and Predicament of Rural Families 1 Pseudonyms are used to protect the privacy of in­for­mants. 2 See Cohen (1976) on rural families’ strategies for diversifying the ­family economy. 3 The ­later figure is from Yearbook of Fuyuan (2013), available on the Web site of the Fuyuan Government, http://www​.­q jfy​.­gov​.­cn​/­f ynj​/­gaikuang​/­20141028​ /­100155​.­shtml. 4 Pseudonyms are used to protect the privacy of in­for­mants. 5 Data from the Web site of the Fuyuan Government, http://­w ww​.­q jfy​.­gov​.­cn​ /­f ynj. 6 Data from the Web site of the Xin­hua News Agency, http://­news3​.­xinhuanet​ .­com​/­newscenter​/­2007–09​/­25​/­content​_­6791344​.­htm. 7 Data from the Web site of the National Bureau of Statistics of China, http://­ data​.­stats​.­gov​.­cn​/­workspace​/­index​?­m​=h ­ gnd. 8 ­Peoples’ Daily (Overseas Edition), February 3, 2009, 5. 9 See Philip Huang (1985 and 1990) for a discussion on agricultural involution in rural China. 10 See Chapter 9 for a discussion of Fuyuan’s konjac production. 11 Data from interview with local cadres. 12 A few such farmers’ organ­izations have appeared in the more developed coastal and Beijing areas, helping farmers to connect with markets and to coordinate local agricultural production. 13 Data from “Farmland Circulation Rate Reaches 26 ­Percent,” http://­China​ .­caixin​.­com​/­2014–01–16​/­100629791​.­html. 14 Data from interviewing local residents. Chapter 7: Land as a New Subject of Control 1 Zou Yuchuan (1998) provides a detailed description of how the practice of compulsory land requisition came into being in the 1950s. 2 See note 2 in Chapter 2 for a description of the hukou system.

Notes to Pages 136–148     247

3

See Liao Hongle (2008, 134–135) for detailed discussion on the dif­fer­ent compensation standards ­adopted by the government from 1952 to 2005. 4 Yearbook of the State Statistical Bureau, 1996. Quoted from Emerging Land & Housing Markets in China, ed. Chening Ding and Yan Song (Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2005), 18. 5 Data from an interview with Chen Xiwen, the director of the Central Work Team for Rural Issues (zhongyang nongcun gongzuo lingdao xiaozu), “Interviewing Chen Xiwen: How to Understand the Direction of the Current Rural Land Reform,” http://­news​.­xinhuanet​.­com​/­politics​/­2008–11​ /­04​/­content​_­10302141​_­1​.­html. 6 See Chapter 5 for how the HRS was implemented at the rural community level in Fuyuan. 7 See Chapter 8 for how such a market operates. 8 Data and information on the Fuyuan County Bureau of Land and Resources came from my interviews with local cadres, as well as from Fuyuan Xianzhi (1993), Fuyuan Xianzhi (1986–2000), Fuyuan tudizhi (The Annals of Fuyuan’s Land Resources) (1999), and Yearbook of Fuyuan (1988–2013). 9 Establishing such fa­cil­i­t y and ser­vice units was mainly a strategy of local governments and individual government organ­i zations to cope with the pressure brought by the post-­Mao po­liti­c al reform that emphasized streamlining the nation’s administrative structure. Personnel in ­these units are not permanent government employees. Rather, they are hired by the individual organ­izations, and the major part of their income is generated by the work they perform, instead of from salaries provided by the government. 10 Chapter 10 discusses the revision of the Land Management Law in 2004 in more detail. 11 See Chen Xiwen’s news conference of February 1, 2013, about the No. 1 Central Document regarding rural development issues. The conference was or­ga­nized by the State Council Information Office of China, http://­w ww​ .­scio​.­gov​.­cn​/­x wfbh​/­x wbfbh​/­wqfbh​/­2013​/­0201​/­index​.­htm. 12 In 2003, when the Rural Tax and Fee Reform was implemented nationwide, Yunnan Province abolished agricultural taxes for farmers. Chapter 8: Land Resources and the Fuyuan Government’s Development Agendas 1 This slogan is from the report of the Sixteenth National Representative Assembly of the Chinese Communist Party, held in November 2002. 2 Data from the Web site of the Fuyuan Government, http://­w ww​.­q jfy​.­gov​.­cn​ /­zwxx​/­zhxx​/­20150130​/­102749​.­shtml.

248     Notes to Pages 149–158

3 ­Under this bureaucratic system, a city includes a number of counties. This is just the opposite of the system in the United States, in which a county includes a number of cities. 4 Before 2000 Qujing was a prefecture instead of a city. ­Until the 1980s the prefecture was an intermediate unit between the provincial and county governments. Considered as a “dispatched organ” ( paichu jigou) of the provincial government, it supervises the work of county governments on behalf of the provincial government. In the post-­Mao era, many prefectures have been turned into cities, each of which is composed of a number of counties. A prefecture’s level of economic development and urbanization decides ­whether it can be changed into a city. 5 See Chapter 9 for a detailed discussion on the strategies and mea­sures taken by the local government to promote tobacco production. 6 Data on the development of Fuyuan’s coal industry from the 1950s to the 1980s come from Fuyuan xianzhi (1993), 231–248. 7 Data on Fuyuan’s annual revenue come from Yearbook of Fuyuan (1989, 315; 1998, 402; 2005, 207). 8 Yearbook of Fuyuan (2013), available on the Web site of the Fuyuan Government, http://­w ww​.­q jfy​.­gov​.­cn​/­f ynj​/­g aikuang​/­20141028​/­100155​ .­shtml. 9 Chapter 10 explains in detail how the land market operates and what mechanisms the government uses to control the market. 10 Yearbook of Fuyuan (2014), available on the Web site of the Fuyuan Government, http://­w ww​.­q jfy​.­gov​.­cn​/­f ynj​/­jjgl​/­20141028​/­100544​.­shtml. 11 See Chen Xiwen’s news conference on February 3, 2015, about the No. 1 Central Document regarding rural development issues. The conference was or­ga­nized by the State Council Information Office of China, http://­w ww​ .­scio​.­gov​.­cn​/­x wfbh​/­x wbfbh​/­wqfbh​/­2015​/­20150203​/­. 12 According to the Land Management Law, farmland can be divided into two types: basic agricultural land (  jiben nongtian), which may be used only for basic bulk crops including grain, oilseeds, and cotton, and agricultural use land (nongyongdi), which may be used for much broader agricultural pursuits such as animal husbandry, orchards, fishponds, and flower beds. 13 Yearbook of Fuyuan (2014), available on the Web site of the Fuyuan Government, http://­w ww​.­q jfy​.­gov​.­cn​/­f ynj​/­jjgl​/­20141028​/­100544​.­shtml. 14 See Chapter 7 for a discussion of the land management tasks at the county level. 15 Yearbook of Fuyuan (2014), available on the Web site of the Fuyuan Government, http://­w ww​.­q jfy​.­gov​.­cn​/­f ynj​/­jjgl​/­20141028​/­100544​.­shtml. 16 Information available on the Web site of the Fuyuan Government, http://­ www​.­q jfy​.­gov​.­cn​/­zwxx​/­zhxx​/­20150507​/­092157​.­shtml.

