Patronage and Power: Local State Networks and Party-State Resilience in Rural China 9780804791618

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Patronage and Power

Patronage and Power loc a l state net wor k s a n d pa rt y- s tat e r e s i l i e nc e in rur a l china

Ben Hillman

stanford university press stanford, california

Stanford University Press Stanford, California © 2014 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of Stanford University Press. Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hillman, Ben, author. Patronage and power : local state networks and party-state resilience in China / Ben Hillman.   pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8047-8936-3 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Local government—China, Southwest. 2. Villages—China, Southwest. 3. Social networks—China, Southwest. 4. Patronage, Political—China, Southwest. 5. China, Southwest—Politics and government. 6. China, Southwest—Rural conditions. I. Title. JS7365.S68H55 2014 320.80951’3—dc23 2013041563

Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments

Introduction / Studying the Local State in China

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1. Village Politics and Social Organization

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2. The Dynamics of Village-Township Relations

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3. Political Competition in Two Townships: Elections, Violence, and Rural Social Networks

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4. The Power Center of the Local State: The County and Prefectural Governments

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5. Political Competition over State-Funded Programs

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6. Political Competition over Local Resources

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Conclusion / Patterns of Local Politics in Rural China

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Notes

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Bibliography

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Index

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Preface and Acknowledgments

One of the great mysteries of contemporary China is how the one-party state has held together through decades of dramatic social and economic change. When I first began to study Chinese politics in the early 1990s it was widely predicted that the Chinese one-party state would be the next domino to fall after Eastern Europe. Specialists on China’s domestic politics generally agreed that the Communist Party-state was in atrophy as a result of declining legitimacy, widespread bureaucratic indiscipline, and moral decay. During the 1990s the Chinese Communist Party proved its doomsayers wrong by presiding over another decade of reform and dynamic economic growth. However, the very success of China’s reforms and economic advancement became new grounds for Western specialists to predict the coming collapse of the party-state. Many argued that rapid economic growth and the rise of an increasingly well-educated middle class and more assertive civil society would create irresistible pressures for political liberalization. Indeed, much of the literature on Chinese politics in the late 1990s and early 2000s was preoccupied with identifying the seeds of Chinese democracy and the future shape of a more liberal Chinese state. Today the Chinese party-state appears increasingly resilient, even in the face of rising economic inequalities, increasing social conflict, and widespread official corruption. Its resilience is the inspiration for this book. As a graduate student in the early 2000s I wanted to understand the institutions and mechanisms that enabled the Chinese party-state to defy predictions of its demise. While the literature on Chinese politics and institutions was growing and new data were becoming available, few scholars had been able to look inside the notoriously secretive Chinese state. I wanted to get inside the “black box” to examine the internal logic of Chinese officialdom. I decided the best way to approach my subject was to conduct an ethnography of the party-state at the local level, where I could gain access. I began

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pr eface and acknow ledgments

my investigation in a county in southwest China where a local NGO facilitated my participation in a series of environmental and rural development projects. During my first two years in the field I worked as a volunteer and consultant for Chinese and international NGOs, which gave me the opportunity to observe local political processes. I worked on a number of projects in collaboration with officials from various agencies and from various levels from township through to provincial government. I attended government meetings, accompanied officials on site visits, and socialized with officials after hours. Many of the people I worked with became friends. Through my relationships with them and through my observations of everyday politics I learned the unwritten rules of Chinese officialdom. By observing up close political phenomena that are normally only studied from a distance, I have been privileged with the opportunity to shine a light on corners of Chinese politics that are normally obscured from view. This book provides a microcosmic account of how the Chinese party-state operates in the absence of ideology and rule of law. This book is the product of more than ten years of research. Along the way I have been the beneficiary of guidance and encouragement from many people. Jon Unger was instrumental in helping me to frame my original study and continued to be a most generous mentor as the project evolved. My wife Lee-Anne Henfry has been an extraordinary source of inspiration, ideas, and editorial support. I’m also grateful for the sage advice received from Tom Bernstein, Ben Kerkvliet, Andrew Kipnis, Kevin O’Brien, Jean Oi, Anthony Saich, and Mark Selden. Many other colleagues have given me much encouragement throughout the project. They include Geremie Barmé, Anita Chan, Graeme Smith, Luigi Tomba, and Peter Van Ness. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers and the team at Stanford University Press for their extremely helpful suggestions. Last, but not least, I want to thank all the people in China who allowed me to share their stories. To protect them, all names of people and places in this book have been disguised.

introduction

Studying the Local State in China

One of the biggest puzzles about contemporary China is how the partystate has held together after more than three decades of rapid social and economic change.1 While analysts continue to question the state’s capacity to maintain growth and stability without deeper political reform, in recent years the authoritarian state has looked increasingly resilient, even in the face of rising inequality, increasing numbers of social conflicts, and widespread official corruption. Developments in China continue to defy theories of political change, especially the conventional wisdom that sustained and rapid economic growth will lead to pressures for political liberalization and democratization. Indeed, previous models of political development appear less and less useful for our understanding of politics in China today. One of the ways scholars have attempted to better understand political developments in contemporary China has been to study patterns of governance at the grassroots. Studying China’s local politics took on special importance following the collapse of totalitarian rule and the dismantling of the centrally planned economy in the late 1970s and early 1980s. As part of the administrative and economic reforms adopted during this period, local governments acquired much greater powers over their territories.

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Local governments were made responsible for governing the local economy and given new powers over land use, natural resources, and local stateowned enterprises (SOEs). They were also made responsible for delivering essential public services such as health care, education, and pensions. To fund these new mandates, local governments were given a greater share of tax revenues and permitted to retain profits from local SOEs. As a result, local governments, particularly at the township and county level, dramatically expanded the scale and scope of their operations. China’s sub-national governments are now collectively responsible for 72 percent of total public expenditure, making China, on this measure, one of the most decentralized states in the world—more decentralized, in fact, than many federal states such as Germany, the United States, Australia, and India.2 The decisions made by local party and government leaders, particularly at sub-provincial levels, now have a much greater impact on Chinese society and economy than at any time since the founding of the People’s Republic. Understanding what local governments do and why they do it has come to matter greatly for our broader understanding of how China is being governed in the twenty-first century. During the first decade of post-Mao reforms county and township governments acquired so much clout that scholars began referring to them as “local states.”3 By invoking “state-ness” the term “local state” suggests insulation from local societal as well as central state pressures. Scholarly interest in China’s local states initially focused on the nexus between political and economic power in China’s rapidly industrializing and increasingly marketoriented economy. Jean Oi was one of the first Western scholars to attempt to characterize the metamorphosis of China’s local states during this period. Based on fieldwork mostly conducted in Shandong Province, Oi argued that China’s local states had become “corporatist.” According to Oi, local officials acted like “boards of directors,” directing production and picking winners in order to hasten rural industrialization.4 Andrew Walder reached a similar conclusion in his observations of local government in Zouping County, Shandong. According to Walder, county government behaved like an industrial corporation, prioritizing revenue generation above all else.5 Other scholars proposed different typologies for characterizing the role of the local state in China’s rapidly industrializing economy.6 Highlighting the business activities of local officials, some analysts described the local state as “entrepreneurial” or, less admiringly, as “bureau-preneurial.” 7

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Figure 1. Territorial Administration of the People’s Republic of China. Figures are from 2011 data. Source: National Bureau of Statistics China, www.stats .gov.cn. Population figures do not include Hong Kong, Macao or Taiwan.

Another group of researchers saw parallels between the local state in China and the “developmental” states of East Asia—Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore. According to this scholarly perspective, the need to generate local tax revenue had driven China’s local states to provide the infrastructure, conditions, and incentives needed for economic growth. Marc Blecher and Vivienne Shue, for example, made this claim for a rural county in Hebei Province.8 As scholarly investigation into China’s local states moved away from the industrialized coastal regions and into the country’s agricultural heartlands, scholars became aware of considerable regional variation in the way local governments behaved. In the predominantly agricultural areas of central China, many local governments found themselves without a sufficient tax base to fund their operations. In such areas, many local governments

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responded by cutting services or by imposing arbitrary taxes and fees on farmers—a phenomenon that became known as the “peasant burden” (农民负担 nongmin fudan).9 In extensive interviews with farmers and officials along China’s Yellow River, Cao Jinqing learned that arbitrary taxes and fees accounted for as much as 20 percent of villagers’ incomes.10 Other research revealed the various means by which local governments in nonindustrialized rural areas would prey on the local populace in order to survive. In an example from Yunnan, a case study revealed that farmers were being forced to grow tobacco and sell it to the local government at well below market prices.11 The early literature on local states contributed much to our understanding of local government responses to decentralization, but had less to say about how the local state actually worked in a highly decentralized system. Scholars understood that local officials’ had interests and incentives that were different from, and even opposed to, the center’s. However, the focus of many early studies of decentralization on the tension between the center and the localities often resulted in a tendency to treat the “local state” as a monolith. By conflating interests within the local state, much of the early literature overlooked the way power and interests were being reorganized within the local state and how this affected the way China was being governed. Another limitation of the early literature on China’s local states was its tendency to explain local-state behavior by reference to changes in the formal institutional environment. While changes to the formal institutional settings have clearly shaped the incentives and constraints under which local officials work, because politics in reform-era China has been characterized by administrative fiat and widespread bureaucratic indiscipline, more attention must be given to the informal rules that govern local political behavior and that serve to hold the state together. This book pays special attention to the role of informal institutions in contemporary rural China. Some scholars argue that it is difficult to draw the line between the formal and informal in politics—Lucian Pye, for example, argues that politics is “informal” by definition12—but I contend that it is useful to distinguish between the formal and the informal in the analysis of political institutions because it helps us to identify drivers of political behavior that are often obscured from view. Social scientists generally understand “formal institutions” as rules and practices that are

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officially sanctioned, usually in the form of written rules (e.g., constitutions, laws, evaluation procedures). “Informal institutions,” on the other hand, are generally understood to be the unwritten rules that govern behavior. They are the “social processes, obligations, or actualities that come to take on a rule-like status in social thought and action.”13 In the words of Ronald Jepperson, “informal institutions” are the “social patterns that, when chronically reproduced, owe their survival to relatively self-activating social processes.”14 From a political science perspective, a useful definition, and one I will adopt here, understands informal institutions as “rules of the game” that are “created, communicated and enforced outside of officially sanctioned channels.”15 This study pays special attention to the ways formal and informal institutions combine to shape local political behavior. This approach is informed by an emerging literature in comparative politics that challenges previous assumptions about the relationship between economic development and political change.16 Much of the transitions-from-communism literature, for example, assumes that informal institutional practices such as clientelism and factionalism subside as formal institutions strengthen. However, a number of recent case studies suggest that a “thickening” of formal state institutions does not necessarily limit the scope for practices that are traditionally seen as incompatible with modern government. In Indonesia, for example, Robison and Hadiz have shown the resilience of patron-client networks in the transition from authoritarianism to multiparty democracy.17 In parts of West Africa, Morris Szetfel has highlighted the ability of informal elite networks to hijack legal and administrative reform.18 However, while such studies remind us of the importance of incorporating informal institutions into our analysis of political change, their ability to explain political behavior is sometimes hindered by an assumption that informal institutions are always bad.19 Findings from this study suggest that formal and informal institutions interact in more complex ways, and that it is important for political scientists to adopt a neutral approach to informal institutions in order to better understand the different ways formal and informal institutions combine to shape the rules of the game.20 This book examines how interactions between formal and informal institutions shape political behavior within the local state and within rural communities in contemporary rural China. It is based on a detailed case

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study of a rural county in southwest China. Field research for this study was conducted during the course of a decade (2002–2013), with repeated, extensive stays in the county in almost every year.21 The specific location, which I call Laxiang County (the precise location must remain unidentified because of the sensitive nature of the information I have collected), is one of several counties in a prefecture I call Poshan. It is a relatively poor region that is home to Han Chinese and ethnic-minority communities. Because of its economic profile and its status as an ethnic-minority region, Poshan Prefecture and its constituent counties are largely dependent on fiscal transfers—i.e., local government operations are funded almost entirely by higher levels of government. As such, Poshan is typical of many localities in China’s western and southwestern provinces. Notably, though Poshan’s profile is different from that of many other parts of the countryside, my examination of informal institutions will, I believe, resonate with scholars working on local politics in other parts of China, including in wealthier urban areas. A handful of recent studies suggest the existence of patterns in the informal rules that shape the behavior of local officials.22 And yet, little is known about what these rules are and what distinguishes them from other institutions in Chinese politics.23 During more than a decade of fieldwork, I divided my time in the field between the seat of government of the prefecture and county and four villages, each of which was located in a different township in Laxiang County. Living for several weeks at a time in each of the four villages and visiting each village multiple times over many years, I was able to directly observe the implementation of rural policies and public works projects. The implementation of state policies and projects serves as a useful prism for examining decision-making processes and power relations in the countryside. As part of this research, I attended meetings with officials from various levels of government, surveyed villagers, and interviewed a wide range of stakeholders, including both serving and retired officials at all levels of the local state from the prefecture down through the rural townships, as well as village leaders and villagers, businesspeople, bankers, and project consultants. My investigation of government initiatives included large public works, smaller-scale village development projects, environmental protection schemes, as well as the activities of state-owned enterprises and public-private partnerships. Because of the implications of some findings for the careers of several respondents, pseudonyms are used for all people and places.

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This study finds that politics in Poshan Prefecture and Laxiang County is driven largely by the machinations of informal political networks. While there has been much scholarly debate about the characterization of informal groups in Chinese politics (e.g., factions, opinion groups, interest groups, guanxi networks),24 I find that Poshan’s informal political groups can be best described as “patronage networks” since, as will be seen, the channeling of patronage is a primary attribute. During more than a decade of observation I found patronage networks to be an enduring feature of local politics in Poshan. Patronage networks in Poshan had a major impact on how formal institutions worked and how formal rules were interpreted and applied. These included decisions relating to policy and project implementation, business licenses, the evaluation and enforcement of political contracts, corruption investigations, and, most importantly, the appointment and promotion of officials. Local officials frequently interpreted the outcomes of formal decision-making processes as the result of jockeying, horse trading, and outright conflict between rival patronage networks within the local state. Patronage networks coordinated across party and government agencies to mobilize funding and implement projects. Political bosses used their networks as a means of channeling resources into private hands and toward local power bases. Inasmuch as bureaucracy has become more professional and routinized in recent decades, patronage networks have been able to adapt to the new formal institutional environment, meeting the party’s basic policy dictates while simultaneously tending to privileged local and private interests. The picture that emerges is one of a highly contested local state in which complex webs of interests compete for access to state power. However, even though the pervasive influence of patronage networks appears to have hollowed out the local state, this does not mean that local state authority has been paralyzed or that the local state is merely an arena in which informal groups compete for spoils. As will be seen, in a bureaucratic environment characterized by a fragmentation of authority and the absence of rule of law, patronage networks provide a supplementary set of (unwritten) rules that facilitate party and government business. These unwritten rules provide important clues on how the Chinese party-state has held together through decades of tumultuous political, social, and economic change. I begin Chapter One with an examination of political institutions at the village level. Although not formally a part of the state administration,

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the village is the basic unit of social organization in rural China and its politics affect not only the distribution of resources within the village, but also individuals’ relations with the state. And yet, little is known about the connections between village politics and decision making within the lowest tier of local state administration. Understanding connections between the village community and local government is not just important for our understanding of state-society relations in rural China, it is also necessary for understanding how local government works. As we will see in later chapters, patronage networks within the county and prefectural government operate in many ways as extensions of village-based social and political networks. The four villages introduced in Chapter One also serve as my primary sites for examining the implementation of policies and projects. Most government programs in rural China are implemented at the village level. Even large-scale inter-jurisdictional infrastructure projects such as road and dam construction must be negotiated with the village communities affected. While my observations of policy and project implementation draw primarily on four village case studies, I visited a further twenty-two villages across three counties to investigate whether my key observations of local political practices held true more broadly across the region. Each of the villages introduced in Chapter One reappears in later chapters. Drawing on indepth interviews with village leaders and ordinary villagers, the chapter examines the challenges and opportunities facing village leaders in their role as the interface between village communities and local government. The chapter also examines changing patterns in village social organization since decentralization. Ethnic identities and cultural practices vary in each of the villages, yet there are striking similarities in the way these village communities organize their affairs and make collective decisions. The most important theme in this chapter is the revitalization of kinship networks that now serve as the basis of social and political organization in the village. Although kinship remained an important principle of social organization during the period of collective agriculture under Mao, my village case studies reveal how kinship groups have become an increasingly important means for organizing village affairs since then. Chapter One documents kinship practices and rivalries in the four villages, including the role of kinship groups in natural resource management, land use, employment, and access to funding. The chapter also

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examines the relationship between kin organization and village leadership, and how village leaders increasingly draw on pre-Maoist cultural traditions to bolster their legitimacy. In one village, a religious revival became an arena of political and economic competition between rival clans and aspirants for village leadership. During the Maoist era, township leaders were able to control village leaders by administrative fiat and through the use of political campaigns, but this relationship changed dramatically following the abandonment of agricultural collectives in the early 1980s. Township government has been further weakened by fiscal reforms in recent years. Following tax-forfee (费改税 feigaishui) reforms and the abolition of agricultural taxes in 2006, township governments in rural areas now have limited capacity to collect revenue and fund operations. Chapter Two examines this changed dynamic between township government and village communities, paying special attention to the relationship between township and village leaders. Using interviews with village leaders, township officials, and local villagers, the chapter highlights the complexity of interests that connect the village and township. It reveals the strategies that township leaders use to secure the cooperation of village leaders since the introduction of village elections provided the latter with a new source of legitimacy. Using examples from the implementation of rural development policies and projects such as the national US$40 billion Sloping Land Conversion Program, the chapter also shows how township and village leaders sometimes collude to extract spoils from the state at the expense of villagers. The chapter highlights the role of personal networks in village-township relations, and how village-based kinship rivalries play out within the township government and vice versa. The chapter also examines power relations within the township governments, offering new insights into the balance of power between the head of township government and the township party secretary. In a vivid portrayal of how kinship-based rivalries and personal networks influence township politics, Chapter Three provides an account of direct elections for the heads of two townships in Laxiang County (unlike almost all other parts of rural China, elections for township heads, 乡长 xiangzhang, are held in Poshan due to an administrative anomaly). The fierce electoral competition in the two townships, leading to vote buying, violence and, in one case, murder, highlights the ruthlessness of local competition over access to state power and resources. The story of the township

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elections, which I was able to observe first hand, provides a graphic example of the complex web of interests that bind the local state to rural society. In both elections, even though the election organizers largely followed laws and regulations designed to ensure free and fair elections, behind-thescenes manipulation by actors within the village, township, and county had a major impact on electoral outcomes. Chapter Four examines the hidden sinews of political power in the local state by exploring the role of patronage networks in county and prefectural government. The chapter explains the origin of patronage networks in Poshan, tracing the configuration of present-day networks to the early postMao years of decentralization and economic reform. Although analysts have long been aware of the importance of personalistic ties and informal networks at the elite national level of Chinese politics,25 this is one of the first studies to systematically examine the origins, structure, and function of patronage networks within local government. In a political system where personal power trumps formal rules, the chapter argues that patronage networks play a vital role in bureaucratic coordination and in the organization of political competition. Patronage networks also provide an important channel of communication between officials and citizens. However, it will also be seen that patronage networks are a primary vehicle for channeling public resources into private hands. Chapter Four explains the culture of spoils that has emerged alongside patronage networks, documenting the means by which such networks affect the distribution of public resources. Chapters Five and Six delve deeper into the politics of spoils in Poshan, examining how patronage politics works in a variety of contexts and how rivalries between different patronage networks influence local decision making. Chapter Five explains how networks compete over the control of fiscal transfers for rural development and poverty-alleviation projects. The chapter demonstrates how patronage networks coordinate horizontally across party and government agencies and vertically through the different tiers of sub-national government to channel resources to particular localities and to maximize opportunities for spoils. The chapter features a case study of a large population resettlement scheme—how it was planned and funded and who among local government officials, local contractors, village leaders, and villagers benefited the most from its implementation. Chapter Six examines the politics of spoils in the rapidly growing local economy. The chapter explains how patronage networks influence local

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decision making and resource allocation, and how such networks have been able to adapt to an increasingly sophisticated regulatory environment. By looking at public and private ventures in Poshan Prefecture’s growing tourism industry, the chapter highlights the ambiguous relationship between corruption and development. A study of political conflicts over the control of revenues from a booming tourism industry provides a good illustration of the complex interaction between local patronage networks and formal state institutions. This final chapter reflects on the implications of the case study’s findings for our understanding of local patterns of governance and political behavior in rural China today.

one

Village Politics and Social Organization

Local politics in contemporary rural China begins at the village level. Although not a formal level of government, the village is the basic unit of rural organization. Synonymous with the rural community, the village serves both as a moral universe and as a locus for the most important networks of rural social and economic exchange. Chinese villages have undergone rapid transformation since the dismantling of collective agriculture in the first part of the 1980s. One of the most important dimensions to this transformation has been the return to prominence of kinship as a basis for social and political organization.1 Despite the state’s introduction of new (formal) village governance structures and laws, kinship relations exert an increasingly powerful influence over decision making within the village. Drawing on case studies of four Laxiang County villages, this chapter shows how informal institutions such as kinship shape the outcome of village elections, the distribution of resources, and the relationship between the village community and the local state.

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Vill ages and Vill age Organiz ation For most of China’s history, imperial governments did not attempt to govern rural society below the county level. When the Communist Party attained control of China this changed. The government penetrated all areas of the countryside of Laxiang County during the 1950s. The party organized the destruction of rural elites and the traditional leadership of the villages. Landlords had their lands confiscated and many landlords were attacked and killed. The Communist government organized the farmers into agricultural collectives. By the time communes were established in the Great Leap Forward in 1958, peasants from “good class backgrounds” (i.e., those that were formerly poor or landless) had assumed leadership roles. In the early 1960s, after the collapse of the Great Leap Forward, the collective ownership of land was placed in the hands of so-called production teams, which consisted of groups of ten or more households that worked the land together and divided up the harvest. Production teams were usually organized around natural divisions within a village, such as households on the same side of a stream or hill, or clusters of houses separated by fields from other residential clusters. Today, the households that used to belong to a production team continue collectively to own the agricultural land, even though the fields have been divided among the households to independently farm. Although the former production teams no longer carry out any functions, each retains a separate village neighborhood or hamlet leader, now known in official parlance if not everyday speech as the villager small group head (村民小组组长 cunmin xiaozu zuzhang). When the collectives were abolished in the early 1980s, the village cadres, one level up, no longer had such significant power over the distribution of local resources. With a return to household farming, families could decide for themselves how to use their own labor and could diversify into new crops and other endeavors, sparking an explosion in economic growth. No longer in control of the agricultural surpluses, rural officials at levels above the village turned to taxation. This caused a gradual breakdown in cadrepeasant relations across the countryside, especially since peasants received fewer and fewer social services for their taxes. As a result, the direct cost to families for education, health care, and other basic services increased. During the 1980s and 1990s, China’s peasants began to reorganize to protect their interests. Prohibited by their authoritarian rulers from forming translocal alliances such as farmers’ associations, rural communities in China

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have, not surprisingly, turned to forms of social organization that they know and trust—kin, lineage, and clan. The revival of these prerevolutionary structures and the emergence of new sources of local power outside of the state’s formal institutions are contributing to an ongoing reorganization of power in rural China, with significant consequences for patterns of governance across the country.

The Village Case Studies Because Poshan Prefecture is generally mountainous, villages tend to be smaller than in other parts of China. Poshan’s population is also ethnically and culturally diverse. Despite differences in cultural practices across the four villages, there were clear similarities in the way villagers organized their affairs and the way households competed and cooperated. The most prominent feature of village life in the four villages was the resurgence of kinship as a basis for social organization. Different cultural and religious practices led to differences in the way kin groups were organized and in the obligations imposed on members, but the kinship group was nevertheless a primary basis for political organization in the four villages. In each of the villages kinship groups allocated resources, managed conflicts, and ascribed status.