Notes to Pages 159–195     249

17 Chen Xiwen reveals how the two strategies work in an interview in Caijing magazine, http://­w ww​.­caijing​.­com​.­cn​/­2008–10–13​/­110019834​.­html. 18 Tian Chunhua’s article “Xinyilun tudi liyong zongti guihua jianxing jianming” (The New Round of Formulating the Integrated Land Use Plans: Getting More Clear as It Proceeds Further) (2007) provides a detailed discussion on how the land use plans ­were formulated in China in the new millennium. 19 Data from Chen Xiwen’s lecture, “Some Thoughts on the Development of Agriculture and Rural Society in China” (Woguo nongye he nongcun fazhan de jidian sikao), China Agricultural University, June 9, 2013, http://­people​ .­chinareform​.­org​.­cn​/­C​/­cxw​/­A rticle​/­201307​/­t20130707​_­170980​_ ­3​.­htm. Chapter 9: Negotiating Land Use Rights and Income Distribution in Agricultural Production 1 Information from interviews with local cadres. 2 Yearbook of Fuyuan (2013), available on the Web site of the Fuyuan Government, http://­w ww​.­q jfy​.­gov​.­cn​/­f ynj​/­nongyue​/­20121210​/­162645​.­shtml. 3 Dif­fer­ent tobacco-­grade systems have been used in China from the 1950s to the pres­ent. From 1966 to 1996 a fifteen-­grade system was used. From 1996 to 2005 Fuyuan a­ dopted both the fifteen-­grade system and the forty-­grade system. The newer forty-­grade system requires technical changes in the way tobacco is valued, so the pace of its implementation was slow. Beginning in 2005 Fuyuan uses the forty-­grade system. 4 Yearbook of Fuyuan (2012), available on the Web site of the Fuyuan Government, http://­w ww​.­q jfy​.­gov​.­cn​/­f ynj​/­nongyue​/­20121210​/­162645​ .­shtml. 5 Interviews with cadres in Fucun Township in 2003. 6 This information was provided by officials in the County Agriculture Bureau during my 2002–2004 fieldwork. 7 The county government paid the annual interest for the factory. 8 Information from telephone interviews with local cadres in August 2008. 9 Yearbook of Fuyuan (2014), available on the Web site of the Fuyuan Government, http://­w ww​.­q jfy​.­gov​.­cn​/­f ynj​/­nongyue​/­20141028​/­101858​.­shtml. 10 Interviews with officials of the County Forest Bureau in 2014. Chapter 10: Contesting Land Transfer Rights and Income Distribution in the Land Market 1 This is another po­liti­cal euphemism for “sell.” 2 Between 2001 and 2003, for example, land sale transactions averaged 35 ­percent of local revenue, and the percentage ­rose to more than 50 in 2007. See Yan Yan (2009, 42).

250     Notes to Pages 197–204

3

“Wo guo zhengdi zhidu ruhe gaige” (How to Reform Our Country’s Land Acquisition System), Guangming Daily, March 18, 2004, C3. 4 “Shiidi nongmin: yige zhide guanzhu de renqun” (Farmers Who Lost Their Land: A Group Deserving Special Attention), Jingji Daily, November 18, 2003, 9. 5 See Li Tao’s article (2006) “Nongdi zhengyong de shouyi fenpei ji boyi fenxi” (An Analy­sis on the Distribution of Incomes from Land Acquisition and on the Related Social Contestation). 6 This figure has been confirmed by the research by Ding and Song (2005), Wen and Zhu (1996), and Zhu Qiuxia (2007). 7 See “Government Domination and Major Policy Readjustments” on page 214 for a discussion on the revision of the Land Management Law. 8 Data from interviews with local officials in 2014. 9 “Yunnan zhangyixian baishuizhen zhengdi: nongmin deng banian jin huo sancheng buchang” (Land Acquisition in Baishui Township, Zhangyi County, Yunnan Province: Farmers Waited for Eight Years to Have Only One-­Third of the Compensation They Should Receive), http://­society​.­people​ .­com​.­cn​/­GB​/­97741​/­125105​/­7431480​.­html. 10 Information about the four land acquisitions was provided by local village cadres and villa­gers during my fieldwork. 11 “Shiqu tudi de nongmin ruhe sheng­huo” (How Do Farmers Who Have Lost Their Land Survive?), ­People’s Daily, February 2, 2004, 9. 12 “Shidi nongmin wenti jiejue buhao, wending jiushi yiju konghua” (If the Prob­lems of Farmers Having Lost Their Land Are Not Appropriately Solved, Social Stability Is Empty Talk), Yunnan Daily, March 3, 2004, 7. 13 “Shiqu tudi de nongmin ruhe sheng­huo,” 9. 14 Ibid. 15 Data come from Chen Xiwen’s lecture, “Woguo nongye he nongcun fazhan de jidian sikao” (Some Thoughts on the Development of Agriculture and Rural Areas in China). China Agricultural University, June 9, 2013, http://­ people​.­chinareform​.­org​.­cn​/­C​/­cxw​/­A rticle​/­201307​/­t20130707​_­170980​_ ­3​ .­htm. 16 Most examples of land disputes in this chapter are from Fuyuan. To protect the privacy of in­for­mants and the ­people involved, I have changed certain details of each case. However, I believe such changes do not distort the main facts of t­ hese cases. No change was made for cases quoted from secondary sources such as newspapers, the Internet, magazines, or books. 17 See http://­news​.­xinhuanet​.­com​/­house​/­bj​/­2014–06–21​/­c ​_­126651785​.­htm. 18 See http://­news​.­xinhuanet​.­com​/­local​/­2014–11​/­14​/­c ​_­127209817​.­htm. 19 “Beizheng lindi buchang kuang na qu le” (Where Did the Compensation for the Requisitioned Forest Go?), Yunnan Daily, August 19, 2005, 3.

Notes to Pages 204–220     251

20 Jinghua Times and Beijing Youth Daily had detailed reports on this incident (http://­epaper​.­jinghua​.­cn​/­html​/­2014–10​/­16​/­content​_­135024​.­htm; http://­ epaper​.­ynet​.­com​/­html​/­2014–10​/­21​/­content​_­91395​.­htm). The New York Times also had two reports on this incident (http://­sinosphere​.­blogs​.­nytimes​ .­com​/­2014​/­10​/­15​/­8​-­killed​-­in​-­clash​-­over​-­development​-­in​-­southwestern​-­china​/­; http://­sinosphere​.­blogs​.­nytimes​.­com​/­2014​/­10​/­17​/­victims​-­in​-­kunming​-­clash​ -­included​-­construction​-­workers​/­). 21 See Guo (1999) for a discussion of how villa­gers have perceived and sought the help of higher levels of authorities. 22 Requoted from the New York Times (http://­sinosphere​.­blogs​.­nytimes​.­com​ /­2014​/­03​/­26​/­7​-­arrested​-­on​-­suspicion​-­of​-­arson​-­in​-­protesters​-­death​/­). 23 A district is an urban administrative unit equivalent to a county. 24 For a detailed description of this shareholding system, see Zhang Hongyu, 2002, 108–117. 25 You-­tien Hsing (2010, 155–180) provides a detailed discussion of the role of township governments as land developers and brokers between the state bureaucracy and rural populace. 26 See the article “Tudi gaige maichu guanjian yibu” (A Critical Step in the Reform on Land Tenure System), published on the Web site of Caijing magazine, http://­w ww​.­caijing​.­com​.­cn​/­2008–10–20​/­110021480​.­html. 27 See Chapter 4 for a comparison of the roles played by administrative village cadres and leaders of the villages’ groups in local community life. 28 This rural re­sis­tance against land grabs and government corruption was widely covered by media in China and the West. See Andrew Jacobs, “Village Revolts over Inequalities of Chinese Life,” New York Times, December 14, 2011; and Chris Buckley, “Chinese Officials Says WuKan Protests Shows Rights Demands on Rise,” ­Reuters, December 26, 2011. 29 Excerpted from Chen Xiwen, “Some Thoughts on the Development of Agriculture and Rural Areas in China.” 30 Ibid. 31 Julia Chuang (2014) discusses the strategies and practices that local governments in Sichuan Province used to undermine rural re­sis­tance during the pro­cess of expropriating land from farmers and forcing farmers to live in apartment complexes in towns. 32 See Chen Xiwen’s news conference on February 1, 2013, about the No. 1 Central Document regarding rural development issues. The conference was or­ga­nized by the State Council Information Office of China. The link to the conference is http://­w ww​.­scio​.­gov​.­cn​/­x wfbh​/­x wbfbh​/­wqfbh​/­2013​/­0201​ /­index​.­htm.

252     Notes to Pages 228–232

Chapter 11: Concluding Reflections 1 Recently published village histories have confirmed my speculation. See Zhu and Wu (2006) and Wu and Wu (2006). 2 Data come from http://­news​.­xinhuanet​.­com​/­english​/­indepth​/­2013–04​/­25​/­c​ _­132340061​.­htm, the official Web site of Xin­hua News Agency. 3 See Report of China’s Urban Development, 2011, compiled by the Chinese Acad­emy of Social Sciences. Quoted from Caijing magazine (http://­w ww​ .­caijing​.­com​.­cn​/­2011–08–09​/­110804337​.­html). 4 Data come from the Ministry of Land and Resources, http://­w ww​.­mlr​.­gov​ .­cn​/­zt​/­qt​/­xnc​/­zcjd​/­200903​/­t20090319​_­116635​.­htm.

Chinese Character Glossary Pinyin babao zhixiang badayuan bang Baodu baojia bu huan gua, er huan bujun caijing zazhi chai chengbao chengbaodi chengxiang fenge, bumen fensan chengshi jianshe fujiashui chengzhen shangshan chengzhongcun Chenjia zhai Chen Xiwen Chongzhou chuji nongye hezuoshe churang jin chuzu cun cuncun tong dianhua gongcheng cun dangzhibu cungongsuo cunmin weiyuanhui zuzhi fa cunmin xiaozu cunmin xiaozuzhang cunweihui Da’aozi danguo Dapingzi datuhao, fentiandi daxiang

Chinese Characters 八宝之乡 八大员 浜 保渡 保甲 不患寡，而患不均 财经杂志 拆 承包 承包地 城乡分割，部门分散 城市建设附加税 城镇上山 城中村 陈家寨 陈锡文 崇州 初级农业合作社 出让金 出租 村 村村通电话工程 村党支部 村公所 村民委员会组织法 村民小组 村民小组长 村委会 大凹子 单过 大坪子 打土豪，分田地 大乡