Dawan Village Dawan is a compact agricultural village of 120 households. The village sits in the middle of a long valley at an altitude of 1,800 meters. The fertile flatlands in the valley, predictable rainfall, and rich mountain pastures and forests provided an environment for a relatively prosperous rural settlement up to the beginning of the twentieth century. Dawan was one of earliest settlements in the region, but as with many other parts of rural China, population pressures significantly reduced the arable land per capita. Today Dawan’s population is more than double what it was in 1950, and it shares the valley with fourteen other villages. The amount of arable land per person is 0.8 mu (one mu = one sixth of an acre), which is much less than the size of an average American or Australian suburban house lot. There are almost no cash-generating options for Dawan villagers. Even though the temperate climate is suitable to market gardening, the remoteness of the village and its poor transport links are not conducive to commercial agriculture. Dawan villagers are very poor even by rural Chinese standards, with a per capita income below 1,000 yuan

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(US$150) in 2011. The people of Dawan are ethnic Naxi and although intermarriage with Han Chinese and other groups is common, they maintain a distinct sense of ethnic identity. In this area the Naxi speak their own distinct language and celebrate their own festivals.

Balong Village Balong is a semi-compact village divided into upper and lower neighborhoods that sit on the lower slopes of a long valley. Village fields are carved into the mountainside below the village and in small clearings in the forest above. Balong sits at an altitude of 2,400 meters, which affords it a mild climate. Corn, wheat, and potatoes are grown and the forests above are a source of mushrooms and wild vegetables during the summer months. People here are much better off than in nearby Dawan since the village straddles a sealed road and villagers can transport cash crops to market. The residents of Balong are ethnic Hui, that is, Han Chinese Muslims. The Hui of Balong first arrived in the area as refugees, displaced by the Muslim rebellions of northwest China that plagued the final decades of the Qing empire. Some among them had been miners, and they used this experience to establish gold and silver mines in a nearby valley. The majority of the local indigenous population at that time was Tibetan and the Hui adopted many local Tibetan customs, in particular Tibetan diets and dress that were particularly well adapted to the climate, especially the long winters. The Hui families who first came to this area initially learned to speak Tibetan, but today Mandarin Chinese is their mother tongue. In the late 1920s, banditry became so frequent and intense that the villagers relocated to the valley where Balong Village sits today. The women rented lands from neighboring rural communities, and learned new livelihoods such as maize cultivation, animal husbandry, and dairy production. The men kept the mines running as long as possible, but eventually abandoned them to join the women and children in Balong. The Hui brought with them a strong tradition of formal education that remains to the present era and is a reason why the average level of education in Balong is higher than in surrounding villages. Many families have members working for government agencies or in small businesses in the county seat, which raises per capita income in the village to approximately 4,000 yuan (US$600) per annum, four times that of Dawan Village.

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Shanpo Village Shanpo sits at the top of a valley, high above the other ten villages that belong to the same township. Shanpo is a semi-compact village, with a few dispersed hamlets scattered on the mountainside, enabling better access to small plots of arable land, but since the village is located at an altitude of 3,300 meters, many grain crops are difficult to grow. Villagers plant buckwheat and potatoes, both of which are their staple food. As in many other mountain villages, the people of Shanpo depend largely on animal husbandry for their livelihoods. The herders keep livestock near the village during the winter months and take them to higher altitude rangelands during the summer. In recent years, villagers have also earned cash income from logging and from the harvesting of other forest products including herbal medicines and wild mushrooms. Because of the expanding range of income-generating opportunities and differential access to them, annual per capita incomes have risen from a few hundred yuan in the 1990s to more than 3,000 yuan (US$400) in 2011. The people of Shanpo are ethnic Nuosu, a branch of the Yi. The Nuosu have been a dominant ethnic group in southwest China since at least the Song dynasty (960–1279). Nuosu society is divided into clans that share the same surname, but each clan also belongs to a caste that forms part of a rigid social hierarchy. Nuosu ethnic and cultural identity remains strong in Shanpo. The Nuosu speak their own language, and follow their own written customary laws, which are based on mutual obligations between members of the same clan and those of other clans.

Pubu Village Pubu is a Tibetan village that lies in a fertile valley at an altitude of 1,900 meters. It comprises twenty-nine households, dispersed along a river. Unlike the compact farming communities typical of lowland China, Tibetan settlements tend to spread out along mountain slopes to take advantage of microclimates and sunlight and to improve access to arable land and water. Like most communities in this mountainous region, the Pubu villagers practice a mixed economy of agriculture and animal husbandry. However, whereas the climate is conducive to agriculture, the surrounding lands are steep and difficult to farm. Villagers grow barley on the flattest lands, and corn and potato on the slopes. Within the Pubu economy, the pastoral sector is by far the most important. Arable land is scarce, but there are rich mountain pastures above the

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village that can support large numbers of livestock. Household wealth is measured by livestock numbers—moderately wealthy families keep between 20 and 40 head of cattle, and the wealthiest families have close to 100. While Tibetan households are economically independent, the pastoral sector demands cooperation between households. Men from the village move their cattle in search of the green high altitude grasses in the summer months. Families with only a few head of cattle place them in the care of relatives in order to put their labor to more productive use, and a share of the dairy product is usually paid in return for the service. The surplus generated by animal husbandry has long provided villagers with currency for trade. According to oral histories, traditionally the local Tibetans had been forced to trade their goods for grain so that they could pay their taxes. The Pubu villagers learned to trade further and further afield to increase their returns. They ventured as far as Lhasa to the west and Chengdu to the east trading in horses, tea, and medicine. Trade has meant that Pubu villagers have looked beyond their village for sources of income. This has also influenced villagers’ attitudes toward education. Whereas many farmers in surrounding rural communities do not see the benefit of formal education, Pubu villagers understand it as a way out of rural poverty. Some villagers work as teachers in local schools and as administrators in state enterprises. The annual per capita income in Pubu is 4,000 yuan (US$580).

C h a ngi ng Pat t e r ns of Social Organiz ation One of the most notable changes of the reform era has been the declining significance of the production teams. During the collective era, the production team was the main unit of administrative control and the main mechanism for the distribution of economic rewards. Since the return to household farming, it is no surprise that the collective teams play a less significant role in village life, but the process of their demise is less understood. Dawan Village was divided into three production teams of 20–30 households during the collective era. Each of these teams had an elected team leader, an accountant, and a cashier. According to Dawan’s former accountant, when these roles became redundant, the former leaders simply returned to household farming. But this did not mean a disintegration

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of village leadership—rather, the leader of the largest of the three teams and the largest of the village’s kin groups began to assume control of the whole village. Since the 1980s there have been several struggles between the former teams over control of the village, reflecting changes in the relative power of kin groups and attitudes toward the quality of village leadership. Not surprisingly, the dominant group is usually the largest, or, to put it another way, the one that can mobilize the most muscle in times of conflict. A similar transformation occurred in the Nuosu village of Shanpo. This village had previously been divided into two production teams. During the 1980s, after the return to family farming, the teams merged and one of the former team leaders assumed control over the whole village. However, unlike in Dawan, there have been no struggles over the leadership or conflicts between the former teams. The reason for this lies in the strong clan structures of Nuosu society. All Shanpo villagers belong to the same clan, and the division of the teams did not reflect any social differences between the villagers. When the teams became redundant, the Nuosu simply reverted to centralized clan leadership. The chief of the clan took over the leadership of the village, representing villagers in their dealings with the township. The village did not hold elections for village head, because the chief of the clan became ex officio head of the village. In Balong the two former production teams maintained their separate group identities largely because the teams represent long-standing social boundaries between two rival kin groups. The teams maintained separate leaders who were nominated and elected by their members. Generally speaking, one team would tend to wield greater influence in village affairs at any given time. The leader of the dominant team would also become de facto leader of the entire village, representing both groups in their dealings with the township and higher levels of government. The relative strength of the teams was measured in terms of numbers, but also in terms of the resources. As control over resources shifted, so too did the balance of power between the former production teams. A key source of influence was the connection between villagers and local government officials. Such connections were often based on kin ties, but could also be based on shared experiences. Given the state’s dominance in the regional economy, official connections were highly valued. Villagers respected

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village leaders who had the ear of local officials. In Balong, the relative influence of the kin groups waxed and waned according to their perceived links to higher authorities.

The Importance of Kinship Organiz ation As noted above, a prominent feature of village life in the post-Mao era is the reemergence of kinship groups as a basis for rural social organization. With the introduction of household contract farming, the disintegration of production team leadership, and the uncertainty of economic reforms, families naturally looked to kin for mutual support and protection. However, kinship also mattered during the prior collective era. The Communists sought to destroy kinship and lineage power with the initial land reforms, but the subsequent reorganization of agriculture sometimes strengthen these groupings. The traditional residential patterns had been left intact, which meant that the production teams were largely based upon groupings of kin, and kin-based cohesion was reinforced through common membership in a production team. The strength of family ties was further buttressed by the Communists’ social classification project. Peasants were officially classified according to their prerevolution status as landlords, rich, middle, and poor peasants, and landless laborers. These titles were made hereditary after the revolution, institutionalizing these social divisions. Persecution of the “bad classes” (former landlords and rich peasants) made kin solidarity even more important for survival. Family ties continued to affect the quality of life of the peasants, not just because of the labels of the new class system, but because the distribution of jobs and work points typically involved bias. Villagers in all four sites recalled that work points were allocated partly according to class and were not always commensurate with productivity. The families in charge of the production teams also sometimes redistributed resources in favor of themselves and their kin. Usually there was more than one kin group or kin group branches within a production team of 20–30 households, but one group tended to dominate the team. Other, smaller family groups would often ally themselves with the largest group in the hope of receiving protection and favor. This rivalry intensified during mass political campaigns during which village groups would sometimes victimize their rivals. This competition took

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place both within teams and between teams in the village.2 But, invariably blood ties united members of the groups in conflict. In many ways, the spasmodic and unpredictable nature of the political campaigns, the identification and persecution of class enemies, and the constant insecurity that came with this ensured the survival of kinship bonds. Kinship has taken on a new significance since the introduction of market reforms in the 1980s. A kinship group serves as a natural form of social and economic cooperation in rural China: natural because its members cooperate with one another on the basis of mutual obligation. In all of the villages studied, kinship groups provided a means for sharing productive assets such as tools, plows, and farm animals.3 They also set boundaries for mutual assistance in grazing animals—extremely important to families who are short of labor because their children are too small or the elderly too weak to work. Kin networks also served to redistribute labor more efficiently in the village—a young adult might live with another, related family instead of his or her immediate family if they needed help taking care of elderly or sick family members, or if they needed additional labor to farm their land. Kinship group activity is not immediately visible to the outside observer. The ancestral halls and lineage associations that are a prominent feature of south China are not found here. But one of the ways kinship relations are expressed is through language—in how kin refer to one another. The importance of kinship is also readily apparent when there is a death, birth, or other significant event in the family. Kin networks pool resources to arrange for funerals, and they come together when newlyweds leave their parents’ house to establish their own household. Kin members make sure the newlyweds have all the basics that a household requires such as pots and pans, bowls and buckets. Kinship groups also organize loans for students studying in the county seat or at college in the provincial capital. Sending a child to primary school and junior high school is comparatively inexpensive, but costs increase dramatically at senior high school and tertiary levels, placing them beyond the reach of many families in the region. Kin groups support talented youths in the knowledge that they will have a right to share in the student’s future success. While there are always several senior members of a kinship group, usually only one is acknowledged by all members as the leader. The leader of the group is always a senior male who has a demonstrated talent for making practical decisions and for obtaining resources for the group, either through

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his own entrepreneurial skills or political connections, or both. The head of the kin group sits atop a hierarchy that accords status and bestows obligations upon its members. The kin structure served as a means of resolving conflicts within the group and in managing conflicts with other groups in the village and township. Before the revolution, economic competition in the villages largely focused on the most important productive resource—land. Today, with land owned collectively by the villager small groups, economic competition in the villages revolves around control over other income-generating resources. The first type are resources found locally and used in traditional productive activities, and entails competition over access to forests, pastures, and water sources. The second type lies outside the local countryside and is typically accessed through local government channels. They include credit, grants, employment opportunities, and the funding of small-scale rural development and poverty alleviation projects. The role of kinship is increasingly evident in the competition for control, acquisition, and profitable use of both types of resources. Within the village, kin groups cooperate in the expansion of animal husbandry, pooling resources to invest in new breeding cattle, cow herding, and maintaining rangelands. The increase in livestock numbers puts pressure on the open rangelands, causing increasing conflict between kin groups and between villages. In Balong, for example, the new village head (村长／村委会主任 cunzhang/cunweihui zhuren) received money from the Forestry Bureau for a reforestation scheme in the grasslands above the village. The village head agreed with Forestry Bureau officials to replant an area of grassland where a rival kin group in the village grazed their livestock. When villagers from the rival kin group complained, he told them that it was a government decision and there was nothing he could do about it. Arguments ensued. Such conflicts have become so intense in many areas that local government agencies have recently intervened to encourage rural communities to draw up rangeland management agreements. I observed the discussions to reach agreements in two villages, both of which divided responsibilities between kin groups rather than between households or teams. Other conflicts emerged over access to valuable forest resources such as the matsutake (pine mushroom). The mushrooms were exported to Japan where they fetched upward of US$200 per kilogram. Harvesters could earn as much as US$30 per kilogram at local trading stations. During the 1990s and early 2000s clashes

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over access to the lucrative pine mushroom forests resulted in several deaths. While most of these conflicts were between rival villages, competition over scarce resources between kin groups within the same village was also fierce. In recent years competition over local resources has extended to construction materials, small-scale mining and other enterprises. Following a construction boom in the county seat that began in the late 1990s and continued unabated throughout the first decade of the twenty-first century, villagers could earn money quarrying rocks and sand for building sites. Others could earn an income transporting building materials to construction sites. In Balong, kin groups fought over access to a lucrative quarry, with one group arguing that because it was closer to their side of the village, they should have the rights to exploit it. The other group argued that the resource belonged to the whole village. In the end the side with the greatest numbers typically won the argument. The recent growth in tourism has created opportunities for villagers to set up roadside shops and restaurants.4 In Shanpo the village head used his influence to build shops and restaurants from which his family and kin could collect rents. Control over roadside land was a common source of conflict between kin groups in the four villages and in many other villages I visited in the region. In Balong, the larger kin group built a guesthouse and restaurant along the road outside their village. Unable to compete directly with this group, the rival kin group built a lodge for trekkers higher on the mountain. Laxiang County, where the four villages are located, is officially an “impoverished county,” which means that villagers have privileged access to support from a variety of government agencies.5 The most common form of state support comes in the form of subsidized or free construction materials used for such things as fencing and irrigation. The distribution of these materials is controlled by the village head, which generally means his kin enjoy privileged access. This is an important reason why kin groups mobilize to compete for the position of village head even though the position is unpaid. An even more contentious issue in villages today is access to credit. In all of the villages I visited credit was generally only available to those who had kin connections at the township credit cooperative. In fact, the dominance of one kin group in Balong can be largely attributed to the fact that one of its members works as a loans officer in the township, which has enabled

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him to channel credit to his kinsmen. In Haidi Township—the township that Balong Village belongs to—two credit cooperative officers manage all transactions. Villagers deposit their savings at the cooperative and receive a return of 0.7 percent interest per annum. These savings are then used to make small loans. This cheap source of credit was highly sought after by local farmers. In theory they can borrow as little as 100 yuan to buy fertilizer or seed. Each of the two township credit officers was empowered to authorize loans up to 50,000 yuan, but according to credit co-op regulations, loans above 10,000 yuan have to be secured by a deposit equal to the sum borrowed. Bizarrely, this means that to borrow 10,000 yuan, the applicant needs to make an equivalent deposit of 10,000 yuan to the credit co-op. Because the credit officers were able to waive this requirement at their discretion, they could arbitrarily determine who could access the loans. This meant they were able to channel credit to friends and relatives. Villagers who enjoy personal ties with the loan officers used their access to take out large loans for businesses. The most popular investment was to buy transport vehicles. With the region enjoying a tourism boom, there was an increased demand for transport of both passengers and goods. Taxis and goods delivery vehicles earned a reliable income for their owners, but credit was needed to get started. Loans greater than 50,000 yuan required clearance at the county level, but the two credit co-op officers would sometimes work around this rule by simultaneously authorizing two loans of 50,000 yuan to the same applicant. Credit cooperative officers were also able to extend their influence by trading loans for favors or bribes. Local entrepreneurs who were not related to the loan officers sought access to cheap credit by cultivating business relationships with them. Outside of kin networks, this could sometimes be achieved by paying a bribe. The going rate for a loan was 10 percent of the borrowed sum paid in advance to the loan officer. The bribe could be even higher if a loan of more than 100,000 yuan was being sought, requiring clearance from higher levels. This is because the spoils then had to be shared with higher levels. The demand for credit is so high that almost all loans for a given financial year were arranged in advance, and monies were allocated before county authorities affirmed the annual loans quota. As soon as the funds were released they were generally accounted for, leaving not enough for even a small loan of a few hundred yuan to a poor

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household to purchase much needed agricultural inputs. Rural credit at the village level was the luxury of the well connected. Kinship ties with officials at higher levels provided villagers with another important resource—access to employment. Employment opportunities included village-based jobs such as the forest guard, which paid a monthly stipend in return for little work, and administrative jobs in local government offices. Such jobs could, in turn, generate further opportunities. In Dawan, a villager working for the district government was tasked by higher authorities to organize laborers for fixed-term contract work in Shenzhen, an industrial zone near Hong Kong.6 He was able to offer this opportunity exclusively to his kinsmen.7

Vill age Leadership Because of the importance of village leadership positions in accessing state resources, especially in poor areas, kin groups often mobilized to make sure these positions stayed under their control. As noted, in the four villages studied the strongest of the former production teams, usually representing the dominant kin group, won this contest. Consequently, in Dawan, Balong, and Pubu, the village heads were all from dominant kin groups. In Shanpo, the situation is slightly different because villagers are all from the same clan, but the village head came from the most powerful and wealthiest family within the clan. Village elections were also animated by kin rivalries even though the rivalry sometimes manifest as a competition between former production teams. In villages where there were two main kin groups, the outcome was simply a question of which group was largest.8 In villages where there were more than two kinship groups, the dominant two often competed to win the alliance of smaller groups.9 Marriage ties between kin groups facilitated new alliances, even between different ethnic groups. In some cases where the dominance of one kin group was clear (and its candidate for village head was the most powerful figure in the village), villagers did not bother holding elections. This was the case in Balong where a formal election for village leader was not held between 2001 and 2012. In Pubu in 2012 there had not been a formal election for village leader for eight years. While village heads tended to come from the most dominant kin group in the village, the village head was not necessarily the most

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powerful or respected figure in the kin group. Kin groups become dominant in a village when they control more resources than competing groups. They achieve this by having the most livestock, operating successful businesses, or using connections with higher levels of government to access favorable allocations of state grants and subsidies. Sometimes the most influential members of such kin groups are so preoccupied with these interests that they have little time for the mundane issues of village administration. These men may not be interested in personally organizing villagers or raising funds for collective work projects or promoting state policies such as family planning and compulsory nineyear education. In such situations, senior kin figures will put forward a relative to take the post, leaving him (it is nearly always a man) in charge of ordinary matters and interfering infrequently to weigh in on bigger issues. For example, in carrying out a large state-run ecological compensation scheme, known as the Sloping Land Conversion Program (退耕还林tuigeng huanlin), between the year 2000 and 2007 villagers converted parcels of hillside farmland into forest in return for cash and grain subsidies. In all of the villages, it was evident that the decisions over these conversions were not made by the village heads alone, but through negotiations among senior kinsmen. The village head, who sometimes was a more junior kinsman, merely reported these decisions to township officials.10 The heads in the four villages, and in many of the other villages I visited, tended to be hard-working individuals. They were responsible for assisting with the implementation of state policies, monitoring environmental issues (to be reported to higher authorities), and hosting visiting delegations of officials from the township and higher levels of government. The village heads discharged their duties on top of the demands and workload of their own household economy. This demand of time and energy is why village leaders tend to be young—nearly always under 40, and sometimes under 30 years of age. And because these are small villages in a poor county, in none of the four villages did the village heads receive a regular income for their work. Occasionally they received a small grant from township leaders for entertainment (接待jiedai) expenses, and a travel or telephone allowance to cover the cost of meetings and communications, but these subsidies did not cover all of the village heads’ expenses. In the words of the Pubu Village head:

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When you’re the head of the village, you have a lot of extra expenses. When you’re a farmer you can smoke cheap cigarettes, but the village head must smoke expensive cigarettes and always offer them to others. And if someone in the village dies or if someone is building a house, you need to pay a visit and bring gifts even if you’re not a close relative. When government officials visit, I have to kill a chicken and host a banquet for them.11

Because village coffers do not provide enough to cover expenses, village heads need to be resourceful in raising funds. Because of this and the personal nature of local politics (e.g., hosting government officials to dinner at one’s home), it is difficult for them to maintain a distinction between public and private funds. In fact, village heads reported that they felt justified in using their office for personal gain. The government has given them an easy means to do so. Following increases in central government transfers to the western and southwestern areas of China, village heads have increasing access to spoils. They are able to recommend particular households for the receipt of government funding for the building of houses, or the purchase of cattle, or the planting of commercial forests, for example. Because China’s current development policy favors the use of “model” (示范shifan) households—households that have been successful in trialing a state-funded pilot project—the village head is often able to “volunteer” his own household or those of his immediate family or kin to participate in such schemes. Even in cases where the village heads are not given authority to determine the recipient households, because of their direct line of communication with township authorities the village leaders are often the first to hear about an upcoming project. They are thus in a position to prepare their own household and those of their kin to reap maximum benefits from those projects. While I was conducting fieldwork, village leaders were informed at a county meeting that funds would soon be available for rural enterprise development such as chicken and pig breeding. The head of a village near Balong instructed his own family to begin building the coops and sties in advance, so that when township officials came to inspect, their apparent enthusiasm and initiative would put them in a strong position to receive a grant. In Pubu, when the Animal Husbandry Bureau provided funds for rebuilding dilapidated summer rangeland huts, the village head secured a similarly favorable outcome for his kinsmen. Since higher officials could not be expected to climb into the mountains to inspect huts, he was

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able to identify the recipients for such funding even though some of them did not even have huts in the rangelands. This practice of using privileged information for the advantage of one’s own people extends above the village. Within both township and county governments, networks of officials share information about forthcoming opportunities so that kin and other allies can position themselves for access to the resources. Village heads also have direct control over state subsidies for agricultural extension, fertilizer, and seeds as well as money for emergency relief. In Dawan, when fourteen houses were destroyed in a fire the village head received emergency reconstruction funds from the Civil Affairs Bureau. The village head decides how funds like these will be spent and will generally retain an administrative fee of 10–15 percent. The village head also controls the distribution of subsidized building materials, in this case provided by the Poor Area Development Office (PADO), which he can allocate to kin or can exchange for favors. More funds are potentially available if village leaders are well connected at higher levels of government. In villages where more than one kin group has strong connections to officialdom, the potential rewards are higher, so village leadership positions are more hotly contested. In the absence of strong village governance institutions (in these small villages the officially sanctioned village committees tend to operate in name only), administrative powers tend to be concentrated in the hands of the village leader. One of those powers, and a major attraction of the job, is that the village leader has the legal authority to raise funds on behalf of the village. This means that the village leaders can take personal initiatives to apply to government agencies for grants and loans for village projects, and control the funds if they succeed. The village head in Balong, for example, succeeded in obtaining a grant from the township government to build a new road connecting the village to a main county road. Because he organized corvée labor free of charge to conduct the work, he was able to keep some of the money for himself. In Shanpo, the village head received a grant to replant trees in a clearing above the village. He was given 12,000 yuan by the forestry bureau to plant 300 mu and manage the saplings’ growth for three years. Forestry Bureau officials promised that if the job was done successfully, they would grant the village sufficient funds for another 300 mu in three years’ time. The village head was enthusiastic about this project because it involved a large sum of money over which he commanded

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sole discretion. To ensure the proper implementation of state projects, local state bureaus were increasingly willing to provide such incentives to village leaders. While these practices ensured that individual agencies met their policy targets, they did little to promote equity or downward accountability in village governance. In the above case, the village head kept the leftover funds for himself. In Dawan, the village head was responsible for distributing cash subsidies to villagers who had converted farmland to forest, but he decided instead to keep the subsidies for himself as an “administrative fee.” In Pubu, the village head managed a grant from the county government to buy new breeds of cattle for the village, and used the money to buy an expensive bull for his own household. Other factors motivating villagers to seek election as village head were spin-off benefits associated with status. Village leaders, many of whom are also entrepreneurs, could leverage their status when conducting private business dealings outside of their village. As the new village head in Dawan explained, “When I buy or sell goods, it helps that people know I’m the village head. If I need to get something on credit or I need something in a hurry, people are more inclined to help me than when I’m an ordinary farmer. I guess people trust me more, or they want to have good relations ( 关系 guanxi) with me.”12 Village heads were also in a position to build relationships with local government officials, particularly those in the township. These relationships could be mutually beneficial. Township leaders needed the cooperation of village heads in order to get higher-level policies implemented, so the township head was frequently willing to do favors for the village heads in return. Collaboration between village leaders and the township government will be discussed in Chapter Three.

Vill age Leadership and Political Capital In villages where kin group sizes are relatively evenly balanced, village leaders cannot rely only on numbers for their power base. Leaders of these villages need to build other types of political capital. In the villages I studied, such political capital usually came in two forms: material capital (control over material resources) and symbolic capital (the capacity of a leader to

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represent and appeal to normative values in the community). Possession of material capital entailed either personal wealth or access to government officials from whom resources can be acquired, or both. The leaders of Pubu, Balong, and Shanpo were all entrepreneurs who had made money from transport and trade. Balong Village’s head owned a truck and a taxi. Pubu Village’s head worked as a successful non-timber forest product trader, and Shanpo Village’s head earned rents from a restaurant and a truck. The exception was Dawan Village’s head, a 23-year-old man who was nominated by more senior members of his kin group. In Balong, a seemingly unqualified young man became the new head of the village. He was not wealthy by village standards, but his father had an important position in the county government, which promised access to government funding. In Pubu, the village head was only moderately wealthy, but he enjoyed good connections in the township government. He once helped villagers secure compensation for cornfields that were ravaged by bears. His connections also helped them secure a qualified teacher for their small village school. In a survey I conducted in all four villages, when asked to rank the important qualities of a village leader, the vast majority of respondents ranked wealth and political connections above attributes such as diligence and honesty (see Chapter Two). In the market-economy era, village leaders no longer assert their credentials by exhortations of fidelity to the party or its ideals. The decline in Communist ideology has been accompanied by an increase in the importance of traditional values related to ethnicity, kinship, and religion—a phenomenon visible throughout rural China, and seen in the revival of temple and lineage associations and other cultural and religious activities. It is not often noted, though, that such revivals are linked to political competition in the villages. Following the collapse of collective agriculture and the revival of pre-Communist traditions, village leaders have increasingly come to rely on traditional and charismatic sources of authority. In many of the villages I visited in the county, successful leaders drew on cultural symbols to bolster their legitimacy. In Shanpo, for example, where many of the community’s cultural and religious traditions were suppressed and derided as feudal superstition during the Mao era, the village head has shown an enthusiasm for reviving them in recent years. Since the late 1990s the village head presided over reinstated Nuosu festivals and tried to reinvigorate and enlarge them. His personal contribution to these collective cultural

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activities earned him political capital among villagers who embraced the return of Nuosu celebrations such as the mid-summer torch festival.13 Astute leaders build on these traditions to augment their status and authority in the village. When the Nuosu clan chief built a new house for his family, he incorporated the architectural features of the houses built historically by the traditional Nuosu elite. The door and window frames were decorated with traditional clan patterns to indicate the status of the household. The chief also increasingly advocated the use of customary law in decision making. Conveniently, customary law also served to reify the role of the patrilineal clan as the core of the community. Similarly, in Balong, a village leader was able to augment his status in the village by sponsoring religious and cultural activities. In the early 2000s he took the lead in promoting an Islamic revival among the Hui villagers, who had largely lost their Islamic beliefs and traditions over the previous decades, assimilating with other local groups. The religious revival became an arena for political contestation between two kinship groupings within the village, as the head of one spearheaded the revival while the other opposed it. The pro-revival head succeeded in attracting resources from Muslim donors in China and overseas, including funds for a new mosque and community center, and scholarships for village youth to study Arabic and the Koran at a school in Malaysia. The control of these resources and the excitement they generated earned him great prestige in the community and his kin group greater influence over village affairs. During the many times I visited Balong between 2002 and 2012 I witnessed this group usurp control over village affairs from the previously dominant group. I also witnessed the balance of power shift again a few years later when the religious revival lost momentum and the new resources stopped flowing.

two

The Dynamics of Village-Township Relations

Townships are understudied units of rural administration because students of China’s local government tend to focus on the more powerful counties. In the collective period under Mao’s rule, rural townships (communes) had much greater power and authority to impose their will on rural communities. In the decades since Mao’s death, rural townships have held diminished authority and have faced increased fiscal pressures, resulting in what some have called a “hollowing out” of township government.1 Drawing on case studies of four Laxiang County townships, this chapter observes that township leaders have become increasingly reliant on informal institutional practices for collecting revenue and for implementing policy. Patron-client ties, for example, have become an increasingly prominent feature of township-village relations and a major influence on decision making within township administration. It is argued that township leaders’ reliance on informal institutions has transformed the dynamics of township administration as well as the dynamics of relations between townships and villages.

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Township Governments in L a xiang Count y There are approximately 45,000 rural townships (乡 xiang or 镇 zhen) in China today. Starting in the 1950s, township-level administration became critical to the Communist Party’s mission of overthrowing the traditional elite and reorganizing rural society and economy. The rural townships became the basis of the communes, with some regional variation, and retained the commune title until decollectivization in the early 1980s. Today, township leaders are less interventionist, but they are still responsible for providing a number of basic social services and for coordinating disaster relief. The township is also responsible for implementing key national policies such as family planning, compulsory basic education, and maintaining social stability through conflict detection and resolution. The township serves as the primary point of contact between rural residents and the state. Increasingly, the township government is less as an autonomous unit of administration and more an agent of the county government. This has been the case since the abolition of agricultural taxes in 2006 deprived township governments of their own revenue base. Their activities are now chiefly funded by the counties.2 While the basic function of township-level administration is reasonably uniform throughout China, there has been frequent tinkering with the organization of sub-county administration, reflecting the party-state’s ongoing struggle to find a balance between political control and effective economic coordination at the grassroots. Although localities have generally been required to follow the same policies set by central and provincial governments, there has been a great deal of creative adaptation and deflection, as local interests confront policy dictates. In fact, Laxiang County’s experience in managing the townships appears inspired by the oft-cited refrain shangyou zhengce, xia you duice (上有政策下有对策, up above there are policies, down below there are countermeasures). Starting in the 1950s Laxiang County found a need to tinker heavily with township-level administration, and these earlier institutional choices paved the way for later institutional anomalies. In the 1950s Laxiang County followed the rest of China in establishing township governments largely along the lines of natural marketing districts—i.e., the small market town and the villages surrounding it.

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However, because of the remoteness of many of these townships and the poor transport and communication infrastructure, an intermediate level of administration was created between the county and township known as the district (qu); each district consisted of several market towns.3 After collectivization and following the failure of the Great Leap Forward, almost all regions in China created communes at the marketing district/township level, but party leaders in Laxiang feared that rural infrastructure was so underdeveloped (there were no roads to many townships) that the counties would have poor control over the communes if they were established in those locales. The county’s party leaders were also concerned that there were too few party members or trained cadres to fill all the leadership positions in these small market town areas. During the 1950s and 1960s, even most of the leading positions at the county and prefectural levels needed to be filled by better qualified outsiders who were dispatched from other parts of the province. Due to concern about lack of technical and administrative capacity, local authorities determined that the communes should be created at the intermediate “district” level. After establishing the communes at this intermediate “district” level, local authorities unthinkingly imposed the standard hierarchy on lower levels in order to conform to organizational norms in other parts of China. The market towns and their surrounds thus were given the misleading label of production brigades—a title they retained until after decollectivization. But because of the large territory encompassed by the brigade, in reality the so-called brigade leaders carried out many of the functions of a commune administration.4 Following decollectivization, in 1984 the commune reverted to its earlier title of “district” government, and the production brigades became townships once more. However, nomenclature changed again in 1987–1988 in response to central government demands to reduce the size of local governments. In a political system increasingly based on patronage and spoils, county leaders were loath to reduce the number of positions they could distribute to their allies and supporters. Conspiring with neighboring county leaders and officials in the prefecture above, Laxiang’s county leaders came up with a cunning strategy for feigning compliance with the directive without actually cutting jobs. The district administration (i.e., the level between county and township) was again retitled as the township government and the townships were renamed “administrative villages” without

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changing the structure or function of these units of administration. Some staff were cut from the new so-called administrative villages, but they were mostly given early pensions or relocated to positions in the new townships. Prefectural and county officials no doubt believed they had found a solution that both satisfied their needs and met policy requirements, but their local countermeasures would create a headache for them in later years when forced to implement further administrative reforms. The main difficulty prefectural and county bosses faced was how to deal with the central government’s introduction in 1987 of the Organic Law on Village SelfGovernance, which stipulated that village leaderships should be decided by popular vote. Laxiang County initially ignored the policy. Because the 1987 law was only a provisional enactment, the regions could adopt their own timetables for implementation. However, in 1998 the Organic Law was officially codified, making it clear that all corners of rural China would be expected to hold elections for village leaders. The prefectural and county governments were faced with a choice: either hold elections in the “natural” villages or hold them in the administrative villages that were really market towns and surrounding villages. The Civil Affairs Bureau—responsible for overseeing the implementation of elections—determined that if the natural villages were to be recognized as such and were to hold elections, the leaders and deputy leaders of the newly elected bodies would need a cash subsidy from the county government because the villagers would not be able to raise enough funds to support their activities. According to officials who were involved in the debates, local authorities calculated that they could not afford to do this for each and every village, so they decided to continue to misleadingly label the townships as administrative villages and to hold elections at that level.5 The prefectural and county officials calculated that they might even be in a better financial position than previously if they retrenched the state-salaried cadres who had occupied these posts and replaced them with locally elected leaders who were not entitled to state benefits. At first, they would feel obliged to find substitute employment for the outgoing leaders in the ranks of district government, but as older officials retired, the burden on the county’s payroll would decrease. In 2001, Poshan’s counties held direct elections for the leadership of its so-called administrative villages, but they were really holding elections for the townships’ leaders—one of the very few areas in China that has done so. The implications of these elections

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and their impact on administrative relations at this level is the subject of Chapter Three. This anomaly in township administration reflects a broader question about the role of township government in rural China. Since its emergence as an important level of administration in the Maoist era, township government has tended to play an ambiguous role, straddling the divide between state and community. This ambiguity is reflected in continued confusion over the boundaries between the “collective” and the “state” when it comes to the control of land and other local resources. In recent years the value of township government has been publicly questioned by scholars and lawmakers in China, with periodic calls for its abolition as a full arm of state administration.

Four Tow nships in L a xiang Count y In order for the reader to be able to make meaningful comparisons with other parts of rural China, I will continue to refer to Laxiang County’s rural marketing-districts as “townships.” I studied in detail four townships in the county, each of which was home to one of the four villages introduced in Chapter One. The townships differed in their standards of living, ethnic composition, and social and economic structures. Nevertheless, when it came to everyday politics, there were striking similarities in the way township officials conducted themselves, in the nature of political competition within the townships, and in the political dynamics between township and village leaders.

Haidi Township Balong Village is one of the twenty villages that make up Haidi marketdistrict township. With village communities representing Hui, Han, Naxi, and Yi ethnic groups, it is one of the most ethnically diverse townships in all of China. The different ethnic groups live in distinct village groupings along the length of a wide valley. As the earliest settlers, the Han and Naxi occupy the prime agricultural lands in the lower part of the valley, whereas the Hui and the Yi villages are situated at the top end of the valley on the slopes of Mount Haidi. The township seat is located in the oldest village in the township, the Naxi village of Gede.

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The township is linked by a paved road to two county seats, which enables township residents to sell their agricultural produce for higher prices in urban markets. The township produces a range of agricultural commodities, including meats, peppers, and a special variety of red rice. The township is also home to the Haidi Snow Mountain Nature Reserve and other tourist attractions, which have created new income-generating opportunities in recent years. These new economic opportunities have also led to conflicts. Chapter Six provides details about conflicts surrounding the use of the Haidi Snow Mountain Nature Reserve. Haidi Township’s elections for township leaders are also examined in Chapter Three.

Longtan Township The Nuosu village of Shanpo is one of eleven villages that make up the township of Longtan. The township is located in a valley with altitudes above 3,000 meters in the higher reaches and below 2,000 meters in the lower reaches. The township seat is located next to Shanpo Village because it has the best road access to the county seat, while the largest village and home of the township head is located 13 kilometers away. Shanpo’s transport links have enabled it to become the wealthiest village in the township, with many residents engaged in trade and transport. The village also receives more than its fair share of state funding because it is conveniently situated close to this main road. In Laxiang County it is common for villages near main roads to be chosen as pilot sites for rural development projects for two reasons. First, it is easy for county officials to travel to and from the site. Second, projects on thoroughfares are more visible, especially to visiting higher-level officials. Longtan is surrounded by state forests, which are a rich source of natural medicines and exotic foods, including wild mushrooms. Harvesting these non-timber forest products is a major source of income for many villages in the township. While Longtan is primarily an agricultural township, it has also benefited from the expansion of tourism in recent years. A number of households from several villages earn an income from providing horse rides to tourists visiting a scenic lake in a nearby nature reserve. As in nearby Haidi Township, there have been growing tensions between township residents and nature reserve managers over use of the reserve. These conflicts between communities and the local state and the processes by which they are resolved are discussed in Chapter Six.

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All of Longtan’s residents are ethnic Nuosu (Yi), but there are other divisions within the community. Before the Communist era, Nuosu society was divided into clans and castes. Nuosu customary law strictly regulated interaction between members of each caste. Despite Communist land reforms designed to destroy the Nuosu caste system, the patrilineal clan remains a core feature of Nuosu identity, and villagers uphold customary laws regarding obligations between clan members and castes. The township is dominated by two clans, the Lu and the Shen. Of the two, the Lu clan is the largest and the township head and deputy head are its leading members. The Shen clan is based in Shanpo, but clansmen are closely related to the Lus through intermarriage. Members of these two clans can also be found in nearby villages.

Zulin Township Zulin Township is home to the Tibetan village of Pubu. The township seat is located in the largest village, also called Zulin, an hour’s walk from Pubu. During the collective era, Zulin was integrated into one of the neighboring communes, but because of its remoteness and the poor communications between it and commune headquarters, it was made into a separate township following decollectivization. Zulin Village is the seat of economic and political power in the township. In 2012 the serving township head, deputy township head, and township party secretary were all natives of Zulin Village. Zulin Village is also the base of the largest kinship group in the township, to which the township head and deputy head belong. Due to the township’s remoteness and local tradition, many of its men are accustomed to traveling outside the township in search of work. In the past they would travel for the purpose of trade. Today many township men and, increasingly, women, are employed outside the township. Nearly every family in the township has members working in salaried jobs in the county seat. A county police chief I once met was from Zulin. He had founded an association for Zulin natives working in the county seat. He estimated that as many as ten percent of the township’s population had an off-farm job. By contrast, the head of Dongli Township (introduced below) estimated that fewer than two percent of his township’s residents had permanent off-farm work. Many Zulin Township households received financial support from relatives working in the county. According to a former township official, this was a reason why there were generally fewer conflicts in Zulin Township than in neighboring Dongli Township.

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Dongli Township The village of Dawan is one of fifteen in the township of Dongli. Eleven of Dongli’s villages are ethnic Naxi and four are ethnic Nuosu. The Naxi villages are located at the bottom of the valley around a fertile plain, and the Nuosu settlements are dispersed along the mountain slopes at the top of the valley. The township seat lies in the bottom of the valley where the Naxi villages are clustered, 7 kilometers from Dawan Village. Dongli is one of the poorest townships in the county, because of an unfavorable populationland ratio and a shortage of resources, including a dearth of water for irrigation and a scarcity of firewood. In 2011 annual incomes in Dongli were below 4,000 yuan (US$600) per capita.6 Poverty is associated with several social problems in Dongli Township. A large population is jammed into a narrow valley and a surplus of labor has limited or no access to off-farm employment. Education levels are low because there are few incentives to attend school. Education beyond junior high school is an expense most families cannot afford, and local residents are anyhow reluctant to invest in it because they do not believe it leads to increased opportunities for employment.7 It was also the site of a large population resettlement scheme, the examination of which in Chapter Five sheds light on informal political networks that link the village and township to county and prefecture.

Political and Economic Competition in the Townships Economic competition in the four townships in many ways mirrors competition within the villages, but on a larger scale. Just as kinship groups vie with one another for influence and control over resources, so too do village units compete with one another within the larger township arena. Just like in the villages, there is competition over local resources such as water, forests, and rangelands, and over resources allocated by the township and higher levels of administration. These include contests between villages over funds for road repairs and other infrastructure works. There were contests over where schools and markets should be located, and over access to limited township services such as agricultural extension and rural credit. Since the 2000s, when the central government began to increase

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investments in rural areas, competition between villages over access to state grants and rural development projects has intensified.8

Competition over Local Resources Competition between villages over access to resources is often entangled in political rivalries within township government. During one of my stays in Haidi Township I learned that the township administration had just received a grant to build a new marketplace. The funds were to be used for a concrete floor and a corrugated tin roof, an initiative that was part of the state’s rural development policy. While Haidi’s periodic rural market had always been located in Gede, the largest and oldest village, the new township head wanted to relocate it alongside the main road—two kilometers from the old site—and conveniently closer to the township head’s own village. When the township head announced his plans he encountered stiff opposition from Gede’s village head, who was the head of the township’s largest kinship network and a rival candidate for township head in the preceding year’s elections. The village head owned several stores surrounding the old market from which he collected rents. The gradual shift of the center of trade and commerce from his village to the roadside had already hurt him financially, but the removal of the market would be an even more serious threat to his financial interests. The township head was motivated by the same reasons—he owned stores along the main road and the relocation of the market would increase his rental income. Gede’s village head began a campaign in the township against the relocation of the market. He spread rumors that once the market was moved, traders would have to pay high fees to the township head. He also used his business connections with higher levels of government to ensure that the township’s newly appointed party secretary was sympathetic to his interests. Despite the usual local practice of appointing party secretaries from outside the township, the village head had succeeded in getting his nephew, an employee in the district government, appointed as the next township party secretary. In the face of this strengthened opposition, the township head was forced to capitulate, abandoning the market relocation proposal. Economic conflicts in the townships often revolve around the control of resources that belong to the collectives—the former production teams, known in the official parlance as villager small groups (村民小组 cunmin xiaozu). As village governance structures have changed (many of the former

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teams have dissolved, for example), there is much confusion about where authority over collective land lies. Throughout Poshan Prefecture there have been many instances since the 1980s of both township and village governments making authoritative decisions over collective land use. In Poshan many communities depend on access to collective forests for timber, firewood, and non-timber forest products such as wild mushrooms and vegetables. But even though both village and township governments issue permits for logging, the absence of clear and accepted rules outlining rights and responsibilities for the use of collective forests leads to frequent conflicts. In Dongli Township, for example, the township head logged five cubic meters of timber for his personal use from the collective forest belonging to one village without filing an official request. In protest, the village head then also felled five cubic meters, to demonstrate his equal authority over the use of the collective forest.

Competition over State Funding Rural townships in Laxiang have no funds of their own to redistribute to villages, but they do play an important coordinating role in allocating the state’s largesse. Township leaders are often in a position to decide which village will get a new road or a new school, or be allocated a quota in an agricultural extension program. In remote areas villages frequently compete for qualified teachers for their schools. Qualified county governmentpaid teachers are scarce in remote areas and there is often political wrangling over their deployment. It is common to find some village schools overstaffed, while others languish without a qualified teacher. One of the strengths of the Zulin Township head, for which he was well regarded, was his ability to attract teachers to the township through his political connections in the county. But the best teachers remained in the central village, while the Pubu village school had an untrained locally paid (民办 minban) teacher responsible for three grades of students. However, despite the clear contests between villages for resources controlled by the township government, it would be wrong to characterize political and economic competition in the townships as a zero-sum contest between villages. Because rural economic and political competition largely takes place between kin groups, it is common for groups within the village to form strategic alliances with township leaders (and/or officials at higher levels) in order to defeat opponents within the village. Patron-client ties

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between villagers and local officials are a major feature of politics in the four townships. Such ties provided an important linkage between citizens and officials in Poshan Prefecture and the networks formed on the basis of such relationships were an important means by which political competition within the local state was organized.

Tow nship Leaders As noted above, before 2001, township leaders were all appointed by higher levels of government, but this changed when the prefecture introduced elections in the township marketing district rather than in the villages. Even though township heads and their deputies are now directly elected, they remain on the county payroll, though not as state employees. They are not members of the official nomenklatura (编制bianzhi). Their wages are referred to as a “subsidy” rather than a “salary,” reflecting the township leaders’ status as community leaders rather than as state officials. Starting in 2001, along with rural residents across the prefecture, the populations of Haidi, Longtan, Dongli, and Zulin Townships elected new township heads and deputy township heads from among their ranks. That year, all four townships elected candidates with entrepreneurial backgrounds. Many of the villagers I surveyed indicated that it was important for the township head to be someone who was skilled at business, largely because of the perception that the job involved personal expenses. Many people hoped that the township head’s entrepreneurial skills would be used to better manage the township administration and to stimulate economic activity. The township head had to have first-rate (by village standards) political connections with officials at higher levels of government, and villagers believed this to be a vital criterion for leadership, because without connections a township might be ignored in the distribution of state rural development projects. Table 1 shows the results of a random survey I conducted of 277 households encompassing all the four townships. The figures show the number of times villagers ranked each quality as most important for township heads. Very similar results were recorded for village leaders’ credentials. Among a population of several thousand, several candidates possessed the required qualities. Electoral success depended on a candidate’s ability to attract and retain followers. In the absence of political parties and ideological

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Table 1.  Villagers’ Rankings of Township Heads’ Essential Leadership Qualities (%) Haidi Township

Dongli Township

Longtan Township

Zulin Township

Honesty

20

0

12

10

Diligence

2

9

0

5

Experience working for the state

26

22

53

11

Good connections

52

61

35

68

Formal education

0

8

0

6

Leadership quality

platforms, the most important means of attracting supporters was through the mobilization of kinship networks. Kinship groups rally behind their candidate in the hope that their kinsman will use his political authority to favor them in the allocation of resources. In most cases a township leader’s kinship network will be among the largest in the township. However, unlike in village politics, reliance on the descent group is usually insufficient as this would divide the township into too many competing political groupings. Successful township leaders need to mobilize their extended affinal (wife’s) kin networks and form strategic alliances with other kin groups. It is common for a smaller kin group in the township to ally with a larger one during township elections. In addition, there is a notable tendency for powerful families in these rural areas to arrange marriages for their offspring in order to strengthen kin networks in the township. The role of kinship networks in township elections is examined more thoroughly in Chapter Three.

Profiling the New ly Elected Township Heads Dongli Township The winner of the first elections for Dongli Township head was a 37-yearold man known as Long Hair, from the township’s second largest village. He was a moderately successful entrepreneur who owned and operated a small brick factory. He had a reputation in the village for getting things done. He had once organized a group of men to build a new reservoir to

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help solve a water shortage in his wife’s family’s village. For this, he managed to obtain ten tons of concrete free of charge through his uncle, who served as head of the county People’s Congress (县人民代表大会 xian renmindaibiao dahui). On another occasion, he led a group of men in a fight against villagers from another township who refused to allow Dongli residents to harvest mushrooms in a nearby area of state forest. Long Hair and his men attacked these villagers with crude gasoline bombs in order to scare them off. His strategy of intimidation succeeded, winning his fellow villagers access to the forests. His actions demonstrated that he was a man of consequence in the township, but a more important factor in his eventual success was the kin backing he received from his own village and from the township’s largest village, where his wife was from.

Longtan Township The winner of the first township elections in Longtan was, not surprisingly, the chief of the township’s largest Nuosu clan, a man with unrivalled traditional authority. Although at fifty he was technically too old for the post (local state regulations demand that township heads be under fifty years of age in accordance with a central government policy of installing a younger leadership), higher levels approved his appointment.9 Township head Moga had worked previously for the rural credit cooperative and had built good relationships with officials at higher levels, particularly in the Animal Husbandry Bureau and in the Poor Area Development Office (PADO). Before becoming township head he served as a village head and had succeeded in attaining “model poverty alleviation village” (温饱示范村 wenbao shifan cun) status for his village, which entitled him to a monetary reward and more state funding for rural development projects. He owned a taxi, which his son drove in the county seat, affording him an extra source of income. Notwithstanding his political skills and wide respect, Moga largely owed his domination at the polls to his status within the clan hierarchy of local Nuosu social organization. Partly because of this, before the election he was already considered the most influential figure in the township, commanding more authority among villagers than the state-appointed township head and party secretary. Local state officials had recognized this, and always sought his cooperation on policy implementation. They understood that if Moga opposed them, their jobs would be more difficult. In this sense, the

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election in Longtan gave de jure recognition to the already de facto leader of the township.