253

254     Glossary

Desheng diaomin diji guanli diya dizhi kuangchan bu Dongfang zaobao dou Dushi shibao erji shichang fa Faxiang fazhan caishi yingdaoli fazhan shi zhizheng xingguo de diyi yaowu fenjia fenzao chifan Fucun fu xianzhang Fuyou Fuyuan ganbu qunzhong panfazhan, moufazhan, cufazhan gaozhuang gengdi hongxian gengdi baohu shengzhang fuzezhi gengdi zongliang dongtai pingheng gongfan gongye he xinxihua bu gongye shangshan gongzhang Guangxu guanli qu gui zuye guoji Guojia caozi guojia cehui ju guojia haiyang ju guojia jianshe zhengyong tudi banfa guojia jiben jianshe weiyuanhui guojia jihua weiyuanhui guojia jingji weiyuanhui

德胜 刁民 地籍管理 抵押 地质矿产部 东方早报 斗 都市时报 二级市场 法 发祥 发展才是硬道理 发展是执政兴国的第一要务 分家 分灶吃饭 富村 副县长 富有 富源 干部群众盼发展，谋发展，促发展 告状 耕地红线 耕地保护省长负责制 耕地总量动态平衡 供饭 工业和信息化部 工业上山 公章 光绪 管理区 归祖业 过继 郭家槽子 国家测绘局 国家海洋局 国家建设征用土地办法 国家基本建设委员会 国家计划委员会 国家经济委员会

Glossary     255

guojia tudiju guomin jingji he shehui fazhan dishiyige wunian guihua gangyao guowuyuan fazhan yanjiu zhongxin guquan daju Hai Zuoliang Hongshashi hu huabo Huangnihe Hubei huhuan hukou jia jianchayuan Jiandian fangtan jianshe gongcheng bu jianshe shehui zhuyi xinnongcun jiaoyu fujiashui ji bailong jiben nongtian Jinning jiti tudi suoyouquan zhengshu jumin weiyuanhui kaifaqu Kangxi Kanjian Lao Zi li liangquan fazheng liangquan fenli liangtiaotui zoulu lianpian bozhong lingdao xiaozu lingqian zan dunqian liuzi fangzhen Li Wei longtou qiye Luocun Luoping midaizi shengzhang fuzezhi

国家土地局 国民经济和社会发展第十一个五年规划纲要 国务院发展研究中心 顾全大局 海佐良 红砂石 户 划拨 黄泥河 湖北 互换 户口 家 检察院 焦点访谈 建设工程部 建设社会主义新农村 教育附加税 祭白龙 基本农田 晋宁 集体土地所有权证书 居民委员会 开发区 康熙 看见 老子 理 两权发证 两权分离 两条腿走路 连片播种 领导小组 零钱攒趸钱 六字方针 李伟 龙头企业 罗村 罗平 米袋子省长负责制

256     Glossary

mozhe shitou guohe Nanchong Nanfang dushi bao Nanfang zhoumo Nanfeng chuang Nanhai nanxun nongcun jiti jianshe yongdi nongdi feinong hua nongdi shiyongquan shichang nongye techan shui nongyongdi nuo Pingdi Pinghuang qi Qin qing qingmiao tudi Qingming qu quanguo tudi ducha bangongshi quanguo tudi liyong zongti guihua gangyao Qujing quxiang zhi rang nongmin jincheng rang nongmin shanglou renqing ruhu shougou sanba chizi sanda shehui zhuyi gaizao sanji suoyou, duiwei jichu Sanlian sheng­huo zhoukan sanwu nongmin Shaanxi shangfang shanshen shaoqu, duoyu, fanghuo sheng shennong

摸着石头过河 南冲 南方都市报 南方周末 南风窗 南海 南巡 农村集体建设用地 农地非农化 农地使用权市场 农业特产税 农用地 挪 平地 平黄 气 秦 情 青苗土地 清明 区 全国土地督察办公室 全国土地利用总体规划纲要 曲靖 区乡制 让农民进城 让农民上楼 人情 入户收购 三把尺子 三大社会主义改造 三级所有，队为基础 三联生活周刊 三无农民 陕西 上访 山神 少取， 多予，放活 省 神农

Glossary     257

shequ shi Shifocun shiwei shiye danwei shuangkong Shuijingbian sifasuo siguding siliaodi Song Songzishan suodeshui Tangcun tiaozheng nongye jiegou tudi caizheng tudi dengji guize tudi guanli xinxiyuan tudi gufen hezuozhi tudi liyong zongti guihua tuguanyuan tuigeng huanlin tun Waishankou Wang Anshi Wangjiatun wanzi wubaohu wuchang gongxian wugushen Wukan wunong wudi, shangban wugang, dibao wufen Xiabo xian xiang xian gongye gongxiao gongsi xiangzhen zhi xianjishi xianwei xianwei changwei

社区 市 石佛村 示威 事业单位 双控 水井边 司法所 四固定 饲料地 宋 松子山 所得税 塘村 调整农业结构 土地财政 土地登记规则 土地管理信息员 土地股份合作制 土地利用总体规划 土管员 退耕还林 屯 外山口 王安石 王家屯 湾子 五保户 无偿贡献 五谷神 乌坎 务农无地，上班无岗，低保无份 下柏 县 乡 县工业供销公司 乡镇制 县级市 县委 县委常委

258     Glossary

xianzhang xiao chanquan xiao chengzhen jianshe Xiaopulizhai Xiaopuzi xiaoshe bing dashe xibu da kaifa xinfangchu xinfangju xingzhengcun xingzheng huabo Xinhuashe Xinwen diaocha yanfanzi yanglaodi yao chifan, yao shengcun yifa zhiguo yifen zhanshan, yifen zhandi yiji shichang yiliang weigang ying Yingshang yingye shui yiping erdiao yitao renma, liangge banzi yixiang yiye, yicun yipin yiyao chifan, eryao jianshe yizhuo xi Yizuo Yougang Yunnan Yunnan zhengxie bao zengren bu zengdi, jianren bu jiandi zengzhi shui zhaijidi zhaizi zhang Zhang Xiaoshan Zhanyi zhen zhengshou