Zulin Township The first directly elected head of Zulin Township was also a former village head, and a man with superior political connections in county government. While a number of families in the township benefited from the connections provided by family members working in local state agencies and enterprises, the township head was particularly well connected. His paternal uncle was chief of the prefecture’s Public Security (that is, police) Bureau, and his maternal uncle was chief secretary of the prefectural party committee. Through these uncles, he had a direct line of communication to the highest officials in the local party and government. Connections such as this were sometimes enough to elevate a villager to a high status regardless of individual capability. In fact, few villagers whom I met during several visits to the township spoke highly of their township head, and some complained of his corruption while serving as village head. But he stood at the center of the township’s largest kinship network and had superior political connections, and very few people would openly challenge or criticize his leadership. He did not face any serious competition in the election.

Haidi Township Haidi’s first directly elected township head had a background similar to that of the other township heads. He had been the chief of his own village and had also proven himself to be a successful businessman. Township head Duan owned a delivery vehicle, which he used to transport building materials, and he collected rents from buildings that he had erected by the roadside. He had also made an important ally in the previous township government while he served as village head, a man who subsequently was promoted to head a county agency that was a source of lucrative project funding. Township head Duan had good connections, but what was different about his election was that he could not rely on kin support alone. His rival in the election came from the largest village in the township and sat at the apex of a much larger kin network. But, as village head and a successful entrepreneur for more than twenty years, his rival had gained a reputation for being interested only in self-aggrandizement. Even some members of his

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extended kin network deserted him in the election, giving Duan a narrow victory. Since the election was a tight race, it encouraged an ongoing rivalry between the two men, a manifestation of which was the dispute over the location of the agricultural produce market mentioned earlier.

Decision M aking w ithin the Township Governments Like village heads, township leaders are generally responsible for most affairs within their jurisdictions. There is very little specialization in administrative functions and almost no separation between politics and administration. Deputy leaders are usually delegated certain administrative tasks, such as the management of specific projects, the maintenance of statistical records, and the implementation of policy initiatives such as nine-year compulsory education, but most decisions, particularly regarding township finances and economic development, are the responsibility of the township head. The township head sometimes consults with the township party secretary, but the party secretary has little incentive to engage in the daily operations of township administration. In these townships, the party secretary’s main function is to ensure that the township government’s decisions and actions do not threaten social stability or conflict with party policy.

Relations between the Township Head and the Party Secretary The official duties of the township party secretary are to supervise the operations of the government. According to a former township party secretary, “As party secretary my main task was to ensure stability, because without stability there can be no development. The township head’s main task is to promote economic development in the township.”10 According to local officials, there is an unwritten rule that when something goes wrong, if it is an economic problem, the township head is held 60 percent accountable and the party secretary 40 percent accountable; but if it is a political or social stability problem such as a protest, the responsibility ratio is reversed. In reality, however, the party secretary’s involvement in the affairs of the township varies considerably between townships. Some party secretaries are hands-off while some are more interventionist. This difference depends on personalities, personal power relations, and the career ambitions of the party secretary.

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One of the most perplexing issues in China’s political system during recent decades has been the relationship between the party secretary and the head of government at each level. Since the 1990s party secretaries have generally been considered the “first hand” (一把手 yibashou)—i.e., the chief decision maker at all levels of government. However, this conventional wisdom needs to be treated with caution. Because of the low level of formalism at the township level, the dynamics between the party secretary and local head of government are influenced as much by personal relations and leadership qualities as by formal divisions of authority. In the four townships I investigated I discovered that the balance of power between the two depended largely on the party secretary’s attitude toward the job and the relative strength of the leaders’ political networks. Drawing on my four case studies and interviews with county and prefectural officials, I was able to identify two broad types of party secretaries at the township level: the engaged and the disengaged. Engaged party secretaries are those who take an active interest in township administration and economic development. They are actively involved in bidding for projects and funds and work with the township head as a close decision-making team. These party secretaries tend to be young, well connected, and professionally ambitious. The disengaged party secretary is largely uninterested in the nitty-gritty of township administration, is not well connected, and does not hold much hope of promotion—usually due to weak abilities, poor connections, or advanced age.11 The disengaged party secretary is content to collect his salary while making sure that nothing calamitous happens on his watch. In Laxiang County the disengaged type of party secretary appeared to be more common, particularly following the introduction of elections for townships heads in 2001. Although party secretaries have higher status than government leaders at the same level, low levels of institutionalization mean that individual political clout can often shift the balance of power. In Dongli Township, for example, the party secretary was no match for the aggressive and outspoken township head. This was helped by the fact that the Dongli Township head enjoyed superior connections in the county government, and was not afraid to use coercion to implement his will. Township residents reported that the party secretary feared the belligerent township head, which might explain why the party secretary chose to live in the county seat, visiting the township only when necessary. In Longtan Township, the party secretary also

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spent much of his time in the county seat, where his wife was employed. He only came to the township for meetings or to accompany visiting higherlevel delegations. Party secretaries appointed from outside the area often struggled to assert themselves in ethnic minority areas because of their unfamiliarity with local social and cultural complexities and inability to speak the township residents’ mother tongue. This was the case in Longtan Township, where the party secretary was not an ethnic Nuosu. I attended several meetings between the party secretary, the township head, and the village heads, where the party secretary spoke in Chinese, but everyone else spoke in the Nuosu language. The party secretary said what he needed to say, and simply tuned out when others began talking. Once, long after the discussion had moved on to another subject, the party secretary remembered something he had forgotten to say previously and tried to shout it in Chinese over the din. The others at the meeting simply ignored him. The position of the party secretary was also sometimes weakened by the application of “regional avoidance” (地区回避 diqu huibi) policy—an ancient Chinese political practice designed to prevent the concentration of administrative power in the hands of local power brokers. This means that party secretaries usually serve five-year terms in townships where they have few political connections and where they are usually unconnected to local social, political, and economic networks. This was the case in Zulin and Haidi Townships up until 2004, when the position of party secretary was nativized (本土化 bentuhua). Because of kin connections and other social ties and their long-term interests in the affairs of the locality, the new native township party secretaries I interviewed were clearly more engaged in township politics. In Zulin, the party secretary took a greater interest than his predecessor in the affairs of the township, becoming directly involved in animal husbandry and environmental projects. The nativization of township party secretaries was a growing trend in the prefecture, reflecting recent central government efforts to get party secretaries more engaged in grassroots governance. The nativization policy seemed to have a positive effect in Zulin, where the party secretary was also keenly interested in promoting education and obtaining more resources for the township’s schools. As a former teacher, he was respected and liked throughout the township. A less salubrious effect of the nativization of party secretaries could be seen in Haidi Township. Haidi’s party secretary was, as earlier noted,

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a nephew of the Gede Village head, the rival candidate in the township elections. He allied himself with his uncle against the township head and blocked some of the township head’s plans, such as his idea to relocate the market, which naturally soured their working relationship. But this is not to suggest that the party secretary was more powerful than the township head. Rather, because he was local he was fronting for his own kinship group’s vested interests in the township. Concern over such entrenched interests was the rationale behind China’s centuries-old regional avoidance system. As can be seen from his example, nativization does not always achieve its desired effect, especially where loyalties to kin trump obligations to post.

Interpreting the Political Behavior of Township Heads Although township heads are responsible for all the affairs of the township, dealing daily with conflicts and complaints, in Laxiang County they receive very modest remuneration. Following the introduction of elections in 2001, the previous salary of 1,500 yuan was slashed to a subsidy of approximately 600 yuan per month. The actual rate of pay varied between 590 and 630 according to the size of the township.12 For the elected township leaders, the monthly subsidy was not much of an incentive. The subsidy was insufficient to cover the additional personal costs involved in serving as township head. As a township head observed, Before becoming township head I used to smoke cigarettes that cost 2 or 3 yuan per pack. But now, because of my position, I have to smoke a better brand of cigarette that costs 10–15 yuan. And as township head I meet people and give them cigarettes every day. If I go through two packs of 10 yuan cigarettes a day, that’s 600 yuan a month. That’s my whole subsidy!13

Other township leaders echoed these sentiments. All agreed that the expenses they incurred when hosting guests, traveling to meetings, and in telephone calls in the district and county cost them far in excess of the subsidy. Despite the limited subsidy, township elections in Poshan Prefecture are highly contested. This suggests that candidates have other incentives to run for office. Performance-based cash payments are one such incentive. To encourage effective implementation of state policy at the local level, higher levels of government increasingly use cash rewards and penalties. Longtan Township, for example, received a 10,000-yuan prize from the Forestry

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Bureau for reporting no forest fires for two years. This money can be used at the discretion of the township head. Township heads also receive cash rewards for the successful implementation of priority policies, especially family planning, where performance is evaluated according to annual fertility rates. In addition to these official bonuses, township leaders sometimes also receive unofficial cash payments from higher levels of government. The practice of distributing cash to top up the salaries of underpaid civil servants is common at all levels of government. Different localities adopt different approaches to rewarding their officials. While traveling in Shanghai with an official delegation from the county as part of my research for this book, I learned that the accepted practice for a state agency hosting a banquet is to give an envelope with cash inside to each attendee. A local businessman informed me that local officials in Shanghai could in this way increase their official income by several times. In Poshan Prefecture, it was common for similar payments to be distributed through the officials’ patronage networks. This shored up loyalties between different agencies and between different levels of the party-state. The head of Dongli Township, for example, once received an unofficial cash payment of 5,000 yuan from the head of the county Finance Bureau to help with administrative expenses. As the former Finance Bureau head explained, “the township administration was broke. I gave the township head the money to express my congratulations and support, and to foster good working relations with him.”14 While many rural township administrations with little or no industry have very small budgets and few resources to control, rural areas that have ethnic minority or poor-area status receive subsidies from higher central and provincial authorities (see Chapter Five). Township heads have minimal discretion over the types of projects the funds are used for, but they often are able to choose the village or households that will receive a grant or project. Township leaders can strengthen their patronage network by negotiating with village heads over which households within the village will receive grants. They are often also able to direct the funds toward themselves and their kin. In Dongli Township the township head received ten tons of concrete from PADO to pave the township central school’s yard. He used two tons to pave his own yard and to build concrete steps from his house up to the main path. I had worked with the township head on another school-building project in the township so we were accustomed to

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frank conversations.15 This is what he had to say about his appropriation of the school’s concrete: “It’s simple. I got the concrete from the district government. Now the school has a paved courtyard. Why shouldn’t I use the extra concrete for myself? If I hadn’t made efforts to get it, the school would have gotten nothing anyway.”16 Not only was this type of attitude common, but villagers readily accepted it as the natural way of things—the legitimate spoils of office. In Longtan Township the newly elected township head arranged through his contacts in PADO for his home village to be designated a “model poverty alleviation village.” In Zulin Township, a new national park office was planning to contract out the task of locating signposts along a trail between the township headquarters and a nearby lake, in preparation for a visit by provincial and central government officials. The township head gave the contract to his cousin. For each signpost installation the budget was 200 yuan. The township head’s cousin subsequently hired someone else to do the work for 50 yuan, splitting the profits with the township head. In Haidi the township head secured a large rural development project that ran for three years and included a variety of small projects that he could allocate as patronage to his preferred beneficiaries. The head of the governing agency in the county was a native of the township, which meant he also had a vested interest in the allocation of many of the projects. The overall budget for this project also included 55,000 yuan for local administrative and miscellaneous expenses over three years, which the township head could use at his discretion, including for entertainment expenses. This sum of money was larger than his job subsidy, and a significant amount for the head of a poor rural township. In Dongli, the township head raised 60,000 yuan through the offices of his uncle, who served as head of the county People’s Congress, to build a new kitchen for the township’s central elementary school. The township head profited from the project by making the bricks and selling them to the kitchen’s builders at an inflated price. But this was a small profit in comparison to the money the township head withheld from the project itself. By mobilizing corvée labor from the village, he managed to reduce costs significantly. An engineer serving as a representative of the County Political Consultative Conference (政治协商会议 zhengzhi xieshang huiyi) estimated the construction costs of the completed kitchen to be no more than 15,000 yuan, about a quarter of the funding allocated. If the township head

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had embezzled the missing funds, this amount was equivalent to six times his annual official remuneration, and a good reason to fight to keep his job. Later, the township head did have to fight to keep his job in a fiercely contested election (see Chapter Three). Because of fiscal pressures to cover administrative expenses and fund rural projects, successful township leaders must be financially creative and well connected. This is why they spent much of their time networking with county and prefectural officials. Some township heads spent more than half of their time in the county seat lobbying government agencies and negotiating mutually beneficial deals. Given their personal efforts to win financial support for their locales, many township leaders considered it appropriate to reward themselves with a share of the spoils. Without such kickbacks there would arguably be little or no incentive to take on the low-paid job of township head. According to a former township head, everybody knows what goes on. It’s just normal politics around here. None of us have enough money to do what we need to do, so you have to find another way. The only solution is to raise our salaries, but the central government wouldn’t dare. The peasants think officials have too much already so a large pay raise for us cadres might cause them to revolt!17

Sometimes township leaders need to “invest” their own funds in order to secure more funding. Township leaders reported a need to offer incentives to higher-level government officials in order to persuade them to allocate funds to their township. According to the head of Haidi Township, if you’re not a good host for higher officials you’ll get nothing. When they visit, you have to organize a big banquet and supply them with good wine. But what they really want is money. They can give you state funding for this or that, but they expect you to “help” them in return. We often help each other by playing games of mahjong. When we play mahjong we let them win large sums of money, sometimes 5,000 or 10,000 yuan. When they win, they’re happy and will look after us in the future. Before I became township head I never played mahjong. I had to learn it as part of my job!18

Personal networks facilitate the exchange of politically motivated payments. Offering bribes outside of one’s inner circle (圈子 quanzi) can be dangerous, because it is possible that political rivals will obtain the information and report it to the Communist Party’s Discipline Inspection Committee.19 In cases where informal ties between two parties are weak or ambiguous,

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an intermediary will sometimes act as a broker, personally guaranteeing the reliability of each party to the transaction. In one village I visited, a local developer was interested in purchasing collective land for a tourism development project. Because the developer would need the support of the village head in any transaction regarding collective land, its directors devised to win over the village head with gifts. They used an intermediary—a man from the same village who was working in the county seat—to take a sounding about whether the village head would be interested in discussing the deal and whether he would accept a gift as a token of the developer’s sincerity. As land prices increased during the 2000s, the bribing of village heads in order to secure preferential access to prime tracts of peri-urban land became increasingly common. Land deals and land-related conflicts are discussed in more detail in Chapter Six.

Vill age-Tow nship R el ations: Cooper ation and Control The relationship between township and village has changed much since decentralization and the introduction of market economy reforms. In the Maoist era township (commune) officials were able to command village leaders by administrative fiat and through the use of mass mobilization and political campaigns. Since decollectivization in the 1980s and the introduction of village elections in 1990s, the authority of township leaders over rural communities has been greatly diminished. Township government has been further weakened by tax reforms that reduced the amount of revenue the township governments could extract from the rural populace. Since the tax-for-fee reform of the early 2000s and the complete abolition of agricultural taxes in 2006, township governments have become increasingly dependent on the county government for financing. With their authority and taxation powers diminished, leaders of the lowest level of state administration must rely on winning the cooperation of village heads in the implementation of state policies. In Poshan a chief means of co-opting village heads lies in the township leaders’ power to channel state resources (development projects, grants, agricultural extension services, infrastructure projects) to village communities. In the four townships, I frequently observed township leaders

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using this real and imagined power to make deals. If the township leader recommends a village for projects, then he is more likely to find that village leaders are generally cooperative in other areas of work, such as meeting policy targets for rural development, family planning, and education. Township leaders need to be astute in allocating these resources as a means of building cooperation and political capital. In Haidi Township, the township head especially needed to build such support, since he was aware he might well be challenged for his position in a forthcoming election by the head of the largest village in the township, whose nephew was the township’s party secretary. The incumbent township head’s kin and rural social networks were not as extensive as his rival’s, but he managed to cultivate the support of kin groups in several other villages through the strategic allocation of grants he had secured from the county government. For instance, the township head was in a position to recommend households to participate in a new agribusiness scheme that would provide start-up capital for animal husbandry enterprises. A variety of such projects enabled him to lure some villagers out of his rival’s sphere of influence. In Dongli Township the township head was responsible for distributing cash subsidies to villagers for their participation in the Sloping Land Conversion Program.20 Farmers were entitled to receive grain and cash subsidies in exchange for converting mountainside farmland to forest. When the program was first launched, the township head called a meeting of all the village heads to announce his intention to share with the village heads, on a 50–50 basis, the money that was supposed to be paid directly and entirely to the farmers whose cropland was being converted to forest. The same township head was also known to host banquets for the village heads at which he would regale them with expensive food and alcoholic beverages. In Longtan Township, the township head allocated funds for a PADO housing project to the households of several village heads. He explained that, as leaders of their respective communities, they should set an example by living in a higher standard of housing. Needless to say, the village heads did not disagree. The township head used another fund to pay village leaders an annual subsidy for telephone costs. In some cases, a township head would use selective policy implementation to undermine an uncooperative village head. The head of Longtan Township employed such a tactic in punishing a village head who had

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opposed him in the township elections. The township head appointed a rival in the village as manager of a small tourist enterprise, which served as a major source of income for villagers. This made the man more influential in the village than the village head. Township heads are also able to dispense patronage in the form of employment opportunities. While wage labor is rare in rural areas, a few state-funded positions in the township and village administrations could be allocated to local residents at the township head’s discretion. In Poshan Prefecture, for example, every village had a paid forest guard, whose job was to report on fires and to promote fire safety. The Forestry Bureau paid the forest guard’s salary, but the township government nominated the candidate for the position in each village. Township leaders could award these positions to the village head or to the village head’s rivals as a means of cultivating good relations. In Zulin Township, for instance, the township head faced opposition from the head of one of the township’s villages. As retribution, in the year following the election he appointed someone from another family in the village as the forest guard, even though, in Zulin, this position was customarily awarded to the village head in order to supplement his meager income. Despite the increasing formalization of work contracts and performance monitoring, the dynamics of relations between village and township leaders were greatly influenced by informal personal networks. In Zulin Township’s Pubu Village, one land-poor family that relied heavily on animal husbandry became embroiled in a rangeland dispute with a family from Zulin Village, the township’s central village. In years past all rangelands had belonged to the former production team, but in recent years the county was demanding that more of these lands be contracted to individual households. This was because livestock numbers were increasing in the teamowned commons, reducing the quality of the grazing land. The Pubu family argued that the Zulin villager had encroached on their household rangelands for the past two seasons. The Zulin family suggested that they take the matter to the township government for arbitration. However, the Pubu family resisted this course of action, knowing that the Zulin family had better relations with the township head. As further evidence of the personal nature of village and township politics, the Pubu family would not seek the assistance of the newly appointed township party secretary because the family did not know him. Pubu’s own village head did not want to get

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involved because the other party in the dispute had more influence with the township head. In the end, because of the relative weakness of their informal ties, the Pubu family was forced to seek arbitration in the district court, a lengthy and costly procedure with an uncertain outcome. Despite the capricious, biased, and self-interested behavior of local leaders, villagers did not report resentment toward them. During my long discussions and interviews in Pubu and other villages, it was clear that villagers accepted the personal nature of politics. Providing special treatment to family and friends was not considered unjust.

three

Political Competition in Two Townships: Elections, Violence, and Rural Social Networks

Following the gradual introduction of village elections throughout China at the end of the 1990s a handful of regions experimented with elections for township government leaders. This step was considered significant, because, unlike village leaders, township leaders are state officials. Perhaps because of this, the central government quickly issued a national moratorium on the practice, which had been in place since 2000. Nevertheless, because of an administrative anomaly, elections have been held in Poshan Prefecture’s townships every three years since 2001, providing a rare opportunity for analyzing political competition and power relations in the countryside. Because elections bring political competition into the open, they serve as a useful prism for observing political behavior and the interactions between complex webs of interests embedded in rural society and in the local state.

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Tow nship Elections in L a xiang Although direct elections are now regularly held for village leaders in most of China’s 740,000 villages, there has only been limited experimentation with elections for township leaders. As the lowest level of state administration, the township has been a primary focal point for peasant discontent, and in the 1990s reformers within the party-state advocated township elections as a means of enhancing state legitimacy at the grassroots. Early experiments with township elections in Buyun and Nanchang became the subject of scholarly attention, but interest dissipated after the central government effectively banned further experimentation in 2000.1 Laxiang County provides an opportunity to study a previously unknown series of township elections, due to an anomaly in Poshan Prefecture’s administrative nomenclature. As noted in Chapter Two, local authorities decided to reclassify the prefecture’s townships as “administrative villages” in 1987–1988 in order to comply (or feign compliance) with central and provincial demands to reduce the size of local government. This structural change amounted to little more than “moving the chairs” and carried little practical significance until a new national regulation mandated elections for the leaders of administrative villages. Village elections have been conducted in various parts of China since 1987, but implementation was voluntary until the regulations were codified in 1998. The Poshan Prefectural leadership had resisted implementing elections through the 1990s; they had little choice but to comply after 1998. But even though ostensibly these were elections for the leadership of “administrative villages,” in Poshan Prefecture’s three counties this really meant the townships—i.e., several thousand people spread across twenty or more villages. I stayed for extended periods in the townships to observe the 2004 and 2007 elections, and visited both townships again shortly after the 2010 elections. Information about the first elections in 2001 was obtained through interviews with villagers, township leaders, and township election committee representatives. Because these were supposed to be elections for the “administrative village” leadership, they were organized according to the electoral process outlined in the 1998 Organic Law on Village SelfGovernance. Once a date was set for the elections, the district government instructed the townships to form election committees and to begin voter registration. Using village records, the committees compiled lists of eligible voters and submitted them to the township government. In accordance

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with national regulations, all adults except convicted felons and the mentally ill were eligible to register. The committee then prepared posters of the registered voter lists in each village and instructed village heads to post the notices in a public place, typically on the wall outside the village administrative office or school. This gave villagers an opportunity to challenge the eligibility of a particular voter or to bring any omissions to the committee’s attention. The same voter registration lists were used as a checklist on election day to prevent ineligible villagers from voting and to prevent eligible voters from voting more than once. The deadline for voter registration was ten days before the election. Once the voters’ list was completed the election committee’s task was to finalize the candidate lists. This was done using a system of open nomination. Villagers could submit nominations to the election organizing committee, with a minimum of ten signatures required for each nominee. Following nationwide practice, only two candidates were allowed to contest the election so the process of nominations was arguably the most important stage in the election process. In Laxiang County, the two nominees with the largest number of signatures (supporters) were invited by the election committee to stand as candidates for election. Each township held its elections in a central location in the township, usually in the yard of the central school. Roving ballot boxes were deployed to those villages located a long distance from the polling station. Ballot boxes were provided for each of the township’s villages, and on election day voters were required to assemble in front of their village’s polling station. Representatives from the township election committee and the district manned each ballot station, calling on villagers by name in accordance with the voter register, which was kept at each booth. Voters approached the booth to vote only when their name was called. Different colored forms were used to distinguish the ballots for township head, township deputy heads and, in some cases, for township representatives to district and county People’s Congresses if these elections were being held simultaneously. Proxy voting was permitted for up to four family members. Once all votes were cast—which can take the better part of a day—the election committee members took the ballot boxes to an indoor location to begin the count. Candidates were permitted to observe from the sidelines, but no other members of the public were permitted to enter the counting room. Each village’s votes were counted separately and then the totals from

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each village were recorded on a large blackboard. The greatest concern for election officials was to ensure a valid result. For a valid result, one candidate must have received the votes of a majority of the eligible registered populace, so a low turnout would invalidate the election, as might a very close vote. In the case of the deputy township head there were three candidates, so more than one-third of the total votes of the registered electorate was required for victory. If candidates failed to receive the minimum number of votes a reelection must be held. In a reelection, only two-thirds of registered voters were required to participate in order for the election results to be legally valid. In Haidi Township I was invited in 2004 to shadow the district team responsible for organizing the elections, which provided unprecedented access to the behind-the-scenes machinations in the electoral processes. It is remarkable the extent to which rural social networks and informal groups operating at higher levels of the state were able to manipulate the process. Observing the lead up to elections in Haidi and Dongli Townships, I learned that the real competition took place before township residents could cast their votes.

Behind the Scenes at the Haidi Tow nship Elections By the close of 2003 the head of Haidi Township was nearing the end of his three-year term. Although the county had not yet announced the next elections, the township was awash with gossip about whether there would be a genuine contest. The victor in 2001, Zhao, was expected to run again, leaving room for only one other official candidate. Many expected Balong’s village head to run because he was a successful entrepreneur and an effective orator. He also benefited from a large kin support base in two of the township’s larger villages. However, Balong’s village head only stood a realistic chance of winning if Old Yang, who had received the second highest number of votes in the 2001 elections, decided not to stand. Old Yang was chief of the township’s oldest and largest village and the head of a large kinship network that spanned several villages. Old Yang also enjoyed political clout with the district government and was one of the richest men in the township. If he decided to run again for

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township head, he would be able to mobilize more nominations than any other potential rival to the incumbent.

Election Strategies By April 2004 the prefectural and county governments had still not yet announced the date of the second round of township elections, although rumors suggested they would soon be called. Anticipating the announcement, leadership aspirants began work on their campaign strategies. The township head made his intention to run for reelection clear, but his rivals were more circumspect, initially keeping their cards close to their chests. Balong’s village head, Mu Xiaolin, quietly canvassed his support base. He organized meetings with senior kinsmen and friends in other villages in order to estimate the number of nominations that he could expect to attract. As he explained to me, in the first phase of the elections nobody says “I want to challenge the township head.” That would make you the subject of ridicule if you later don’t receive enough nominations and would also risk offending the township head. That’s why people canvass for nominations in secret or send their relatives and friends to gather support. After they get the nominations they can then say that it’s the people’s wish for them to stand.

Mu’s chances were significantly bolstered when he learned that Old Yang was not planning to stand again. Old Yang even promised to throw his support behind a Mu campaign. According to Mu, Old Yang told him that, because he was too old, Mu stood a better chance of beating Zhao, their mutual rival. Old Yang resented Zhao for defeating him in the first round of elections. His defeat was compounded by the subsequent shift in the locus of township political and economic power from his village to Zhao’s village. The fight over the location of the agricultural market mentioned in Chapter Two was a tipping point in this struggle. Mu had his own incentives for dispossessing Zhao of the leadership. Zhao had cultivated relations with a rival kin group in Mu’s village, which had begun to undermine his authority in the village. Zhao also operated a guesthouse in direct competition with Mu’s lodge. Buoyed by Old Yang’s promise of support, Mu began canvassing other influential men in the township. During the process he learned that there were other leadership aspirants, including one of the serving

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deputy township heads. To his consternation, Mu learned that Old Yang had simultaneously promised to support the deputy township head’s bid to be elected township head. Mu told me he suspected Old Yang was trying to manipulate the candidates. Mu’s suspicions later proved to be correct. Mu and the deputy township head continued to prosecute their undeclared campaigns by visiting friends and relatives throughout the township, trying to mobilize as many potential nominees as possible. There was one other candidate in another part of the township who had good prospects. He, too, could be seen shuttling between households bearing gifts of tea and cigarettes. It was common practice to distribute gifts to curry favor among voters.

Finalizing the Candidates The deadline for nominations was one week before election day. On the day before the nominations were due the district government team of officials arrived in the township. The team comprised six members, including a deputy party secretary, the chair of the People’s Congress, a police officer, and three junior administrative officers. The district officials set up a command office at the township government headquarters, bringing with them a servant to cook their meals and tidy their quarters. Their plan was to camp out at the township government headquarters until the election was over. According to the team leader, the team’s most important task was to finalize the list of candidates to contest the positions of township head and deputy township head. The district team’s official functions were to support the township election committee and to ensure that the elections were implemented in accordance with the law and local regulations. However, upon their arrival in Haidi, the district team assumed control of organizing the election from the township election committee, treating the latter as a secretariat. For example, they immediately delegated to the election committee the tedious task of writing by hand on large posters the electoral rolls for each village. Aware of their diminishing relevance, several of the township committee members returned home and did not bother to attend subsequent meetings. During the week-long preparations the district team appeared to discharge its duties with a high degree of concern for procedural integrity. The team scrupulously counted the nominations to determine which two men would

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be approved as official candidates to stand in the election. While members of the public were not permitted to observe, all of the nominations were counted in a transparent fashion in full view of committee members and the township party secretary and township head. As soon as the count was complete, district officials ordered township officials to publicize the results on the outside wall of the township office. A large red card written in black ink was displayed as the first of a series of public posters used during the election to communicate progress to township residents (see Table 2). With 1,177 signatures, the incumbent township head’s large number of nominations surprised everyone including himself. It reflected broad support for his leadership, but also, as I was to later learn, widespread concern in the township over the intentions of rival candidates—“better the devil you know,” according to one skeptical villager. Balong’s head, Mu, polled reasonably well, but it was clear that he lacked the numbers to mount a serious challenge. Rather than face humiliation at the polls, Mu decided to withdraw from the race and to mend his relations with the township head. As Mu explained, “if Zhao is reelected, we’ll need to be able to work together.” With so few nominations, the deputy township head Yang Junwu also withdrew from the race in order to concentrate on his reelection as deputy. He also sought to repair relations with the incumbent township head. The township head later reflected on the deputy township head’s fumbled attempt to unseat his boss: “Of course it was awkward between us when I learned that he wanted to contest the leadership. But I understood that Old Yang was manipulating him. Anyway, we have to cooperate in our jobs and he’s been a good deputy.” In the first days after the nominations were announced Zhao appeared certain to win, but Old Yang was preparing to destabilize his reelection. Old Yang began spreading the word that he was intending to challenge, despite coming eighth in the overall nominations. Apparently, Old Yang had not sought to mobilize more nominations because he initially planned to support a protégé—someone he could control once in office. But when this strategy failed, Old Yang decided to mount a direct challenge himself. However, the question remained how Old Yang would secure a position on the ticket when he ranked eighth in the list of nominees. Mu and the deputy township head had already pulled out of the race, but there were still four potential candidates ahead of Old Yang on the list. According to the regulations, the election work team was required to offer the second position on the ballot to each of the nominees in order of their ranking.

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Table 2. Nominated Candidates for Haidi Township Head Name Zhao Ronghai [incumbent township head]

No. of nominations 1,177

Mu Xiaolin [Balong Village head]

544

Li Jianbing

327

Wang Lisan

167

Yang Junwu [incumbent deputy township head]

32

Yang Yimo

28

Yang Hongbing

22

Yang Shukai [Old Yang]

19

Mo Lixiong

13

Yang Wei

11

Li Shaoquan

10

In order to get a place on the ballot, Old Yang would have to make sure that the four nominees ahead of him declined the invitation to stand. Fortunately for him, he had the political and social capital needed to engineer this outcome. His first and most important weapon was the reach of his kinship network. Through either blood or marriage he was related to a large community of people in several of the township’s larger villages. As a village head and successful entrepreneur he had long established himself as head of this network. Because he continued to command great influence over the distribution of resources within the community, when Old Yang announced a desire to contest the elections it would have taken a brave man in the township to deny him that opportunity. The other weapon at Old Yang’s disposal was his relationship with other township and district government officials, and access to their political networks in the county and prefectural governments. The district government team that had been dispatched to Haidi Township to coordinate the elections consisted of officials who were socially connected in various ways to both the incumbent and Old Yang. Because the acting governor of the district had a good relationship with the incumbent township head, members of the team who were aligned with the governor naturally supported the incumbent in the township elections. However, a rival of the district

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governor allied himself with Old Yang, because defeating the incumbent township head would undermine the district governor. The district-level political rivals were each linked to different patronage networks in the county government. These patronage networks had vested interests in the outcome of the election because having allies at the township level facilitated informal control over local projects. Even Haidi Township’s party secretary had an interest in the outcome. He was Old Yang’s nephew. The importance of the personal relationships between these various actors belied the integrity with which the district election team and the township election organizing committee appeared to observe the formal electoral rules. Even though Old Yang had not yet publicly announced his intention to run, by now all members the committee knew he was planning to contest the ballot. And despite appearances at the first committee meetings, each member of the committee had a preferred candidate and a stake in the election outcome. Because I was well acquainted with two of the district officials overseeing the election, I was permitted to observe their meetings. In their first post-nomination meeting, the team’s key task was to identify a candidate to run against the township head. Following procedure, the team summoned the next nominee on the list—Li Jianbing. Township Head Zhao’s supporters were keen to secure Li as a candidate, in order to thwart Old Yang. I watched as this group cajoled Li Jianbing, a former soldier, appealing to his sense of duty to the community. The district team head and the township party secretary, who were in Old Yang’s camp, did not say a word. Despite coming under intense pressure from some members of the election team, the former soldier refused to accept the nomination, claiming that he did not have the support needed to win. Pro-Zhao members of the team eventually gave up and dismissed him. The team then summoned the fourth-ranked nominee—Wang Lisan. According to villagers, Wang was held in high esteem in his home village, where he had once served as village head. He was an ordinary farmer, not an entrepreneur, but he was widely considered an intelligent and fair man. The pro-Zhao camp was desperate to secure this man as a candidate. Wang had received a respectable 167 nominations. After him, the next two candidates had received only a handful of nominations, making it extremely unlikely they would consider contesting the election. Only after these nominees had been excluded could Old Yang be invited to stand.

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Pro-Zhao members of the team pressed Wang, promising that he would enjoy great favor in the district and county governments if he were to accept the nomination. The man appeared surprised and slightly intimidated by the officials’ exhortations, but he nevertheless declined the offer. Later Wang’s brother confirmed that Old Yang had contacted Wang to tell him of his intention to run. Wang was not going to stand in his way. The district team was now left with nominees who had received only a handful of votes. They summoned nominee number five, but he, too, declined. Villagers later informed me that this man was a second cousin of Old Yang. The election work team began searching for the next nominee, Yang Yimo. Unable to reach him by telephone, the team decided to look for him in his village at the end of the valley. The road to his village was slippery and dangerous after recent rains, so because I was the only one with a jeep, the district deputy party secretary asked if I would drive them there. All six of the team members squeezed uncomfortably into the jeep along with the township party secretary, who sat at my side with his legs straddling the gear stick. When I protested about the number of people in the car, they explained that a candidate’s confirmation was not official unless all election team members were present. According to an official from the county Civil Affairs Bureau, this regulation was designed to prevent vested interests from manipulating the process. When we arrived at the house, Yang Yimo’s wife ushered us into the kitchen and served us tea before leaving to fetch her husband from the fields. Her husband entered a little while later, clearly surprised at being visited by such a large delegation of local officials and a foreigner, whom someone jokingly introduced as a “UN electoral observer” to great comic effect. Yang Yimo was even more surprised when the party secretary invited him to run as a candidate for township head. The man claimed to be unaware that he had received any nominations. The pro-Zhao camp pressured him to accept the nomination, again appealing to his sense of duty. Yang Yimo was visibly nervous. When they pushed him for an answer he asked for some time to talk it over with his wife. He and his wife went into the courtyard while we waited in the kitchen. When he returned the farmer apologized profusely but said he must decline the nomination. The district deputy party secretary (who was pro–Old Yang) stood up to leave, but a member of the pro-Zhao camp made an urgent final plea to Yang Yimo, exhorting him to accept the wishes of the people.

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The farmer’s response confirmed what all knew to be true: “I’m afraid of offending Old Yang,” he said. The next nominee on the list, and the last ranked nominee before Old Yang, was a man whose wife was a blood relative of Old Yang. This time the pro-Zhao team did not even attempt to cajole him. They accepted his refusal by telephone. At five o’clock in the afternoon our jeep returned to the township government headquarters in the central village where Old Yang lived. In accordance with procedure, the election work team and the township party secretary went to his house to invite him to stand for election as township head. Despite receiving a paltry 19 nominations, Old Yang was invited to stand in the following week’s election. He graciously accepted the invitation. The hardest part of his bid for election was over. Now he had a one in two chance of winning. And without lifting a finger, he had just powerfully demonstrated his muscle within the township.

T h e E l e c t ion C a m pa ign The day after the official candidate list was finalized, Old Yang went public with his campaign. He began by organizing his relatives into campaign teams. Several other young men who wished to hitch their future prospects to Old Yang’s influence in the township also offered to help, but Old Yang was careful to place a blood relation in charge of each team. He then called on all kin members who owned a vehicle to make their vehicles available to the campaign. Kin members also helped to spread information and rumors and to report on gossip. Rumors are a powerful weapon in politics anywhere, but particularly in rural China where gossip serves as a chief source of information. Slinging mud against rivals is as common in rural China as it is in mature democracies. Early in the campaign Old Yang’s supporters began spreading a rumor that Township Head Zhao had embezzled funds from an agricultural extension project. It was an easy rumor to believe because Zhao had used his connections in the county to win the project, and because, as discussed in the preceding chapter, villagers expected township officials to skim proceeds from such projects. Old Yang used different campaign strategies for mobilizing votes in different parts of the township. In places where his kin networks were strongest, he promised villagers access to government projects and resources in

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return for their support. In villages where his personal ties were weak, he resorted to intimidation—a familiar mechanism in rural China. He threatened, for example, to restrict the water supply to one village at the point where it passed through his own village, a threat that had been acted upon on in the past. Old Yang never made these threats himself. He left this political dirty work to allies. Several villagers reported that they had been intimidated by Old Yang’s goons. Apparently Old Yang’s thugs had warned them to be careful on election day because they had ways of finding out how people voted. Many villagers believed this, because ballot secrecy had been weakly protected in the first round of elections in 2001, when villagers reported a large number of goons loitering at the polling booths. When I met with him, the incumbent township head was happy to discuss the election and his campaign. According to Zhao, “Old Yang is saying many bad things about me. I will not do that sort of thing. I won’t go around buying people’s votes. I’ll let my actions speak for themselves. I’ve worked hard for this township and contributed to its economic development. I hope people will recognize that.” Zhao spent his days and evenings campaigning just as hard as Old Yang, but used a different strategy. In contrast with Old Yang’s more overt campaign, Zhao focused his energies on seeking out influential people in the community—heads of families, schoolteachers, and the doctor in charge of the township health clinic. Zhao understood the views of these community leaders could influence the way people voted. During meetings he reminded community leaders that the delivery of scheduled agricultural extension and rural development projects depended on his personal connections in county government. He also sought alliances with village leaders such as Mu in Balong, who was still smarting over being manipulated by Old Yang. Despite his rivalry with Zhao, an Old Yang victory would have been worse, so Mu urged his fellow villagers to vote for Zhao. On the eve of the election, the outcome was too close to call. I spent the evening at the incumbent township head’s house in the company of his immediate family and several close supporters. During the evening, messengers came and went, reporting the latest gossip from across the township. Some of the news sounded bad for Zhao’s team. Despite anecdotal evidence of new support in places such as Balong, Zhao’s camp became concerned that Old Yang was gaining momentum in other parts of the township, especially in some of the larger villages where he had strong kin

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connections. Energized by gossip and rumor, Zhao’s pollsters nervously predicted Old Yang would win. One reported rumors that Old Yang was organizing teams of relatives and friends to stand by the booths to make sure that people voted for him. Zhao became visibly distressed at this news, and told the man to organize teams of people to do the same. Old Yang’s antics had succeeded in rattling the incumbent on the eve of the election, and might have tricked him into doing something foolish. Other village men came and went, offering their support and encouragement, but Zhao told me that many of them were hedging their bets and that he expected they would also be promising their support to Old Yang. They wanted to ensure that they had good relations with the township head whoever it would be. Late in the evening, a man entered and told the crowd that he had heard rumors in the market town that Old Yang was planning to send his thugs after Zhao to beat him up. Old Yang had a reputation for just this sort of thing so Zhao made sure that a few able-bodied men stayed at his house that night. The thugs never turned up, which suggested that the threats were more likely intended to intimidate. Because toughness mattered in rural leadership, a public display of fear could cost votes.

Election Day In the early morning of the day of the election supporters began arriving at the township head’s house. At the township government offices, the district work team prepared the ballot boxes and the ballot forms that had arrived from the printing presses only the night before. Members of the public were not permitted to enter the township government offices while this was taking place. From eight o’clock in the morning the district team and township election committee began setting up booths in the courtyard of the Haidi Township Elementary School. To encourage orderly behavior, several police officers from the district stood guard. And to protect the secrecy of the ballot, which was frequently compromised in the first round of elections, the county government had dispatched some volunteer election monitors. Each county government department was given a quota of “volunteers” it had to fill for the election. To prevent favoritism, volunteers could not be Haidi locals. As villagers arrived, election officials organized them into village groups in front of the ballot boxes. Those from nearby villages arrived early, sitting around and talking until a majority of eligible

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voters had arrived and the voting could officially begin. Both candidates arrived shortly after 9 a.m., accompanied by mobs of supporters. The two men then drew lots to see who would speak first in the short campaign speeches that would precede voting. At half past ten local dignitaries took their seats at a podium in front of the assembled voters. The dignitaries included the district party secretary, the district governor, the head of the district election team, the two official candidates for township head, and the three candidates for deputy township head. The district party secretary opened the election by making a speech to the approximately 1,800 assembled voters. There were more than 2,800 registered voters in Haidi, and more than half of these were required to attend the election for the results to be declared valid. Since proxy-voting rules allowed one person to vote on behalf of up to four family members, many families from the township’s more distant villages sent only representatives. In his speech, the district party secretary reminded residents of the importance of free and fair elections, and encouraged everyone to vote for the candidate they considered most capable to lead the township. When the district party secretary finished his speech, he invited the candidates to address the voters. Both candidates sat uncomfortably alongside one another. Old Yang spoke first, and took the opportunity to publicly impugn the township head’s character: “We know that this township receives a lot of assistance from the party and the government. But where has this money gone? The people haven’t seen most of this money. There are too many problems in this township administration. . . . Too much money has disappeared into the township leader’s pockets.” The crowd seemed amused by Old Yang’s colorful speech, and eagerly awaited the township head’s rejoinder. The township head chose to focus on his record rather than on his opponent’s flaws: First, I want to thank all my supporters in Haidi Township. I hope you will continue to support me in the next three years. Since I became township head we have achieved a great many things. We have a new agricultural market, and have attracted investment in a number of public works. I am working with higher levels of government to bring even more such projects to our township. I will continue to do my best to represent all of Haidi’s people. . . . Thank you.

Voting commenced once the short speeches had finished. Ballot box monitors called voters individually by name to cast their separate ballots for

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township head, deputy township head, and for district People’s Congress representatives, who were being elected at the same time. An army of monitors dispatched by the district and county governments ensured that nobody interfered with voters or with their ballots. Voters were only permitted to approach the ballot station after the name of the head of their household had been called. County observers sat at small tables assisting illiterate villagers with their ballot forms. Officials from other townships in the county were recruited to assist with the election. The large number and professionalism of the election monitors ensured that voting was secret, and that potential rabble rousers were kept at a distance. Anyone who attempted to come near the ballot boxes out of turn was promptly shooed away. It took about three to four hours to process all the voters before the ballot boxes were removed to the second floor of the schoolhouse for counting. The result would be announced later in the evening. Some township folk stayed around to wait for the announcement, but most returned home to their villages. As the results were tabulated for each village, election officials tallied them on a blackboard. Candidates were permitted to observe the counting process. Votes were tallied by village group, enabling candidates to see which parts of the township favored which candidate. The first villages to have their votes counted had distributed votes fairly evenly between the incumbent and the challenger. However, votes from the next group of villages gave majority support to Old Yang. Zhao had gone home to rest, but he raced back to the polling station when he heard the vote was going against him. His fears were misplaced, however, as the first ballots to be counted were from the township’s central villages, where Old Yang’s support was strongest. When votes from peripheral villages started to be counted, the tally began to swing in Zhao’s favor. Before counting was finished it was clear that the incumbent would be returned to office by a comfortable margin. The result was a clear victory for Zhao, but also for the district governor and his allies in the county.

The Dongli Tow nship Elections Neighboring Dongli Township held its elections one week after Haidi Township. The first elections, which had been held three years earlier,

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involved a close race between candidates from two sides of the Dongli Township valley. The victor was a 40-year-old man popularly known as Long Hair, head of one of the township’s largest villages. During his first tenure as township head, many residents of Dongli Township became increasingly dissatisfied with Long Hair’s leadership. During my time in Dongli villagers complained to me about the township head’s role in several large government projects, including the building of a school canteen discussed in Chapter Two. In these and other projects villagers charged that Long Hair had blatantly embezzled funds. When I asked what evidence they had, villagers replied that they didn’t need any because Long Hair had himself bragged about it. While villagers agreed that a certain amount of spoils was an expected perquisite of public office, many also felt that the township head had gone too far in his profiteering. Not too long into his first term, disgruntled villagers inspired rival groups in the township to begin plotting against him and to seek control of the levers of township government for their own ends. Aware of growing dissatisfaction with his leadership, Long Hair resorted to the tactics of intimidation and coercion. During my several visits to the township, I rarely saw him outside the company of young, unemployed men (locals called them 流氓 liumang [hoodlums]) who ran errands in return for booze and cigarettes and the chance to receive a share in the spoils of office, such as a small part of the kickbacks from local infrastructure projects. Gambling was a popular pastime among this group of under-occupied young men, and many of them got into strife over gambling-related debts and disputes. Some of the incidents were serious. A couple of years before the elections, Long Hair was present (and this was later confirmed by police and witnesses) at the death of a man who had lent him money and who wanted it repaid immediately. The murder was pinned on two of the township head’s hangers-on, who subsequently fled the township. According to a retired county police officer, the township head used his political connections in the county to discourage police from investigating the matter too thoroughly, a sensitive issue that continued to fuel animosity between rival groups in the township, district, and county. The township party secretary was young, weak, and inexperienced and chose to avoid confrontation with the mercurial township head. Long Hair’s detractors in the district and county had tried to appoint a party secretary who could keep the township head’s excesses in check, but they had

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not succeeded. According to county officials, elected township heads had become difficult to control because they knew their authority came from the people. This potential challenge to the party-state’s top-down authority was probably a key reason why Beijing moved to prohibit township elections after only a handful of grassroots-led experiments. Dongli residents began anticipating a new election toward the end of Long Hair’s three-year term. It was expected, like the previous election, to be held soon after the Spring Festival. Long Hair was certainly preparing to re-contest his seat. His strategy was a simple one: intimidate all rivals. It was reported to me that Long Hair was threatening to kill anyone who stood against him in the election. I decided to visit Long Hair to ask him if there was any truth to these reports. His reply was equivocal, but still unnerving: “Someone might die in the run-up to the elections. That’s what it’s come down to. There are a lot of rotten people in this place who’ll do anything to get what they want. Anyway, I’m ready for them, even if I have to die fighting them.” Overlooking the road at the edge of his village, Long Hair had begun erecting a large tombstone for himself. The inscription on the tombstone read “Resolute mind, Brave heart.” According to one villager, the tombstone was designed as a warning to others that he was willing to die defending his crown and that any challenger would have to be willing to do the same. But the tombstone also stood as a symbol of his wealth and prowess. To inaugurate the grave site he invited four hundred guests from around the township to a feast that lasted two days. The celebration was of a scale no one in the township had ever seen. For the main feast the township head had arranged for the slaughter of two cows, five pigs, and forty chickens, and ordered a further 250 kilograms of fish from a local fish farm. But his gesture met with mixed results. Some township residents refused to attend the party, complaining that the building of the tombstone was disrespectful to Long Hair’s parents, both of whom were still alive. One farmer told me that even the former emperors of China would not have dared to erect their own tombstone while their parents were still living. Many other villagers attended the party out of intrigue or because there was free food. Some people wondered where he got the money to pay for such a lavish feast—a feast that would have cost many years of income for ordinary township folk.