县长 小产权 小城镇建设 小普里寨 小铺子 小社并大社 西部大开发 信访处 信访局 行政村 行政划拨 新华社 新闻调查 烟贩子 养老地 要吃饭，要生存 依法治国 以坟占山，以坟占地 一级市场 以粮为纲 营 营上 营业税 一平二调 一套人马，两个班子 一乡一业， 一村一品 一要吃饭，二要建设 一桌席 亦佐 油岗 云南 云南政协报 增人不增地，减人不减地 增值税 宅基地 寨子 丈 张晓山 沾益 镇 征收

Glossary     259

zhengyong 征用 zhineng jigou 职能机构 zhixiashi 直辖市 zhixing ju 执行局 Zhong’an 中安 zhongfang 种房 zhongguo tese 中国特色 zhongxin gongzuo 中心工作 zhongyang 中央 zhongyang nongcun gongzuo 中央农村工作领导小组 lingdao xiaozu zhongyang yihao wenjian 中央一号文件 zhuanbao 转包 zhuang 庄 zhuanqu 专区 zhuanrang 转让 ziliudi 自留地 zirancun 自然村 ziyuan, huli, minzhu 自愿、互利、民主 zuigao renmin fayuan 最高人民法院 zuo qinglong, you baihu, zhongjian 左青龙，右白虎， 中间一个祖师观， yige zushiguan, buchu wenguan   不出文官出武官 chu wuguan zuo sixiang gongzuo 做思想工作

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Index Note: Page numbers in boldface type refer to illustrations administrative structures, government: of China, 21–22, 148–149; of Fuyuan County, 42–43, 51, 53, 60, 61, 149. See also specific levels administrative villages: conflict and cooperation with villagers’ groups, 83–87; data on Fuyuan County, 13; land certificates and, 75–76; levels of, 16–17, 65; political structure of, 64–67; role and power of, 67–69, 76–77; term defined, 5. See also natural villages; specific locations administrative village cadres: as government agents, 77–78; grey land market, 82–83; on land certificates, 75; responsibilities of, 68; role in resistance movement, 201, 210–214; tobacco production enforcement by, 171–175. See also administrative village agricultural production: collectivization movement, 10, 47–50; experiments in, 189–190; farmland circulation types, 124–127; small-scale farming and poverty, 114–115, 118–122; state policies on, 47–50, 116–118; technology and methods for, 119, 171, 173–175, 181; water management for, 166, 174, 244n.5. See also rural families; taxes on production and

property; specific locations; specific products ancestral graveyards, 34–40, 226 Anhui Province: land redistribution in, 97, 106, 123–124; marital expatriation in, 30, 107; private lease system in, 92 animal sacrifice, 33–34, 37–38, 241n.10 appealing to higher authorities strategy, 206–207 bang (term), 5, 23. See also natural villages Baodu Administrative Village, Fuyuan County. See Qujing case baojia system, 21 Bernhardt, Kathryn, 103 blueberry production, 127, 190 Bossen, Laurel, 30, 106 bounded collectivism, 3, 8–9, 61–65, 70–75, 81–87, 225–230. See also natural villages; rural land ownership; zhaizi brigades and brigade cadres, 4, 28–29, 50–52, 59, 67 Bureau of Land Management, 139, 141–142, 222–223 burial responsibilities, 103–104 cadastre management, 140, 142–143, 144 capitalist framework, 1–4, 233–237 273

274     Index

central-local relations: farmland preservation policies, 154; fiscal reform and, 148, 152; land sale and local development, 153; land use plans and, 154–156, 158–162; role of country bureaus, 156–158. See also land management Chen Xiwen, 154, 159, 162, 218 China, 14; administrative structure of, 21–22, 148–149; agricultural policies of, 47–52, 116–118, 242n.6; bounded collectivism and, 64, 224, 225–230; Bureau of Land Management, 139, 141–142, 222–223; constitution on land rights, 1–2, 133, 193–194, 218, 223; farmland preservation policies, 154–156; institution building by, 139–141; land use rights reform, 136–139, 146, 157; Ministry of Land Resources, 223; monopoly on land market, 81–82, 133–134, 193–195, 223; monopoly on tobacco market, 167, 175–178; strategies on resistance movement, 214–220; urban vs. rural land management, 132–133, 152, 222–225. See also specific localities; specific regulations Chinese Communist Party (CCP): collective land ownership by, 157; collectivization initiated by, 1–2, 4–5, 47, 157; land reform by, 27, 47–50, 116, 200 cigarette market, 175–177. See also tobacco production civil court cases on land rights, 107–108, 110, 200, 205–206, 208–209 coal industry of Fuyuan County, 144, 150–151, 153

coal production in Fuyuan County, 13, 15, 151 Cohen, Myron, 35, 98, 99, 100, 102, 111, 245n.7 collectivization movement, 10, 47–50 community membership in natural villages: egalitarianism among community members, 94–98; leaders as representations in, 78–81; restrictions on, 26–31; special categories of, 28–29. See also villagers’ groups compensation for land requisition, 71–74, 135, 195–200, 203–204, 218–220 conflict and cooperation: of administrative village and villagers’ groups, 73–74, 83–87; in gingko production, 182; over ancestral graveyards, 34–40; over land requisition, 200–209; Qujing case, 47, 84, 205–206, 213, 216; railway land requisition, 71, 133, 161; resolution and enforcement, 145–146, 165; tobacco production and, 171–173, 180–181. See also resistance movement against land requisition constitution on land rights, 1–2, 133, 193–194, 218, 223 construction site obstruction strategy, 204–205 “converting farmland to nonagricultural use.” See land market corn production, 13, 113, 115, 123, 170 corruption in land sales, 197–198 county government: land management by, 140–146, 190–192, 247n.9;