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Elections Announced In the wake of the township head’s funerary gestures, the elections, when announced, caused a stir that reverberated across the county. Township residents were on tenterhooks waiting to see if anyone would dare to challenge Long Hair. No one publicly declared his candidacy, but rumors suggested that two potential rivals were consulting with officials at higher levels and quietly canvassing for nominations in the township. Just as in Haidi Township, the Dongli Township elections were an arena for local political competition, but also for competition between political networks within higher levels of government. The electoral contest mirrored a rivalry between the district governor and his deputy. Both men were Dongli natives, but from different villages. The outcome of the election was important for the prestige of the district men because they had recently competed against one another for the position of district leader. Both were secretly backing rival candidates in the Dongli election. The district governor’s preferred candidate for Dongli Township head was a 26-year-old man named Peng—a kinsman from the district governor’s home village. In the county seat Peng was known for his ability to organize high-stakes mahjong tournaments for local officials. (His girlfriend had been caught embezzling large sums of money from her employer, a local investment company, and Peng’s detractors alleged it was in order to feed Peng’s gambling habit.) Gambling is an important conduit for transactions between patrons and clients in Poshan, and Peng had made good political connections while gambling. As in many other countries, gambling provides a relatively low-risk mechanism for making illicit payments. In a mahjong or card game, someone seeking favor or paying a kickback will intentionally lose money to a beneficiary. Should someone query the possession of large amounts of money, an official can claim the money was winnings from gambling and witnesses would be available to corroborate if necessary. I have seen the equivalent of tens of thousands of dollars change hands at mahjong tables between players whose official salaries are only a few hundred dollars a month. Although gambling is illegal in China, it is a relatively minor offense compared with official corruption, and gambling laws are seldom enforced. As the district governor’s preferred candidate, Peng could also count on the tacit support of the county head (县长 xianzhang)—who was an ally of the district head and reportedly was keen to reassert his network’s informal control over the “renegade” township. It was not Peng’s personal qualities

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as a leader that propelled him forward as a candidate for the township’s top job, but his alliances with opponents of Long Hair’s patrons in the district and county governments. The district deputy governor’s protégé was a more able candidate from Suyi Village named Song. The deputy had come to know Song during a yearlong collaboration on a large rural development project. Song was respected for his entrepreneurial success in mining and transport, but he also commanded a sizeable kin network as well as connections throughout the county that he had made through business dealings over many years. The district deputy governor’s support meant that Song also now enjoyed the support of the deputy’s allies in the district and the county. Significantly, neither of the two district government rivals or their allies wanted to see Long Hair reelected. According to a county government official, Long Hair was widely considered unpredictable and dangerous. While Long Hair had important political connections through his uncle, chair of the county People’s Congress, which was important when it came to mobilizing state resources, his uncle was not allied with the most powerful groups in the county government. At the same time, Long Hair had formidable enemies in the county. In particular, Long Hair’s involvement in his former creditor’s death earned him the wrath of the dead man’s brother, who was head of the County Tax Bureau at the time of the elections. During an interview the Tax Bureau head expressed his disdain for Long Hair and a strong desire for retribution. He and others offered their support to the two rival candidates. When I met with Long Hair in the lead up to the elections, he expressed fury at what he called “manipulation” by higher-level officials, by which he meant their open support of rival candidates. This made him look weak and it would encourage township residents to think that the other candidates had good political connections that would help them secure more largesse for the township. We sat in the kitchen of his brick home, the walls of which were decorated with large posters of Chairman Mao. After recounting that he had accomplished good things for residents (“Every day, people come to me for help and I try to help them the best I can”) and boasting that he had secured worthwhile projects from the county, he turned to the subject of the election. He became increasingly animated as he spoke, especially on the subject of his rival candidates. He seemed particularly annoyed to be challenged by the young Mr. Peng:

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So this young rogue (liumang) from Diluo wants to be township head, hey? Do you know he’s a gambler and a thief? Ask anyone in the city, they’ll tell you. Only in Dongli could a man like that try to be township head. But he’ll be no good. You mark my words. He can’t lead this township. To be a leader here you have to be strong, like Mao. Mao knew how to get things done and he wasn’t afraid to eliminate people who stood in the way.

Campaign Strategies During my time in the township I learned that the rival district officials had been plotting for some time to influence the outcome of the Dongli Township election. The township of Dongli was geographically divided into two parts. At the bottom of the valley were eleven villages in which the majority of the township’s population lived, and in which the township head and his two rivals also lived. At the top of the valley were four villages inhabited by villagers from the Nuosu ethnic group and that were more socially and economically integrated with one another than they were with the cluster of Naxi villages in the lower valley. Because the three leadership aspirants had comparably sized support bases in the township, they knew that the election would likely be determined by the voting preferences of the upper villages. According to reports I received during several visits to Dongli’s upper villages, the political intrigues began a few months before the elections when the deputy district governor approached the upper valley community to solicit support for Song. The deputy enjoyed good relations with one of the upper village heads established during earlier business they had conducted over land expropriations for a new road. The deputy governor promised the village head he would arrange for the chief’s son to be elected as deputy township head if he could mobilize villagers to vote for Song. The village head agreed to the deal. The plan looked like it might quietly succeed until it reached the ears of the district governor. Not to be outdone, the district governor made a similar promise to another influential community leader from the upper villages. It was the same deal—votes for Peng in return for arranging for the community leader’s son to be elected as deputy head of the township. However, this second deal fell apart when the community leader’s son began boasting about it around the village. A dispute ensued between the young man and the village head, who had struck a deal with Song’s people,

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causing a major rift between two families from the same clan. On the day the elections were announced, a fight erupted between the two young aspirants for township deputy. The village head intervened, ordering the young man from the other family to obey his elders and to stop “pretending” he had already been appointed a township leader. Later that night, after a bout of heavy of drinking with friends, the young man returned and stabbed the village head in the abdomen. While villagers later claimed that he had only intended to scare the village head’s son and that the stabbing happened by accident during a scuffle, the injury was serious. The village head nearly died from his wounds.

Nominations for Head of Dongli Township Following his failed attempt to rig the election in his protégé’s favor, the district governor became more overt in his political interventions. Ignoring county recommendations that members of district election teams not be selected from the townships in which they were to organize elections, the governor appointed several of his native Dongli allies to the team. Not only were these men allies of the governor in the district, they were also close associates of the young Mr. Peng from Diluo Village—men who could be trusted to support his bid for election. On hearing of the appointments to the district team responsible for the township elections, Long Hair was furious: “Can you believe these officials? They’re all pals with this guy from Diluo—that lazy, good-for-nothing hoodlum. . . . How do they think he can run this township—by gambling away the little money we have? Has everyone gone nuts?” Despite his relative inexperience, with the help of his friends and the backing of the governor Peng was soon able to present himself as a viable candidate. Long Hair began to think that the election would come down to a battle between himself and this man, because rumor had it that Song—the entrepreneur from Suyi Village—was having second thoughts about contesting the election. As was common in China’s village elections, successful entrepreneurs were often too preoccupied with their own businesses to spend time on public administration, especially in a poorer rural area such as Poshan where townships controlled few resources of their own. In such areas, often it is well-connected men without much private wealth who are most attracted to political office because it provides occasional opportunities for skimming spoils from public works projects such as road and dam construction.

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All of the candidates were working hard to drum up nominations—the most important stage in the electoral process. When the township election committee released the final tally, the result surprised everyone. Song, the candidate from Suyi Village, had received 1,042 nominations. Peng, the candidate from Diluo Village, had 965. Long Hair trailed them both with 931 nominations. The result meant that the incumbent would not even be on the ballot. Long Hair told me he was angry, and blamed the result on meddling by higher levels. Never one to back away from a fight, Long Hair declared that he was still in the race. Citing a regulation that allowed voters to “write in” the name of their preferred candidate on the ballot, he began a campaign to keep his job.

Playing by the Rules The procedure Long Hair was referring to is known as lingti, which is commonly known as a “write-in” in English language electoral parlance. Although it was possible according to the regulations, it was considered almost impossible for someone to be elected in this way because most voters found it simpler to tick a box next to one of the two official candidates’ names printed on the ballot. To improve his chances, Long Hair decided he needed to buy votes. In villages where people were not firmly committed to either Peng or Song, Long Hair offered a hundred yuan in cash to every household that promised to vote for him in the election. And instead of waiting for the election result before rewarding his supporters, Long Hair took the bold step of paying the promised sum upfront to township residents. Altogether he spent an estimated 100,000 yuan on votes.2 Some speculated that his uncle in the county government had helped to bankroll the campaign, but Long Hair claimed the money was his alone. Clearly, he believed he would make the money back if reelected. Long Hair’s vote buying added a new dimension to the competition, and antagonized the other candidates, who could not afford to compete on such terms. Threats were exchanged between the various camps and township residents reported fears that violence would break out between them. All three candidates surrounded themselves with male relatives and friends wherever they went in the township as a display of strength. When I visited the district team a few days before the election, I could only find one member of the team at their makeshift office in the township administration building. I understood that he was the only member of the

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team who was not a declared supporter of candidate Peng. The committee member admitted that his colleagues had gone to Diluo Village to help Peng prepare for the election, apparently unconcerned about this serious violation of electoral procedure. Later that day I walked the few kilometers to Diluo to see what they were up to. I found five members of the election work team at Peng’s house eating, drinking, and playing cards. Already slightly drunk, one of the team members, a local policeman, asked me to join them in a toast to the new township head of Dongli. Unlike in Haidi, where members of the election organizing committee were careful not to openly display their preferences, in Dongli the battle lines were so clearly drawn that there was no need to hide one’s loyalties.

Election Day In the days before the elections many township residents were expecting a violent clash between the different camps. Long Hair publicly accused the other candidates of corrupt dealings with the district government. Song, the candidate from Suyi Village, accused Long Hair of only staying in the race so as to prevent either of the official candidates from receiving a number of votes equivalent to fifty percent or more of the registered electorate that was necessary for an election result. Because of the tensions and the expectation of violence, the county government had dispatched the People’s Armed Police to Dongli Township on the night before the elections. Nevertheless, fearing for the safety of teachers and students, the principal of the Dongli Central Elementary School, where voting was to take place, requested that the polling stations be relocated somewhere else. When his request was denied, students and teachers were given the day off. On election day villagers filed into the school grounds throughout the morning. Election monitors from the county government presided over the ballot stations. As in Haidi, the job of the county overseers—“volunteers” from various county government departments—was to ensure the secrecy of the vote and the orderliness of the voting. Candidates’ supporters made attempts to approach the booths, but police and other election officials quickly ushered them away. By the early afternoon, most votes had been cast without any major disturbances. Election officials had become noticeably more relaxed. But the calm was to be short lived. When the vote count began it became clear that Long Hair had succeeded in attracting hundreds of write-in votes, placing him well ahead of Peng. His cash gifts appeared

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to have paid off. Song was still the clear favorite, but the other two candidates had polled well enough to deny him an absolute majority. As no candidate had attracted the minimum number of votes required, the election was declared without result (无效 wuxiao). In accordance with election regulations, district and county officials announced that a reelection would need to be held. The two candidates with the most votes—Song and Long Hair—would be invited to contest a runoff. Because people and resources were already in place, county overseers suggested to the district’s election team that they hold the reelection on the very same day. The official reason for this unusual decision was to prevent instability, but many thought it was because county overseers wanted to return home as soon as possible. A number of onlookers predicted that Peng’s supporters would not vote for Long Hair, because of the intense rivalry between the district head and his deputy and their respective allies. Some members of the Song camp became agitated about this prospect of losing to the incumbent, and while the runoff vote was being organized and voters were being summoned to return to the school, several of Song’s relatives tracked down Long Hair near his home and beat him. The men then quickly fled before Long Hair’s men (who were still campaigning around the township for their candidate) could retaliate. Long Hair limped home to attend to his scratches and bruises. A few hours later, the news of the reelection reached him—all the votes had been counted and Song had won by a significant margin. Long Hair lost more than just the election that day; he also lost face. It was a humiliation that, according to villagers who later reflected on the events, he could not bear. In the days following the election, he was seldom seen in public. He began drinking heavily and one night, in a drunken state, he took his gun and started firing shots randomly at houses as he staggered along a village path.3 He aimed indiscriminately, shooting one man in the chest as he rushed to close the door to his house. When Long Hair realized that he had killed the man he fled into the mountains, taking the township’s official seal with him. No one in Dongli Township ever saw him again.

four

The Power Center of the Local State: The County and Prefectural Governments

Because of their wide-ranging responsibilities for governing and steering the local economy, counties are arguably the most important units of territorial administration in rural China. Because the prefectural administration is responsible for supervising county government activity, it too plays an important role in political decision making. This chapter examines the machinery of the party-state at the county and prefectural level. It explores the formal and informal means by which power is exercised at this level and how the interplay between formal and informal institutions influences political decisions and shapes local political behavior more generally. The chapter pays particular attention to the role of patronage networks, and how they have emerged in the contemporary period as a major driving force within the local state.1 The chapter reveals the means by which patronage networks in Poshan Prefecture and Laxiang County have been able to harness public power for private benefit through the capture of formal state institutions. At the same time, the chapter argues that patronage networks supplement formal state institutions by providing a mechanism for bureaucratic coordination by regulating political competition within the

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local state. This chapter introduces the argument that patronage networks serve to hold the local state together even while they appear to undermine Communist Party rule.

Prefectur al Government The prefecture (地区diqu), which comprises several adjoining counties, is rarely mentioned in the literature on China’s local politics. This is because it is often seen as little more than a communication point between the provincial government and the county. Lawmakers in China have sometimes called for the abolition of the prefectural-level administration, arguing that it is a waste of public resources. Nonetheless, the prefectural-level municipality (区级市 qujishi) has become a powerful unit of administration in urbanizing areas since it has acquired new powers over the finances of its constituent counties. The prefectural administrations often play an active role in the sparsely populated regions of western and southwestern China, where these may consist of twenty or more counties or as few as three. The prefecture as a unit of territorial administration is based on the Qing dynasty circuit, a coordinating level between the province and the counties. During the Republican period, the circuit was abolished, leaving provinces to administer counties directly. This soon proved unworkable because of the large size of most provinces and the vast distance between a provincial capital and many of its constituent counties. Reinstated under the People’s Republic of China as prefectures, prefectural-level cities, autonomous prefectures, and leagues, this sub-provincial unit of territorial administration is the highest level of government in China in which officials are mostly local. Like county officials, prefectural officials in the Poshan region have usually grown up in the area and are socially, economically, and politically connected to the locality. Provincial officials, by contrast, are much further removed from the localities and tend to identify more readily with central government politics than they do with local politics. The prefectural officials’ primary role is to communicate provincial commands to the counties and to monitor their implementation of state policy. The prefectural government also is a conduit for fiscal transfers and tax collection. The leaders of the prefecture are in a powerful position to act

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as brokers between the localities and higher levels of government, since all county government proposals (e.g., requests for funding) must be approved at the prefectural level before being submitted to the province. Prefectural leaders thus have a large measure of control over the formidable funding resources of the provincial government. Party and government leaders at the prefectural level, especially members of the Prefectural Communist Party Standing Committee, also play an important role in the appointment and promotion of county leaders, reinforcing the prefecture’s administrative muscle.

Ethnic Autonomous Pr efectur es The so-called ethnic autonomous prefectures (民族自治州 minzu zizhizhou) are more significant than other rural prefectures for two reasons. First, unlike ordinary rural prefectures, their legal status is enshrined in China’s constitution. Second, even though the ethnic autonomous prefectures are in no meaningful way autonomous, they generally have greater discretion over policy implementation. Autonomous prefectures (like autonomous regions and counties) are legally entitled to modify or indeed refuse to implement certain central government policies on the grounds that they are ill-suited to local conditions. Autonomous prefectures are also required to ensure adequate representation of the prefecture’s ethnic minority groups. As in many other poor ethnic regions, the Poshan Prefecture government does not have a sufficient tax base to fund its operating costs and is dependent on higher levels of government to cover much of the expense of local administration. Regional autonomy regulations guarantee those transfers, thereby giving the prefecture significant authority over the use of such funds. In the everyday politics of policy implementation, the leadership of Poshan is frequently able to wield its special status to deflect encroachment by the province, by demanding adaptations that are more suitable to the remote geography, high altitude, and ethnic composition of the population. A common means to deflect or revise provincial demands is to warn that a particular course of action might have a negative impact on ethnic relations and social stability. No provincial leader wants to risk this, as political and social stability is a core party priority—one that trumps all others.

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C ou n t y-l e v e l A dm i n i s t r at ion In rural China the county bears primary responsibility for policy implementation. Counties have served as the front-line unit of governance in China since unification of the empire at the beginning of the Qin dynasty in the third century bce . Some counties in China today possess records (county annals) that date back more than two thousand years. Until the twentieth century, the county remained the lowest level of bureaucratic administration. Lower levels were ruled directly by local gentry. In continuity with ancient practice, only officials at the county level and above in the People’s Republic belong to the ranks of state officials. Thus the county is the lowest level whose officials today receive central government documents and party circulars. County leaders then formulate their own methods to communicate higher policy directives to the townships and villages. Under a post-Mao policy of decentralization, bureaucratic power has been magnified at the county level, and counties exercise control over a wide range of state resources, including publicly owned real estate and finance (including subsidized loans), and enjoy wide discretionary authority over the approval and regulation of investments and non-state firms. County governments are also the main service providers. To this end, township governments typically act as agents of the county. Blecher and Shue justifiably refer to county administration as the “lowest level of unalloyed state organization in the entire system.”2 The organization of the state at the county level mirrors government organization at higher levels. At least on paper, political authority is officially divided between four leading bodies (四套班子 sitao banzi)—the People’s Government, the Communist Party Committee, the People’s Congress, and the People’s Political Consultative Conference. Sometimes the Party Disciplinary Committee is considered a fifth leading body, but it is more typically considered to sit within, rather than outside, the party apparatus. According to the Chinese constitution, the People’s Congress is supposed to function as the center of political decision making, with the People’s Government serving as its executive arm. However, the People’s Congress is very weak. The chief decision-making bodies are the Communist Party Committee, which is headed by the party secretary, and the County People’s Government, which is headed by the county head. The prefecture is organized along identical lines.

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County People’s Government The county government has grown more in size than any other level of administration during the post-Mao era. County governments are made up of an extensive array of bureaus. While official regulations restrict the number of county government agencies to between 24 and 26 for counties with populations over one million, 22 to 24 for counties with populations between 500,00 and a million, and to 20 for counties with populations less than 500,000, most counties in China have created agencies far in excess of these limits. Laxiang County is a typical example. Despite a population of less than 500,000, its county government comprises more than 40 agencies (2011). l axiang count y government agencies

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Office of the County People’s Government (executive) Office of Receiving Guests Personnel and Labor Bureau Planning and Development Committee Economics and Trade Committee Finance Bureau Land Management Bureau Urban Construction Bureau Family Planning Committee Health Bureau Township and Village Enterprise Bureau Minority and Religious Affairs Bureau Buddhist Association Tourism Bureau Foreign Affairs Bureau Grain Bureau Industry and Commerce Bureau Pricing Bureau Transport Bureau Local Tax Bureau

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National Tax Bureau Investigation Bureau Poor Area Development Office Audit Bureau Civil Affairs Bureau Agricultural Bureau Forestry Bureau Forestry Police Bureau Fire Prevention Command Animal Husbandry Bureau Hydroelectricity Bureau Science and Technology Commission Culture Bureau Education Bureau Statistics Bureau Recreation and Sports Bureau Environmental Protection Bureau Tobacco Monopoly Bureau Records Bureau Supply and Marketing Cooperative Provincial Capital Representative Office Justice Bureau Public Security Bureau Public Security Bureau Political Committee Office of Investigations People’s Court

County Party Organizations The Chinese Communist Party is a vast organization that theoretically operates in parallel to government, but in reality is intimately intertwined with government. In Poshan Prefecture and Laxiang County the party

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apparatus consists of the prefectural or county-level Communist Party Standing Committee, and a Party General Office, a Party Disciplinary Inspection Committee, an Organization Department, a Propaganda Department, a United Front Department, a Political and Legal Affairs Committee, an Office of Policy Studies, an Office of Party History, and a Party School. Other agencies that come under the direct supervision of the party are the Office for Receiving Complaints, the Retired Cadres Bureau, the Women’s Federation, the State-Owned Enterprise Committee, the Federation of Commerce and Industry, the Office of Disabled Persons Affairs, and the Office of County/Prefectural Annals. The party apparatus is officially governed by a party committee whose members are selected by a party congress held every five years, but the real center of power in county and prefectural politics is the party Standing Committee, which signs off on all key decisions and leadership appointments. The Standing Committee usually consists of between 7 and 15 members depending on the population of the administrative unit. It is headed by the party secretary with the support of up to three deputy party secretaries. Membership typically includes the county head, who serves concurrently as the first deputy party secretary, the head of the Organization Department, the head of the Propaganda Department, the secretary of the Disciplinary Inspection Committee, and the chairpersons of the People’s Congress and the People’s Political Consultative Conference. In Laxiang County, the Party Standing Committee has nine members. The party directly controls its own agencies, which are outside of the government’s jurisdiction. In Laxiang County in 2012, the Communist Party maintained the following offices: l a x i a n g c o u n t y p a rt y a g e n c i e s

. . . . . . . .

Office (Secretariat) of the Party Committee Organization Department Propaganda Department Agriculture and Industry Department United Front Department Political and Legal Affairs Committee Retired Cadres Bureau Women’s Federation

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State-Owned Enterprise Committee Federation of Commerce and Industry Office of Disabled Persons Affairs Office of County Annals Party School

The County People’s Congress According to Chinese law, the official functions of the People’s Congress are to 1. supervise the People’s Government; 2. debate and determine policies concerning politics, economics, education and culture; 3. approve the government budget; 4. elect county heads, deputy county heads, the chief of the court and procuratorate, and appoint county bureau chiefs.

The full congress of deputies convenes once a year for several days. In Poshan Prefecture and Laxiang County, the congress usually convenes in March, soon after the Chinese New Year. The main purpose of the annual convention is to evaluate the government’s work report, approve the budget for the next year, and elect or appoint key officials. However, the People’s Congress may only elect officials that have been nominated by the party committee. Often the party will nominate only one candidate, although sometimes an additional straw candidate is put forward to provide a semblance of democracy. The People’s Congress Standing Committee is headed by a chairperson and several deputy chairs. Members of this leadership team are responsible for supervising the executive when the People’s Congress is not in session, which is most of the year. Unlike other members of the People’s Congress, the chair and deputy chairs are full-time employees of the state. These are usually senior cadres, and because the posts demand little in the way of substantive output, they are often considered semi-retirement (闲官 xian guan) sinecures for former leading cadres. Because of the light duties, capable deputies might also simultaneously hold another position in the party or

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government. Each deputy typically heads a congressional committee that investigates a specific issue. In the Laxiang County People’s Congress, there are five main committees: (1) the Elections Committee, (2) the Finance Committee, (3) the Labor Committee, (4) the Scientific and Cultural Education Committee, and (5) the Minority and Religious Affairs Committee. Some writers have noted that People’s Congresses are playing a greater role in local governance in recent years by increasing their lawmaking activities and by engaging in more active oversight of local government, but I found that congress deputies are still answerable to party bosses. In fact, in recent years the Communist Party has strengthened its grip over the legislative body by appointing party leaders as congressional deputies. Party theorists argued that this will give the congresses more clout in their oversight of the government executive, but in fact the policy has only weakened the congress.

The County People’s Political Consultative Conference The County Political Consultative Conference is an advisory body with no formal decision-making powers. It consists of representatives from China’s eight powerless official political parties (they are really elite official associations, not parties), as well as public figures who are not members of the Communist Party or any of its subordinate parties. A handful of delegates also typically represent the scientific and arts communities. The County Political Consultative Conference meets once a year, usually around the same time as the People’s Congress. Meetings are generally much livelier than the People’s Congress because non-government and non-party delegates are less constrained in voicing their concerns and complaining about local government policies. In fact, the assembly is a place where dissent is often tolerated, and might even serve as an outlet valve for the frustrations of community leaders outside of the party. However, as an advisory body, the Political Consultative Conference has no direct influence over party or government. Neither are Party or Government agencies under any obligation to follow the assembly’s recommendations. As a former deputy chair of the Laxiang County Political Consultative Conference once told me, discussion in the assembly is lively precisely because the government is not listening. As in the People’s Congress, the chairs and deputy chairs of the Political Consultative Conference are state employees who have previously served in other branches of government. The deputy positions are also generally

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considered to be xian guan positions that lack clout and responsibility. The chair of the Consultative Conference has a degree of influence, however, because he or she typically sits on the Party Standing Committee, which oversees all key personnel appointments. Because members of the Party Standing Committee have the power to promote or reject candidates for a range of senior government and party posts, positions in the Standing Committee are the most powerful in the county.

For m al Political Decision M aking Political decisions are formalized at meetings attended by relevant party and government representatives. The decisions of the pinnacle decisionmaking body, the Standing Committee of the county Party Committee, are handed down to deputy party secretaries, who are responsible for their implementation by the party agencies and government departments. In Poshan and Laxiang (as in other parts of China), each deputy party secretary is responsible for a range of policy sectors. Broad policy pronouncements and guidelines are communicated to party members at the full party committee meetings, which are held less often. In the past the focus of party meetings had been on broad policy, leaving the details of public administration and economic management to government. But in recent times the party has become much more actively engaged in governing, particularly in economic matters. The party has asserted greater authority over the government departments through increased intervention in economic decisions and through its policy of concurrent appointments. Many of the heads of county government departments also serve concurrently as the head of the party branch within that department. The Laxiang County head simultaneously holds the rank of deputy party secretary of the county, underlining the superior rank of the party secretary. The county government’s work meetings tend to be more action- rather than policy-oriented. In a process similar to that of party meetings, decisions are handed down through deputy county heads to county departments. Like deputy party secretaries, deputy county heads are responsible for a range of policy sectors covering all of the government’s business. Deputy county heads and deputy party secretaries usually have matching portfolios. For example, there will usually be one deputy county head and one deputy party secretary responsible for culture and education. Another pair

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will be responsible for economic development. The heads of county government departments are theoretically answerable to both the deputy county head and the deputy party secretary. At the same time, the heads of county departments report to the comparable government department at the next higher level of government, the prefecture. The party-state’s organizational hierarchy is supported by a system of documents that communicate orders, directives, and guidelines for lowerlevel organs to implement or to use as a reference when formulating local policies. The most important documents come from the Party Central Committee in Beijing and are known as decrees (中发 zhongfa). These are passed down the line to the county level—the lowest level of the party-state to directly receive party documents. It is up to the Laxiang County party leadership to determine how best to communicate the contents of the document to township and village administrations. Other documents issued by the national leadership are classified as “decisions” (决定 jueding), “stipulations” (规定 guiding), or “notifications” (通知 tongzhi), in descending order of importance. Each national government ministry also has its own document system for communication and control of subordinate agencies. The head of Laxiang County’s Education Bureau will receive documents from the county Communist Party Committee and county government as well as from the Prefectural Education Bureau, which relays information from the Provincial Education Bureau. County governments implement policies directly or through the use of political responsibility contracts (岗位责任书 gangwei zerenshu) with township governments. Responsibility contracts identify specific targets that are to be met, and are increasingly based on quantifiable performance criteria. The responsibility contract can thus be used as a formal monitoring and evaluation device. Political contracts exist for all types of policies, but contracts vary in importance and priority. The political contracts are ranked into four main types: (1) routine administrative/regulatory, (2) guideline, (3) priority, and (4) veto, in ascending order of importance. The first category includes largely mundane administrative procedures that are seldom evaluated. Guideline policies are general in nature, more open to local adaptation, and are not generally issued with measurable performance criteria. Priority and veto policies are those that higher levels of government consider to be of vital national importance, and to which quantifiable targets are typically attached. The main difference between priority and veto

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policies is that the consequences of failing to implement a priority policy to the full satisfaction of superior levels might be mitigated by a strong performance in other areas. Failure to meet any “veto” policy target, however, cancels out other political achievements and prevents an official’s promotion. Veto policy domains include maintenance of social stability (measured by incidents of protest or unrest); maintenance of economic growth (measured by the area’s GDP statistics); and family planning (measured by how many additional births occur above what government policy allows). Quantifiable targets typically reflect the central government’s veto and priority policies, such as in family planning and economic growth. Targets for key policy areas are specified between the prefecture, county, and township. Figure 2 is an example of a general responsibility contract. The content of contracts is basically the same for all administrative villages, but the targets and indicators vary. There is usually one main political responsibility contract in place for each administrative unit, the duration of which is usually one to two years. Smaller sub-agreements are sometimes entered into for the purposes of implementing specific programs or pilot projects. Political contracts reflect the thrust of China’s policies for rural areas— namely, (1) population control, (2) social and political stability, and (3) economic development. Figure 3 is an example of a public order responsibility contract, a high policy priority area for the Chinese Communist Party. Contracts such as this are usually valid for two years. Like other county governments in China, the Laxiang County government uses a points system to measure performance. Monetary rewards and penalties are applied according to the number of points scored by township and village leaders. Among other things, points are awarded for demonstrating a reduction in “feudal and superstitious practices,” conducting preemptive investigation into potential instability and latent conflict, and stamping out gambling and prostitution.

Infor m al Institutions in the Local Chinese State Although changes to the formal institutional environment continue to shape local officials’ incentives, in a system in which personal power relations trump formal rules, formal institutions can provide only a partial

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Responsibility Targets 1. Increase average village household income by 10.8 percent. 2. Ensure that the work output per 10 villagers attains an income of 20,000 yuan 3. Increase average grain production to 186 kilograms per capita 4. Solve the basic needs (温饱 wenbao) and poverty situation of 174 people 5. Reduce the fertility rate by 9 percent Figure 2.  Laxiang County Village Responsibility Contract. Source: Laxiang County Government

explanation for local political behavior. While scholars have long been aware of the importance of informal institutions in Chinese politics, our understanding of informal institutional practices and their impact on political decisions is limited by the impenetrability of the Chinese party-state. Western scholars seldom have the opportunity to observe backstage politics and Chinese scholars with the necessary access and interest are often discouraged from writing on such potentially sensitive subjects.3 During my first visits to Poshan in the early 2000s I became aware that political decision making, particularly at the county and prefectural level, was governed by an unwritten set of rules rooted in loyalty, obligation, self-protection, and mutual self-interest. In Poshan Prefecture and Laxiang County, and to a lesser extent in the townships, I observed that officials above a certain rank were typically associated with at least one local power broker working at a senior level in the local state hierarchy. These power brokers provided a range of benefits in return for loyalty. They provided junior officials with access to information and opportunities, and protection in times of trouble. In return, junior officials could be relied upon to do the senior official’s bidding. This involved, inter alia, making decisions on the awarding of contracts, supporting or opposing particular policy initiatives, and voting for candidates being considered for promotion. While coalitions of officials were not formally organized, their existence was well known and their core membership was relatively stable. Local officials sometimes referred to these groups as pai, or “factions.” Indeed, the informal coalitions I observed in Poshan had many of the characteristics typically associated with factions.4 The larger groups competed for power by seeking to place their own people (自己人 zijiren) in strategic positions

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that expanded their control of the bureaucratic levers of power. However, despite the appearance of faction-like behavior, I suggest that the groups I observed in Poshan can be best described as “patronage networks.” This is because the channeling of patronage was a primary attribute of these networks. A second reason is that, even though political competition in Poshan was characterized by rivalries between patronage networks, the networks were not engaged in constant conflict.5 At the core of each patronage network in Poshan was a small group of officials who shared strong bonds, usually on the basis of native place (老乡 laoxiang) ties. Within the county, patronage networks were typically based around specific towns or townships. In Laxiang County the two most influential patronage networks (measured by the number and rank of bureaucratic positions they controlled) centered on one group of officials from the county seat and another group from the county’s northernmost township. Within the prefecture, patronage networks often coalesced around a core group of officials from one or another county, but these networks were still often identified by way of a core group of officials from a smaller region such as a town or rural township. At the top of each network sat a patron (or boss, 老大 laoda), but any number of clients under the boss could also be patrons to other clients in the network. Within Laxiang County and Poshan Prefecture there were multiple patronage networks, but at the county and prefectural level of government the major players were two large networks, which I call Network A and Network B. These networks were built over many years by patrons who had risen to the top ranks in county and prefectural administration before being promoted to senior positions in the province. Network A expanded in size and influence from the early 1990s. Network A’s progenitor was a member of Laxiang County’s first generation of reformera officials, who used his political talents and control of revenues from local enterprises in his home township to climb through the ranks of the county party and government during the 1980s, eventually rising to the position of prefectural governor (州长 zhouzhang). Using this post, the official was able to ensure that those loyal to him were appointed to strategic positions. During his term as governor he recruited dozens of loyal men,6 particularly from his home district, into positions in the township, county, and prefectural governments, promoting the most talented among them to head the most powerful local bureaus. After serving for

Method of Evaluation Section I: Reporting the circumstances of major crimes to higher authorities and cooperating with public security organs. (1) Immediately reporting to higher authorities any crime and enthusiastically cooperating with public security organs during their investigation (9 points). (2) Number of incidents of serious crimes restricted to 0.04% of the population (11 points). Section II: Making concerted efforts to prevent and manage sudden public order issues, addressing problems the moment they arise. Once a public order problem arises, taking decisive measures to resolve it comprehensively at its incipient stage. (1) Making concerted efforts to prevent and manage public order problems and exposing latent trouble (4 points). (2) Investigating and understanding conflicts of interests and disputes within the community and producing a written document with practicable measures to guarantee the prevention of serious conflicts erupting (3 points). (3) Conducting research into possible instability, latent troubles, and sudden disturbances and adopting a written policy of countermeasures (3 points). (4) Causing by error in work practice the exacerbation of conflicts (5 points deducted per incident). Section III: Key Governance Work (1) Demonstrating that measures taken against gambling within the local jurisdiction including among farmers, local cadres and other staff are effective (5 points). (2) Demonstrating strict and effective enforcement of the “Four bans” against narcotics (planting, selling, using, and manufacturing) (6 points). Section IV: Strengthening the local area’s “culture” by managing temporary residents and floating population. (1) Demonstrating effective measures for constraining the spread of the “Six harms” and attacking criminal activity (2 points). (2) Putting in place effective measures against the sale of women and children and controlling the outflow of naive women from the village (2 points). (3) Banning feudal and superstitious rural practices and demonstrating results (2 points). (4) Resolutely implementing national, provincial, prefecture, and county party committee resolutions forbidding the participation by any organization, party official, civil servant, group member or farmer in “Falungong,” “Mentuhui,” or any other cult-like organization (2 points).

(5) Immediately registering itinerant people or temporary residents (2 points). Section V: Preventing fires, crime, and traffic accidents, and reporting the circumstances surrounding accidents. (1) Establishing a fire prevention and safety responsibility system for public entertainment areas, shops, petroleum depots, forests, and other dangerous places (4 points); in case of fire causing serious damage (deduct 10 points). (2) Maintaining vigilance against theft (4 points); deduct double points in case of failure. (3) Maintaining road safety and ensuring that no accidents result in death in any given year (3 points). (4) Demonstrating impact on the legal education of villagers (2 points). (5) Immediately reporting any accidents to higher authorities and to the Comprehensive Public Order Governance Committee (7 points); failure to act (deduct 10 points). (6) Demonstrating the effective resolution of conflicts within the village in accordance with the law (6 points). Practicing favoritism for friends or relatives or conducting affairs with partiality (deduct 10 points). Section VI: Demonstrating strong leadership and concern for comprehensive public order governance. (1) Conscientiously implementing the “Longtan Township Party Committee Comprehensive Public Order Governance Objective Management Method” and demonstrating strong leadership in ideological and organizational work (7 points). (2) Finding practical and genuine approaches to work (3 points). Section VII: Rewards and Penalties (1) At the end of each year every organ and the village party branch will undertake a thorough evaluation. (2) Rewards: Following examination, the attainment of an excellent score will be awarded 200 yuan; a passing score will neither be rewarded nor penalized. (3) Penalties: Following examination, if the score is 50–59 points, a fine of 100 yuan will apply; if the score is 40–49 points, a fine of 200 yuan will apply; if the score is below 39 points, a fine of 300 yuan will apply. The above system of rewards and penalties must be strictly followed or leading cadres will have all achievements and promotions cancelled, and forfeit the right to stand for election; twenty-five percent of the total amount of fines will be borne personally by leading cadres.

Figure 3.  Laxiang County Responsibility Contract for Public Order Governance in Administrative Villages. Source: Laxiang County Governments

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six years as prefectural governor he was promoted to deputy party secretary of the provincial party committee. In this role he was able to influence the appointments of the prefecture’s top leaders, which enabled him to ensure that his network continued to strengthen. His rural township– based network became a major source of influence within the prefecture. By the time of my first visit to Poshan in the late 1990s, even though Network A’s home township had since become an economic backwater, Network A’s power base was already well established within the local state apparatus and its senior members continued to wield considerable clout over local decision making. Between 2005 and 2013, officials from Network A occupied such key positions in the local party and government as prefectural deputy party secretary, United Front Department chief, deputy prefectural governor (formerly head of the Transport Bureau), Agriculture Bureau chief and, importantly, Human Resources Bureau chief. Other townships with similar socioeconomic indicators had produced nowhere near as many county and district officials. The reach of Network A was matched only by one other rival network, which was cultivated during the 2000s in a similar fashion to Network A. Network B was led by an ambitious local official from the county seat who was promoted from county head to deputy prefectural head to prefectural head before serving simultaneously as prefectural head and prefectural party secretary. The chief patron of Network B used his unparalleled influence over promotions and appointments at the sub-prefectural level to elevate his allies, at the core of which lay a group of men from the same town (the county seat) who had been in business together for many years. They pursued their business interests lawfully in the 1990s by taking extended leave from public service, accepting a reduced salary in return for the freedom to engage in other enterprises. When these men returned to their official positions they maintained their business interests by registering holdings in the names of relatives (it became illegal for serving government officials to own businesses). Their control over key levers of bureaucratic power enabled senior members of Network B to promote their business interests and to dispense patronage to their allies and supporters in government. As will be seen later in this chapter, patronage networks needed not only the ability to advance careers; they also needed money to shore up political support and to extend their influence with the local state and society.

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In ethnically diverse regions such as Poshan, native place–based patronage networks sometimes had an ethnic character. However, it is important to note that ethnicity did not appear to be a primary basis for recruitment into patronage networks. Even though a shared ethnic identity and cultural practices doubtless constituted an additional bond, native place clearly trumped ethnicity in the structure of patronage networks in Poshan. This was evident in the multiethnic character of patronage networks that had roots in multiethnic localities. Ethnicity was an important marker of identity to many rural communities, especially as it was intimately linked to kinship and social networks, but ethnicity in itself was not a basis for informal political organization within the local state in Poshan, nor was it a driver of political competition or conflict.7 Calculated blindness to ethnicity was also evident in relationships between local officials and entrepreneurs—a subject discussed in more detail in Chapter Six. While native place ties lay at the core of the patronage networks they were not the only means of recruitment. Ambitious junior officials seeking to advance their careers would typically seek an introduction to a patron who could provide guidance and support (提携 tixie) for appointments and promotion as well as protection (庇护 bihu) from scapegoating and higher-level investigations. If a junior official had no kin or native place ties to a senior official he or she might look to establish connections with a patron through other means. Often an intermediary would be called upon to make an introduction. Such connections were usually made via a different kind of informal personal networking, commonly known as guanxi ( 关系). “Guanxi” is a generic term for a certain type of particularistic tie between individuals in China. When Chinese people claim to have guanxi, it means they have connections that will help them obtain something they want. Chinese culture places great value on human relations and the trust, loyalty, and obligations that attach to them. These obligations arise from various sources—shared native place, kinship, shared experiences such as school ties and service in the military, or loyalty to the same patron. Guanxi networks can be formal (e.g., native place associations), or informal (e.g., the bonds between two people who grew up in the same village). The obligations arising from guanxi are deeply rooted in Chinese culture even though some scholars dispute claims that the phenomenon is culturally unique to China.8 While guanxi networks and patronage networks

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draw on the same cultural values and practices that tie individuals together in webs of mutual obligation, guanxi networks are based on horizontal ties rather than on patron-client ties.

Pat ron ag e N e t wor k s a n d t h e For m a l Local State Organiz ation Patronage networks in Poshan interact with the state’s formal institutions in complex ways, sometimes supplementing them and sometimes undermining them. Reformulating an analogy Andrew Nathan once used to describe factions in China’s elite politics, I suggest that Poshan’s patronage networks resemble a vine on the broken trellis of the local state.9 Despite the Chinese state’s adaptability and success in presiding over deep social and economic reform, including three decades of rapid economic growth and modernization, the Chinese state continues to be characterized by a high degree of bureaucratic indiscipline and an absence of rule of law. It is a system in which personal power prevails over formal rule. Political competition within the state is ruthless and competitors often have more than their careers at stake. It is within this cutthroat and poorly regulated environment that patronage networks have become an important means of political organization and a primary vehicle for political competition within the state. Several officials whom I came to know in Poshan confided that the only way to survive and advance in local politics was to associate with a powerful patron. As one prefectural official acknowledged, “qualifications are useless without a benefactor (保护人 baohuren).” Patrons provided protection and demanded loyalty in return. Clients provided services that have enabled patrons to wield bureaucratic power more effectively. This is because the clientelistic networks empowered senior officials to navigate a bureaucratic system noted for its fragmentation of authority. Overlapping authorities between party and government agencies and between line ministries and territorial administrations are characteristic of the formal Chinese system.10 This fragmentation limits the concentration of bureaucratic power, but makes it relatively easy for a single official to frustrate a project or new initiative—a problem discussed in more detail below. In Poshan, patronage networks strengthened a senior official’s capacity to get things done by mobilizing allies in the relevant agencies.

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Patrons derive their strength (实力 shili) from their ability to control the bureaucratic levers of authority (公权 gongquan) and thus I repeatedly observed during my years in Poshan that day-to-day political competition was characterized by struggles between rival officials to place their own people in strategic posts. By interviewing both currently serving and retired officials in Laxiang County and Poshan Prefecture, I was able to identify the range of posts to which patrons commonly sought to appoint their clients or allies.11 Patrons showed the greatest interest in controlling leading cadre (领导 干部 lingdao ganbu) posts because they had the power to influence personnel appointments, command large budgets, and provide access to extrabudgetary and off-budget revenue streams.12 For analytical purposes I have divided the most coveted positions in the local state into four categories: (1) leadership of bureaus with large budgets (mostly social services providers), (2) leadership of bureaus that regulate the private sector, (3) leadership of bureaus with control over discretionary revenue streams (I call these bureaus the “quiet earners” because their bureaucratic power might be otherwise limited), and (4) “veto player” positions—positions with authority over personnel appointments and recruitment.

Category 1: Big Budget Bureaus Big budget bureaus are agencies that controlled expenditures over large public works funded either through local taxes or through fiscal transfers from higher levels of government. The heads of these agencies had control over large resources and the subcontracting opportunities that came with them. These included heads of government at county and prefectural levels as well as the heads of bureaus responsible for economic planning and for rural infrastructure, such as the Planning and Development Committee, the Transport Bureau, and the Urban Construction Bureau. These bureaus fund large rural infrastructure projects such as roads, dams and bridges, and new buildings for seats of government. During the past decade Poshan has benefited from large investments in rural infrastructure delivered under the auspices of the national government’s Great Western Development Campaign, which is discussed in more detail in the next chapter. One of the Western Development Campaign’s goals, for example, was to ensure that county seats and townships in western China are connected by sealed roads. Bureau chiefs responsible for these large projects were in a position

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to award contracts that could be the source of lucrative kickbacks in the form of cash or gifts of cars and houses. Often contracts were awarded to businesses controlled by other officials, but registered in the names of relatives. When these businesses won government contracts they often subcontracted the work to other firms, taking as much as a 50 percent commission, although payments of 20 to 30 percent were more common. Nearly all influential officials in Poshan and Laxiang indirectly controlled enterprises such as investment companies, hotels, and property developers to which the proceeds from lucrative state projects could be channeled. In Poshan this trend continued to grow during the 2000s despite administrative law reforms and other central government attempts to curtail such practices.13 The Forestry Bureau is among “big budget” bureaus. For the first two decades after Mao, the Poshan Prefectural and Laxiang County governments depended entirely on logging for additional revenues, and the Forestry Bureau held a monopoly on commercial logging, which made it extremely powerful. Even when a moratorium on logging was imposed in 1999 by the national government, the Forestry Bureau received large national government grants to fund its transformation from commercial logger to forest conservator. With annual subsidies from the provincial government plus access to special-purpose grants and other large transfers for conservation and reforestation schemes, the Forestry Bureau remained one of Poshan Prefecture’s and Laxiang County’s biggest actors and the largest public-sector employer.

Category 2: Bureaus Engaged with the Private Sector This group of desirable posts included heads of agencies with the authority to grant business licenses, award government contracts, regulate commercial activity and, in some cases, control prices. The agencies that carried this authority, as well as those that directly engaged in commercial activities through public investment companies, had the power to attract and mobilize large sums of money. One of the most financially robust agencies in Poshan and in many other parts of southwestern China was the Tobacco Monopoly Bureau.14 It operated much like a private corporation, contracting with farmers and cigarette manufacturers, skimming a large chunk of the profits. The formal and informal revenues generated by the tobacco business were significant for local governments in the region. Tobacco Monopoly Bureau chiefs could reinvest revenues in other income-generating

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enterprises such as real estate and hotels. The Tobacco Monopoly Bureau was an attractive place to work because it had the money to offer its employees large bonuses and other entitlements such as subsidized home loans. Even auxiliary staff positions were much better paid in this bureau, and, as such, could be dispensed as patronage. It was common, for example, for a patron to ask one of his clients in the bureau to provide a job to someone from the patron’s hometown or village. Officials usually asked allies to find jobs for their relatives to avoid the appearance of nepotism. Senior officials at the Industry and Commerce Bureau in Laxiang were also powerful figures because of their role in the regulation of private sector activity, including the issuing of licenses and privileged access to cheap credit from state banks. The chief of this bureau had close contact with private investors, who were often willing to pay handsome rewards for assistance with the convoluted system of licensing and regulation, or when negotiating tax advantages, loans, and joint ventures with public enterprises. Rewards for senior officials in this bureau sometimes included shares in the enterprises (registered, of course, in the names of relatives), in a tactic sometimes used by wily investors to ensure that local government leaders had a personal stake in the success of their investments. The Local Tax Bureau was another strategic bureau in this category. Taxes on local enterprises were determined by an arbitrary estimation of gross income, giving tax agents significant discretion. Lower taxes could be negotiated in return for favors. With the local boom in tourism since 1999, more than two hundred new hotels and restaurants began owing taxes to the Laxiang County Local Tax Bureau, offering a new potential source of spoils for bureau officials. The Land and Resources Bureau (previously known as the Land Management Bureau) had the biggest revenue-raising potential of any local bureau. Following the devolution of long-term land lease management to local government, the local Land and Resources Bureaus became very powerful.15 New and expanding businesses and industries needed access to land in and around urban areas. However, villagers were unable to sell their land directly to these new businesses.16 Under China’s land tenure system, farmland must be reclassified before it can be used for commercial or industrial development. The Land and Resources Bureau is the agency responsible for the reclassification of title. In Poshan the Land and Resources Bureau charged up to 80,000 yuan (US$12,500) per mu, a fee that the landowners,

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the former production teams, typically could not afford. This meant that officials in the Land and Resources Bureau could collude with developers to dictate the terms of sale. As an indication of the potential profits involved, in a 2004 land auction in a new shopping precinct in the Laxiang County seat, a piece of land less than half the size of a standard American suburban house lot sold for 480,000 yuan (US$60,000). The county had acquired the land from a farmer many years earlier by providing only 200 yuan (US$25) in compensation.17 Public auctions were held for the most prestigious land sales, but the majority of land deals were negotiated by the Land and Resources Bureau behind closed doors. The provision of access to cheap bank credit was another significant power enjoyed by the leaders of prefectural and county government in Poshan. State-controlled banks receive political direction in the allocation of loans, especially subsidized loans for strategic investments. This is one reason why investors need to curry favor with local officials. Bank loans are frequently not used for the purpose indicated in the loan application, but instead serve as a cheap cash flow for local enterprises, many of which are controlled by local officials. Local power brokers who used their political influence to secure a loan for an investor or for another official (who uses a front company or proxy) could demand a significant fee for their travails, usually around 10 percent of the total value of the loan, but sometimes as much as 15 percent. As Poshan Prefecture’s private sector grew, so too did the opportunities for rent seeking. Several agencies at prefectural, county, and township levels were able to raise extra-budgetary funds from private enterprises through the collection of fees, fines, and monopoly rents. These were levied by several different local agencies, but did not necessarily stifle private investment, because investors benefited from quid pro quo access to preferential treatment and protection. As Eun Kyong Choi observed about other parts of China, the damaging effects of predation on private business have been somewhat “moderated by particularistic ties between local political leaders and entrepreneurs.”18 In the absence of rule of law and independent courts, private businesses typically depended on such alliances for protection. In Laxiang County I knew of officials who would run interference with other parts of the bureaucracy to protect their business allies. In one case, the deputy head of the Poshan Prefecture Commerce Bureau unilaterally signed a memorandum of understanding with a new investor while his boss was away, aware that his boss was a rival

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of one of the investor’s government partners and could not therefore be relied upon to support the initiative.19

Category 3: Quiet Earners I refer to the third category of agencies with highly desirable posts as “quiet earners” because, even though they might be small or bureaucratically weak in a formal administrative sense, they offered access to lucrative extrabudgetary revenue streams. Following decentralization, and in response to the problem of unfunded mandates, local governments came to depend on extra-budgetary revenues to discharge their core responsibilities.20 At their peak in the 1990s, extra-budgetary revenues reached levels as high as or higher than formal budget revenues.21 While extra-budgetary revenues are often supposed to be earmarked to provide local public services, in practice these funds are often diverted to a wide range of other expenses such as government entertainment and travel expenses. Several officials I know in Poshan Prefecture used extra-budgetary revenues to purchase luxury cars. A common source of extra-budgetary revenue in Poshan Prefecture and Laxiang County was the leasing of state assets. Sometimes this was done openly and transparently, but in many cases transactions were conducted off budget. Because off-budget revenues did not have to be reported to the Finance Bureau at the respective level, officials had even more discretion over their use. The Laxiang County Bureau of Minority and Religious Affairs, for example, owned a building that was officially registered as a training center. As far as official records were concerned, the facility was used by various government agencies for staff training. However, such training rarely, if ever, took place. For several years, the bureau leased the building to an entrepreneur who operated a hotel out of the premises. In a similar fashion, the Laxiang County Civil Affairs Bureau, which is responsible, among other things, for emergency relief in the countryside, owned a building that was registered as the county’s Emergency Relief Center. This building, too, was leased to an entrepreneur who ran a hotel. The bureau chiefs were able to use the rental income at their discretion.