Index     275

strategies in resistance movement, 216 court cases on land rights, 107–108, 110, 200, 205–206, 208–209 Croll, Elisabeth, 54 crop production. See agricultural production cun (term), 5. See also natural villages danguo, 101, 245n.7 data sources, 13–16, 239n.1, 239n.4 daughters. See women Deep Pound Li vs. White Mud Li land dispute, 37–38 deity worship, 32–35, 226–227, 241n.11 demonstrations against land requisition, 200–201, 205–206 Deng Xiaoping, 147, 151–152, 214 Desheng, Fuyuan County, 42–43, 45, 51–54, 56 development and economic growth, land: in Fuyuan County, 148–152, 158–162; land market, 144–145, 152–153; SEDZs, 159–161; state vs. rural interests, 214; in urban areas, 112–114, 132–133; village cadres and, 210–213 disputes. See conflict and cooperation dividing the classes in land reform, 42–43 divorce and land rights, 107, 108 domestic property relations, 100–108 Donggao Administrative Village, 188 dou, xi, 97, 245n.4 dry land category, 95 Duara, Prasenjit, 7, 26, 34 earth god (qingmiao tudi) worship, 32–33, 34, 226

egalitarianism: among community members, 94–98; bounded collectivism and, 61–65; studies on, 105, 106; in zhaizi, 45–46, 49, 57–58 fairness discourse in resistance movement, 202 family planning policy, 244n.9 farming. See rural families farmland to woodland policy, 36, 74, 183 father-son land divisions, 101–103, 245n.8 Fei Xiaotong, 6, 26 feng shui, 32, 34, 35, 241n.7, 241n.11 fenjia, 99–100 Five-Year Economic Plan (1953–1957), 47–50, 116 Foggy Hill vs. Mellon Valley land dispute, 39–40 foreign investments and land reform, 138 forest land, 229–230 Four Fixed Policy, 28, 39, 52–57, 242n.10 fruit production, 92, 127, 189, 190 Fucun, Fuyuan County, 56–57, 169, 178, 181 Fujiacun Villagers’ Group dispute, 73–74, 213 funding scarcity, 120 Fuyou Village, Jinning County, 204–205 Fuyuan County, Yunnan Province, 14; administrative structures of, 42–43, 51, 53, 60, 61, 149; agricultural taxes in, 117; ancestral graveyards rights in, 36–37; blueberry production in, 127, 190;

276     Index

Fuyuan County (cont.) civil land cases in, 107–108, 110, 200; coal production in, 13, 15, 144, 150–151, 151, 153; commune system in, 50–52; demographics of, 15, 56; development goals of, 148–152, 158–162; experimental agriculture in, 189–190; farmland categories in, 95; fragmentation of land, 119–120; funding scarcity and, 120; gingko production in, 181–183; grain production in, 149, 166; konjac production in, 184– 188, 187, 192; labor surplus in, 118–119; land redistribution (1952), 42–47; land use planning in, 155–162; mutual-aid team formation, 48; outside markets and, 120–121; as research area, 2–3, 11, 13–16; rural resistance movement in, 200–209; summary of agriculture in, 13, 81, 113; tobacco production in, 149–150, 167–169, 168, 177–178, 180–181. See also zhaizi; specific towns and villages Gamble, Sidney, 6 gender. See son-father land divisions; women ginger production, 121 gingko production and market, 76, 92, 181–183 governmental strategies. See China; specific regions; specific strategies grain production and rights: 1982– 1992 experiments in, 166–167; dou measurement, xi, 97, 245n.4; in Fuyuan County, 149, 166; reform of, 127–128, 137; urban residences and, 240n.4; of village cadres,

28–29; water management for, 166, 244n.5. See also agricultural production; rural families graveyards, ancestral, 34–40 Great Leap Forward (1958–1960), 50–52, 242n.6 grey land markets, 82–83, 211–213, 217 Guojiacaozi, Fuyuan County, 42–43, 45, 54, 57, 59–60 Henan Province, 137, 198, 203 household as receiving unit, 98–99 Household Registration System (hukuo), 27, 29–30, 240n.2 Household Responsibility System (HRS): creation of, 10, 91–92; implementation of, 57–58, 94–99; reform of, 70–71; as reform policy, 28, 92–94, 243n.16; summary of, 1, 3, 138, 223, 240n.2 (Chap. 2) house planting strategy, 203–204, 213–214 house plots, 229–230 Hsing, You-tien, 153, 251n.25 Huali, Shandong Province, 105, 229 Huang, Philip C. C., 6, 7, 127–128 Huangnihe, Fuyuan County: agricultural commune in, 49, 50–52, 54, 59–60; author and, 35; demographics of, 42, 115; land allocation in, 45, 105; noodle business in, 121; tobacco mongers in, 176 Hubei Province, 23, 45, 228 hukou system (Household Registration System), 27, 29–30, 240n.2 India, 154 individual vs. household receiving units, 98–99

Index     277

inheritance laws and practices, gendered, 11, 100, 103–108 integrated land use plans, 159–162 Internet coverage of resistance, 208 jia, 99–100 Jiangsu Province, 6, 23, 26, 45, 188, 197 jin, xi, 112–113 Jinping County, Yunnan Province, 203, 214 Judd, Ellen, 105, 229 Kaixuangong village, Jiangsu Province, 26 Kong, Sherry Tao, 86, 97–98, 106, 107, 123–124 konjac production and market, 76, 92, 121, 127, 183–188, 192 labor surplus, 118–119 land certificates, 10, 47, 74–76, 142–143, 220 land dispute cases: in Fuyuan County, 35–36, 37–38, 39–40, 73–74, 78–80, 107–108, 110, 202; in Jinning County, 204–205; in Luoping County, 204; in Qujing City, 84, 205; in Shaanxi Province, 208–209 land distribution: of 1982, 57–58, 94–99; egalitarianism, 94–98; household as receiving unit, 98–99; during land reform, 42–47, 241n.2. See also women’s land rights land finance strategy, 152–153 land fragmentation, 119–120 land management: Bureau of Land Management, 139; cadastre management, 140, 142–143, 144;

fragmentation in the Maoist era, 131–133; land administrative allocation, 133–134; land use plans, 143–144, 154–156, 162; Ministry of Land and Resources, 139, 223; reform approaches, 136–138; unified system in post-Mao era, 139–140. See also central-local relations Land Management Law: categories of rural land, 82, 193–194, 212; on compensation for land requisition, 197, 218–220; on farmland preservation, 137; history of, 141; on land certificates, 75, 93; land use planning, 138, 143–144, 154–155, 160; land market: administrative villages and villagers’ groups in, 83–87; development and management of, 144–145, 152–153, 210–213; for farmland circulation, 124–127; government monopoly of, 133–134, 193–195; grey land market, 82–83, 211–213, 217; rural resistance to land requisition, 200–209; sales and profits in, 195–200, 249n.2 (Chap. 10); state monopoly of, 81–82, 133–134; types of, 124, 193–194; village cadres as land developers, 210–213. See also rural land ownership land requisition, compulsory, 134–136; compensation for, 71–74, 135, 195–200, 203–204, 218–220; rural resistance to, 200–209; sales and profits in, 195–200; state strategies on resistance, 214–220; total number of families affected, 232; village cadres and, 210–214

278     Index

Laochang Township, Fuyuan County, 183, 184 Law of Succession (1985), 100 lead mining, 13, 78 lease systems, underground, 10, 92, 211, 224 Liangjiashan Administration Village, Zhejiang Province, 197 Lianjiang Li, 207 lineage graveyards, 34–40 Longhai People’s Commune, 50–51 Luoping County, Yunnan Province, 204 Lu Village, Yunnan Province, 30, 106 magazine coverage of resistance, 208 mahjong business revenue, 112–113 Mao Zedong, 48. See also Chinese Communist Party (CCP) marriage: divorce and land rights, 107, 108; residence registration and, 29–31; uxorilocal marriages, 30, 241n.5, 245n.6 measurement of land, xi, 37, 96–97, 241n.13, 245n.4 media strategy of resistance movement, 208, 251n.28 Mellon Valley vs. Foggy Hill land dispute, 39–40 Menghua Jiayuan (Hai), 241n.1 migrant workers, 31, 70–71, 115, 230 mining industry: of coal, 13, 15, 144, 150–151, 151, 153; of gold, 13, 44; operation dispute, 78–80; of zinc, 13, 78 Ministry of Land and Resources, 139, 223. See also Bureau of Land Management monetary compensation. See compensation for land requisition

mountain god (shanshen) worship, 32–33, 34 mu, xi mutual-aid team formation, 48 natural villages: creation and role of, 4–9, 22, 225; data on, 5, 13, 239n.1, 239n.4; restricted membership in, 26–31; terms and definition of, 5, 23. See also bounded collectivism; rural land ownership; villagers’ groups; zhaizi nephew inheritance, 103 newspaper coverage of resistance, 208 noodle business, 121 Notice for Speeding up the Issuing of Rural Collective Land Ownership Certificates, 75–76 O’Brien, Kevin, 207 obstructing construction strategy, 204–205 off-farm employment vs. farming, 112–113, 121, 126 old-age support, 101–103 one-child policy, 244n.9 Organic Law of Village Committees, 77 outside markets for agriculture products, 120–121 patrilineal succession, 101–104, 245n.8 patrilocal residence system, 29–31 pear production, 189 People’s Commune System. See under Chinese Communist Party (CCP) People’s Daily, 200, 208

Index     279

People’s Republic of China (PRC). See China Pieke, Frank, 156 pigs, 37–38, 123, 241n.10 Pingdi, Fuyuan County: demographics of, 42; early collectivization in, 49–51, 54, 60; land allocation in, 28; production teams in, 57; railway land requisition, 71 planting house strategy, 203–204, 213–214 postsocialist framework, 1–4, 233–237 poverty and family farming, 114–115, 118–122 PRC. See China private land ownership, 36–37, 47–48, 92. See also rural land ownership production brigades, 4, 28–29, 50–52, 59, 67 Property Law (2007), 100 property relations in families, 100–108 protests against land requisition, 200–201, 205–206 Qingming Festival, 35, 36 Qujing case, 47, 84, 205–206, 213, 216 Qujing City, China, 14 Regulations on Land Registry, 142 religion. See deity worship renting farmland, 126, 211. See also land market requisition of land. See land requisition, compulsory resettlement compensation. See compensation for land requisition

resistance movement against land requisition: appealing to higher authorities strategy, 206–207; civil court cases of, 107–108, 110, 200, 208–209; demonstrations in, 200–201, 205–206; media strategy in, 208, 251n.28; obstructing construction strategy, 204–205; planting house strategy, 203–204, 213–214; state strategies on, 214–220; survival and fairness discourse in, 202; underground land market, 82–83; village cadres role in, 210–214. See also conflict and cooperation Resolution of the CCP Central Committee on Some Major Issues in Rural Reform and Development, 93, 117–118, 239n.2 rice paddy category, 95 rice production. See grain production and rights rural families: change and conflict in family division, 109–110; compulsory land requisition, 71–72, 81, 134–136, 195–200; economic power and resilience of, 111–114, 231–233; family concept and practices of, 99–100, 109–110; households vs. individual receiving units, 98–99; HRS and, 91–94; independent family farming, 91–94; land division between generations, 101–104; vs. off-farm employment, 112–113, 121, 126; property relations in, 100–108; small-scale farming and poverty, 114–115, 118–122; summary of, 4, 9–11; women’s land rights in the family, 104–108. See also agricultural

280     Index

rural families (cont.) production; rural land ownership; women’s land rights rural labor, 49, 51, 52, 55 Rural Land Contract Law, 93, 100, 141 rural land ownership: 1952 land distribution, 42–47, 241n.2, 243n.16; 1953–1957 collectivization movement, 47–50; 1958–1960 Great Leap Forward, 50–52, 242n.6; 1962 Four Fixed Policy, 28, 39, 52–57, 242n.9; 1982 land distribution, 95–98; 1984–2015 reforms, 59–61; administrative village role in, 76–77; cadastre management, 140, 142–143, 144; categories of, 81, 82, 95–96; compulsory land requisition, 71–72, 81, 134–136, 195–200; county government management and, 140–146, 190–192, 247n.9; defining ownership, 63, 242n.8; farmland categories, 95–96; farmland circulation types, 124–127; fragmentation of, 119–120, 131–133; gender and distribution in, 11, 100, 103–108, 242n.11, 245n.14; households as receiving units, 98–99; HRS origins and, 91–92; market vs. allocation reform, 133–134; private ownership, 36–37, 47–48, 92; resistance strategies of, 200–209; resolutions on, 239n.2; summary of, 1–4, 42; underground lease systems, 10, 92, 211, 224. See also bounded collectivism; land market; natural villages; rural families; zhaizi

Rural Tax and Fee Reform (2003), 117, 244n.4, 247n.12 Russia, 154 sales of land. See land market Scott, James, 98 Selden, Mark, 229, 242n.8 service units in government organization, 140, 247n.9 Shaanxi Province, 46, 95–96, 213 shangfang strategy, 206–207 shareholding system, 210–211 shennong worship, 241n.9 Shifo Village, Henan Province, 203–204 Sichuan Province, 228, 251n.31 Sixty Articles on the World of the People’s Communes, 52, 54, 242n.8 socialist framework, 1–4, 233–237 son-father land divisions, 11, 101–103, 245n.8 special economic development zones (SEDZs), 159–161 state policies and management. See under China subcontracting farmland, 125–126, 211. See also land market Succession Law (1999), 103 survival discourse in resistance movement, 202 swapping farmland, 125, 172. See also land market Taicang County, Jiangsu Province, 156 Tangcun Administrative Village, Guangdong Province, 74, 85 taxes on production and property: administrative village and, 68, 79, 80; collecting, 145; reform of, 117, 244n.4, 247n.12; on tobacco, 175

Index     281

television programs on resistance, 208 thought work, 172–173 three-without farmers, 200 tiger deity worship, 35, 241n.11 tobacco production: cigarette market, 175–177; compulsory, 76, 92, 167–173, 243n.3; experiments in 1982–1992, 166–167; in Fuyuan County, 149–150, 167–169, 168, 177–178, 180–181; grade systems for, 249n.3 (Chap. 9); management changes of, 179–180; mongers and, 176; reduction of, 150, 171; sales and profits of, 170–171, 173, 175–179, 243n.17; state monopoly on, 167, 175–178, 244n.12; technology and methods for, 171, 173–175 townships. See specific townships tuigeng huanlin, 36, 74, 183 tun (term), 5. See also natural villages Unger, Jonathan, 86, 97–98, 106, 107, 123–124 United States, 154 urban land management: development and changes to, 112–114, 132–133, 224; grain rights and, 240n.4; laws on, 81; registration and, 29. See also rural land ownership uxorilocal marriages, 30, 241n.5, 245n.6 vegetable production, 121, 127 Verdery, Katherine, 234 village, terms defined, 5, 23. See also administrative villages; natural villages villagers’ groups: in 2000–2015, 59–61; conflict and cooperation with administrative village, 83–87;

land rights of, 70–75; leaders as community representatives, 78–81; role and power of, 69–70. See also community membership; natural villages Waishankou Administrative Village, Fuyuan County, 71–72 walnut production, 189–190 wanzi (term), 5, 23. See also natural villages water management, 166, 174, 244n.5 West Paddy dispute, Fuyuan County, 78–80 White Mud Li vs. Deep Pound Li land dispute, 37–38 Wolf, Arthur, 6 women’s land rights: community membership and, 29–31; divorce and, 107, 108; inheritance and, 11, 100, 103–108, 242n.11, 245n.14; marriage and, 29–31 work point earnings, 11, 99 Wugong Village, Hebei Province, 229 Wukan Administrative Village, Guangdong Province, 214 Xiabo Management District, Guangdong Province, 210 Xi’an City, Shaanxi Province, 209, 213 Xiaoliang Villagers’ Group, Shaanxi Province, 209, 213 Xiaopu Villagers’ Group, Yunnan Province, 85–86 Xinhua, 203, 208 Yang Fangquan, 74, 85 Yearbook of Fuyuan, 16, 152 ying (term), 5. See also natural villages yuan conversion, xi, 240n.5, 243n.1

282     Index

Yunnan Province, China, 14; land reform in, 59–60, 243n.14; tax and fee reform in, 247n.12. See also specific counties Zengbu Brigade, Dongguan County, 55 zhaijidi, 229–230 zhaizi: ancestral graveyards in, 34–40, 226; collectivization movement and, 47–50; deity worship in, 32–34, 226–227; land distribution in, 25, 42–47, 241n.2; land rights of villagers’ groups, 70–75; restricted membership in, 26–31; stability of, 24–25, 41; term, 5, 23; territory of,

24, 32, 242n.13; total number of, 23, 242n.9. See also bounded collectivism; natural villages; rural land ownership zhang (measurement), xi, 37, 241n.13 Zhang Peiguo, 46 Zhaojiahe, Shaanxi Province, 95–96 Zhejiang Province, 200 Zhong’an Township, Fuyuan County, 71, 147, 153, 190 zhongfang, 203–204 zhang, xi, 37, 241n.13 zhuang (term), 5. See also natural villages zinc mining, 13, 78 zirancun. See natural villages

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Yi Wu is assistant professor of anthropology at Clemson University.