Category 4: Veto Players Veto players in local government are senior leaders who hold influence over project approvals and personnel appointments. The first tier of veto players includes the heads of the government and party at the county and

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prefectural levels as well as their deputies. Heads of government must authorize local public works, but deputies can be influential in persuading their boss of a project’s merits. The six or seven deputies who are attached to the party secretary and Laxiang County head (a structure mirrored at the prefectural and provincial level) are each responsible for overseeing a cluster of policy sectors and the agencies responsible for work in those areas. The most powerful deputies were in charge of construction, communications, industry, and taxation. A single deputy was sometimes responsible for more than one of these powerful portfolios. Bureau heads needed to curry favor with these deputies to ensure that their projects and activities met with executive approval. Party secretaries and deputy secretaries were given responsibility for nearly the same portfolio clusters as the heads and deputy heads of government, but they also oversaw additional party functions such as propaganda and party organization. These deputies were powerful because the party had more veto powers than the government executive, especially when it came to personnel appointments. And unlike the government, the party had the power to launch investigations into the transgressions of senior officials—a weapon that was often used in political competition between rival patronage networks. I include in the veto player category all members of the Communist Party Standing Committee at the prefectural and county level. This is because these officials have direct influence over the appointment and promotion of leading cadres within their jurisdiction. A capacity to influence personnel appointments is an important power for local power brokers. In Laxiang County, the Standing Committee consists of the party secretary, the head of government (prefectural governor or county head, who usually serves concurrently as a deputy party secretary), the heads of the Party Organization Bureau and Discipline Inspection Committees, who are also deputy party secretaries, the chair of the People’s Congress, the chair of the People’s Political Consultative Conference, the chief of the court, the chief of police, and the chief of the People’s Armed Police. Beneath the party and government chiefs are second-tier veto players, namely the deputy chairs of the county and prefectural People’s Congresses. Even though the People’s Congress is generally considered a toothless, rubber stamp legislature, opposition from People’s Congress deputies can be inconvenient and disruptive. In Poshan, heads of prefectural and county-level departments were required to report to the People’s Congress

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every three months, at which time they received formal approval or disapproval for their performance on policy implementation and other work. The approval process was largely a formality, but it provided the opportunity to formally criticize a local government official, which could tarnish the official’s record. Congress chairs were not always known to be objective when singling out officials and projects for praise or criticism. A word from a patron frequently determined their outwardly expressed views on a particular matter. Because of the party’s superior status in China’s political system, there were more veto positions in party ranks than in the government. However, because local leaders relied heavily on their patronage networks as a source of power, power relations between the party secretary and the head of government at the same level were not always clear-cut. In the past, county and prefectural party secretaries were always appointed from outside the locality in accordance with the regional avoidance policy. This was designed to limit the accumulation of power by locally embedded patronage networks. But party secretaries rotated from the outside still needed to navigate the locality’s informal politics. The strongest externally appointed party secretaries were able to balance rival patronage networks. However, the recent trend of localizing top party and government appointments has meant that party secretaries are less likely to sit above local patronage networks and more likely to be a part of the competition for informal control over the local levers of bureaucratic power.

Pat ron ag e N e t wor k s a n d For m a l Controls: Personnel Appointments The influence of patronage networks in personnel appointments in Poshan Prefecture and Laxiang County is germane to recent debates about the effectiveness of the cadre management system in maintaining central control over the political system. In recent years analysts have argued that, through the cadre management and political contracting system, central party leaders maintain effective control over their local agents even in a highly decentralized system. 22 As Pierre Landry observes, “the CCP controls the selection and promotion of 10.5 million officials posted in 307,000 work units, among whom 508,000 are

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high ranking cadres above the county level.” 23 There is no doubt that the cadre management system shapes the incentives and expectations of local officials by setting guidelines for promotion and formulating complex procedures for performance evaluations, but a narrow focus on the formal rules misses much of what drives political behavior at the local level. As Landry himself acknowledges, “at the local level, one would not necessarily expect decentralization to occur without significant loss of central political control of the process and criteria for the appointment of officials.”24 And yet, there have been few studies of the ways in which central political control is lost. While several studies have noted that positions in the local state bureaucracy can often be bought (买官 maiguan)25 —a subject discussed in more detail in the following section—few studies have noted the penetration of patronage networks into local personnel management. As mentioned above, Poshan’s patronage politics revolved around a competition over personnel appointments. The positioning of trusted allies in strategic posts was the main source of power of the patronage network. In Poshan patrons used a variety of strategies to influence personnel appointments. In the case of leading cadre positions, patrons needed to prepare early, usually well before a position became vacant. It was important to have access to information about which leading cadre might soon be promoted or retire and thereby vacate a strategic position. Patrons would then consider who among their allies was best qualified for the position because it was increasingly important for a candidate to meet the basic eligibility criteria, including age limitations and educational qualifications. Patrons would then often use informal channels to advocate their choice, telling other officials that such-andsuch a person was in line for the said position when it became vacant. If there were rival candidates—i.e., those linked to another patronage network—the patron might ask his clients to muckrake (search for reasons why a rival might be unfit for office). Baseless rumors were sometimes deliberately spread about a rival candidate. Once candidates for a leading cadre position have been identified by the Party Organization Bureau, they are subjected to a nonbinding popularity contest. All local government officials ranked deputy section chief (副科级 fukeji) and above are entitled to cast a vote for candidates being considered for appointment to a leading cadre position. For

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example, when two or more candidates are being considered for promotion to county head, deputy county heads, heads of county bureaus, deputy heads of bureaus, township heads, and deputy township heads (and all the party secretaries at the same levels) are invited to attend a meeting where votes are cast. The purpose of the vote is to provide a peer evaluation of the candidate, which the Party Organization Bureau is required to take into account when making the appointment. Even though the result of the vote is not binding, the voting is still taken seriously because if one candidate receives many more votes than another, the Organization Bureau comes under a degree of pressure to appoint the more popular candidate. Because of the frequent rotation of leading cadres in Poshan, cadres ranked deputy section chief and above were often summoned to cast votes. In advance of the meetings patronage networks would seek to maximize the votes for their candidate. Patrons would simply instruct their networks whom to vote for, but sometimes these votes were insufficient. Sometimes patrons needed to join forces with other informal networks. This would often involve horse trading—i.e., a promise of support for another group’s candidate in another selection process. Sometimes a high-placed patron would take advantage of the meeting—convening powers to catch rivals off guard. I was in Laxiang County on one Sunday when a party leader called a snap meeting to vote for candidates for the chief of the county’s Urban Construction Bureau. The deputy party secretary who called the meeting ensured that his allies were previously informed about the meeting and available to attend. Many supporters of a rival candidate were unable to attend at such short notice on a Sunday. These findings in Poshan complement recent research on political appointments in the central leadership. Victor Shih finds that such elite national appointments serve the regime and its leaders more than they do policy goals.26 Before confirming appointments the Party Organization Bureau conducts a comprehensive evaluation of prospective candidates. Local power brokers use various tactics to influence this evaluation. One of the more ruthless means of competing involves sabotage of a rival’s career prospects. This is done by accusing the candidate of impropriety. Allegations of malfeasance can be submitted anonymously to the Party Discipline Inspection Committee. If such an allegation is made, the

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committee is legally obliged to investigate. Regardless of the outcome (many allegations turn out to be groundless), an official is ineligible for transfer or promotion while being investigated—a process that can take months. In 2010 this happened to a Poshan Prefectural official I knew. He was being considered for the position of deputy governor of the prefecture. At the voting stage he mustered more votes from his peers than two rival candidates, but was subsequently forced to exit the race when an anonymous allegation about his private business dealings was filed with the Discipline Inspection Committee. Even though the candidate was cleared of wrongdoing by a subsequent investigation, the process made him ineligible for consideration. This gave a rival patron an opportunity to fill the position with his own candidate. The same position would not become vacant for up to five years—the new standard tenure for leading cadre positions. When more than one candidate has been found by the Party Organization Bureau to meet the eligibility criteria, rivalry between candidates and between their respective patrons intensifies. When the patronage networks of rival candidates are relatively evenly matched (i.e., each network is able to call on veto players such as members of the Party Standing Committee to influence the final decision), patrons at the county and prefectural level might reach out to higher-level patrons in the province to secure the desired outcome. In Poshan in 2011, the prefectural party secretary had to decide where to place three officials newly promoted to the rank of division head (正处 zhengchu). 27 Due to retirements and promotions there were three vacant positions at the division head rank. The three positions were Poshan Prefectural deputy governor, deputy chair of the Poshan Prefectural People’s Political Consultative Conference, and deputy chair of the Poshan Prefectural People’s Congress. Of the three positions, the Poshan Prefectural deputy governor was the most coveted because it directly supervised a number of big budget bureaus. The other two positions were supervisory and consultative roles in relatively weak state institutions. They could be seen as a career dead-end because they provided little opportunity for demonstrating political achievement or for mobilizing resources. The decision-making process surrounding the appointment of the three newly promoted officials involved a great deal of lobbying by the candidates and their respective patrons. One candidate was closely allied

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to the governor—a connection that under normal circumstances would have made his appointment a fait accompli, but I learned that his rival was working to mobilize officials who would sway the party secretary. If the party secretary had a strong view about the appointment, his view would trump the governor’s. Ultimately, the rival’s efforts failed. Observers of the process informed me that the newly appointed party secretary deferred to the governor in his choice so as to build good relations with him. Patronage networks could be more important for a local official’s career than his or her actual job performance. Well-connected officials could advance through the ranks even while leaving a wake of administrative disasters behind them. Several rural development projects that I observed throughout the region, for example, resulted in failure and a significant waste of public resources. There were many examples of substandard public works projects paid for with inflated budgets. In one township, a new high-flow irrigation system was left unfinished, resulting in the drowning of hundreds of goats belonging to a nearby village. The county official responsible for the project was subsequently promoted. Another Laxiang County official squandered a special-purpose grant on a failed commercial orchard, but this did not stop his promotion the following year. In a recent study of cadre management in the cities of Beijing, Changchun, and Ningbo, John Burns and Wang Xiaoqi note that many poorly performing officials manage to retain their jobs. Burns and Wang attribute this to the failure of cadre management systems to “screen-out under-performers.” They argue “the decision to leave the screening method to local governments may have enabled supervisors to maintain social harmony at the expense of efficiency in the workplace.”28 In Poshan patron-client ties had a more important impact on the outcome of the cadre evaluations than “harmony” considerations. As a former township head observed, “you can make a lot of mistakes in your career and still get promoted, and you can do everything really well and spend your career languishing at the bottom. It all depends on who your friends are.” Patrons could influence the evaluation process at several stages, but the most important was during the peer review stage when allies would be mobilized to speak highly of the official’s performance, dedication, and political correctness. Officials at the Party

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Organization Bureau responsible for conducting the evaluations were, of course, allied to different patrons and therefore responsive to their wishes. Though mistakes could be tolerated, consistently underperforming cadres in Poshan Prefecture and Laxiang County were unlikely to advance even with a powerfully placed patron. It was not in a patron’s interests to promote an untalented official. This is because the strength of the patronage network depended on the bureaucratic skills of its members. If a loyal client outlives his usefulness to a patron, the patron will often find a gentle way to retire him to a sinecure in the People’s Congress or Political Consultative Conference. These positions are known as “resting official” positions. Underperforming junior allies to whom a patron was obligated through kin or native place ties were sometimes given fake jobs—positions that existed on the books, but which had no formal bureaucratic function. In Poshan there were hundreds of such positions, particularly at the prefectural and county levels of government. Many of these positions could be found in bureaucratically weak agencies that few people paid attention to. Examples of Laxiang County agencies with several such dummy positions were the Records Bureau, the Culture Bureau, and the Office of Party History. I knew several people in Poshan who had official positions, but who never needed to report for duty. The Laxiang County Records Bureau, for example, employed a driver, even though it had never owned a car. Patrons would sometimes place allies or the relatives of allies in these positions, providing them with the salary and benefits of a state job, and then call on their services at any time to run private errands. In Poshan Prefecture the ability of patronage networks to influence the appointment of cadres began to increase from the mid-1980s, when the central government adopted the “one-rank down” recruitment system. Before 1984 the central government determined the appointment of leaders at both the provincial and the prefectural/municipal level (“two ranks down”). Following the reform, the central government only appointed provincial party and government leaders, leaving it to the provinces to appoint prefectural leaders, and the prefectures to appoint county leaders, and so forth. This led to an immediate decrease in the number of officials being appointed from outside the province, as local patronage networks sought to promote their own members. During the

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Maoist period as many as 70 percent of party secretaries and governors at the prefectural/municipality level were non-local appointments. Now the reverse became the case. 29 The appointment of local party secretaries clearly strengthened the grip of patronage networks over the local state.

The Bu y ing and Selling of Government Positions Within the growing literature on official corruption in China much attention has been given to the practice of selling official appointments. John Burns and Wang Xiaoqi note, for example, that a key problem with the cadre management system is the “use by local governments of informal screening criteria to select civil servants, such as the ability to pay.”30 As Minxin Pei elsewhere observes, the practice “normally involves an underling who gives a bribe to his superior in exchange for a promotion or an appointment to a more desirable government office.”31 Since the 1990s, when the practice became more prevalent, the Chinese media have covered numerous examples of officials being caught and punished for taking such bribes. In November 2005 the head of a district in Nanchong City in Sichuan Province was dismissed for selling 61 posts.32 In Dingyuan County in Anhui Province, a party secretary was found guilty of selling 297 posts, including the posts of all 37 township heads in the county. In total the party secretary was found to have collected 2.84 million yuan in bribes.33 In another case, Li Tiecheng, vice chairman of the Baishan Municipal People’s Political Consultative Congress in Jilin Province, was found guilty of accepting 1.43 million yuan in bribes from 110 individuals while serving as a county party secretary. Li Tiecheng described the process of cadre appointments and promotions during a candid interview: Every time prior to the verification of cadres, I would hold a secretaries’ meeting to set a “tone.” I would use the age, work experience, educational background, experience, and rank of those who had given me gifts to set a standard and demarcate a scope. I absolutely would not name anyone’s name, but would let the Organization Bureau “go find people” within the “scope” I had demarcated. After they had found them, we could proceed according to the procedures. On the surface,

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the rationale was clear, and the procedures were lawful, but in reality, this was using individuals to draw lines and using individuals to draw scope. I used this method to reward all those who had given me gifts.34

Li’s description is useful because it highlights the informal rules of the competition. Despite the complex procedures for appointing and promoting cadres, it is the informal rules that often determine the outcome. Li did not need to name names, but his preferences were nevertheless communicated to staff at the Party Organization Bureau. The Li Tiecheng example is also important in another sense—it is a reminder that officials do sometimes get caught and punished for the buying and selling of official posts. In Laxiang County a handful of officials were punished, usually by dismissal, for selling posts. These included the former head of the Laxiang County Education Bureau. The bureau chief accepted bribes from dozens of teachers seeking appointment to the county’s best schools, which usually meant a comfortable assignment to a school in the county seat, a modern town with a population of about 70,000, instead of to a remote-area school. According to a teacher who admitted paying an informal “fee” for his placement, the fees ranged from 15,000 to 30,000 yuan per placement. Local officials are aware of the risks of being caught red-handed for buying and selling such posts, but most officials I talked to were of the opinion that one had to be stupid (笨 ben) to be caught. According to a former Laxiang County official, “it would be foolish to accept a bribe that fell in your lap from someone you didn’t know. It could be a set-up.”35 Within the party-state, officials would only solicit or offer informal fees through trusted intermediaries. When an intermediary was able to prosecute a deal, the effect was to solidify the informal ties between the parties to the transaction. Not only did the transaction imply mutual obligations, but it also meant that they shared a secret— they had something on each other.36 Payments sometimes exchanged hands in subtle ways to avoid the crudity of a “brown paper bag.” A popular method was to organize a friendly game of mahjong where the “giver” had a deliberate run of bad luck. In Poshan, such gambling events have become institutionalized. As a Laxiang County official explained, it is much better to be disciplined for winning money at the gambling table than for being caught accepting bribes.37

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In Poshan money was regularly paid to buy support for promotions and appointments. Patrons received loyalty rather than cash in return for promoting their clients, but the fragmented nature of decision making often meant that officials outside of the immediate patronage network needed to be bought off in or order to secure the desired outcome. Sometimes a patron would raise money in order to make the required payments and call on the client to contribute. Costs would depend on the position being sought and the level of competition. In Poshan it was always well known who was eligible and in line for a leading cadre position. If there were rival candidates who met or exceeded the eligibility criteria and who were also supported by their own networks, it became necessary to invest in large gifts for nonaligned officials, especially veto players in the prefectural and county governments and influential leaders in the province, whose collective voice might sway the decision. The nature of the payments depended on the nature of the relationship. Close relationships such as those between members of a guanxi network allowed for money to change hands without embarrassment. Cash gifts would be culturally inappropriate in the case of more distant relationships. In such cases gifts of artwork, rare bottles of liquor, or Swissmade watches were more common. If an official accepted a gift it was generally understood that he was entering into an informal contract to provide the required quid pro quo. Officials sometimes refused gifts—a statement that often indicated their support was already committed to a rival. It was the duty of patronage network intermediaries, however, to minimize the risks of such potential embarrassments.

Pat ron ag e N e t wor k s and Official Corruption Patronage networks facilitated more than just trade in appointments and promotions. They also facilitated a variety of transactions that Chinese laws would define as corrupt. Official corruption—defined as the abuse of public power for private benefit—has become endemic throughout China.38 In a political environment characterized by administrative fiat, a high degree of state intervention in the economy, weak rule of law, and an emphasis on revenue generation, it is no surprise that corruption

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has flourished. It is a problem China shares with many countries at similar stages of economic development. Although it is difficult to measure the full extent of official corruption, economist Wang Xiaolu of China’s National Economic Research Institute estimated that the country’s unreported and untaxed gray income amounted to 5.4 trillion yuan or US$800 billion in 2008 alone, and that the majority of this income represented illicit proceeds gained from the abuse of state power.39 The extent of Chinese officials’ wealth has become more apparent since officials are now required to declare their assets and the assets of their family members. According to a 2011 report on wealth in China, the richest seventy members of China’s National People’s Congress boast a combined wealth of 493.1 billion yuan (US$75.1 billion). By contrast, the assets of the seventy most wealthy members of the U.S. Congress was $4.8 billion—one-fifteenth the value of their Chinese counterparts.40 A June 2011 report by the People’s Bank of China revealed that since the mid1990s as many as 18,000 state officials had fled the country, taking with them an estimated 800 billion yuan (US$124 billion) of ill-gotten gains. Of course, it can only be assumed that an even larger share of ill-gotten gains remains in China as most officials do not have the international networks needed to move money offshore.41 Poshan Prefecture’s and Laxiang County’s patronage networks became oriented toward spoils following economic and administrative reforms in the 1980s.42 As in other parts of China, newly empowered local officials capitalized on the freewheeling moneymaking environment to build local empires, mostly from the profits of state-owned enterprises. In nonindustrial regions such as Poshan, entrepreneurial local officials—David Wank called them “bureaupreneurs”—generated new revenue from the exploitation of natural resources, which were increasingly needed to feed industrial development in the east.43 Laxiang County’s first generation of bureaupreneurs made profits by selling raw materials such as timber to factories in the eastern provinces. As the market for timber grew, huge profits could be made by exploiting the difference between the market price and the price paid to villagers for felled trees. Profits could be made on the books and off the books—i.e., by harvesting beyond official quotas and selling the extra timber on the black market. Many of the men who rose through the party-state ranks in Laxiang County during the 1980s had worked in the state-run

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forestry sector, directly controlling timber mills at the township and county levels. The patron of Laxiang County’s Network A, discussed above, was one such timber magnate. Mining was another important source of revenue. According to retired officials who served during the period, those quickest to rise to senior positions in the county and district governments were officials from the townships with the largest concentrations of natural resources that were easily accessible. By advancing to senior posts in county and prefectural government, the new breed of entrepreneurial officials could make use of bureaucratic power to advance their economic interests. Motivated officials could then use their material wealth to expand their patronage networks. During my regular visits to Laxiang County between 2000 and 2013 it was clear that many local officials had become rich despite receiving only modest official salaries. Their houses had grown larger and many officials owned several properties. Officials’ consumption had also grown increasingly conspicuous. Local officials became accustomed to taking holidays abroad, sending their children to study abroad, buying expensive toys, and spending tens of thousands of dollars per year on food and entertainment. The increased wealth of local officials was on display every day of the week in Laxiang’s hotels and restaurants. According to local restaurateurs in Laxiang County, it was common for local officials to spend 10,000 yuan (US$1,300) or more per table when entertaining, which was higher than the total monthly take-home pay—including allowances—of a county bureau chief.44 Some local officials I knew enjoyed lifestyles of greater luxury than their bureaucratic counterparts in advanced industrialized countries such as Australia and the United States. In Poshan Prefecture and Laxiang County local politics had become a spoils system. And the spoils were distributed via patronage networks. Just as it was impossible to be a serious player in local politics without forming an alliance with a powerful patron, it was extremely difficult to be a serious player without observing the informal rules of spoils politics. Spoils were the currency of patronage. And patronage was essential for political survival. A local official whom I have known for more than a decade once stated the problem succinctly: “If you’re not corrupt, no one will trust you.”

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Pat ron ag e N e t wor k s and Anti-Cor ruption Since the 2000s the Chinese Communist Party has announced many anti-corruption campaigns and initiatives. However, highly publicized efforts to reduce official corruption appear to have had little impact.45 Indeed, my observations of political machinations in Poshan Prefecture during the past decade suggest that official corruption has increased in both scale and complexity. A key reason for the failure of anti-corruption measures in China is the weakness of formal monitoring agencies vis-à-vis local patronage and other informal networks. The two main agencies responsible for monitoring corruption are the government’s Investigation Bureau and the party’s rather secretive Discipline Inspection Committee. The functions of these two agencies are largely the same, except that the Party Discipline Inspection Committee primarily investigates alleged wrongdoing on the part of party members, and the Investigation Bureau investigates alleged wrongdoing on the part of (generally less senior) non-party-member officials. The party’s Discipline Inspection Committee is the more significant agency because nearly all important local officials are party members. The Discipline Inspection Committee is also obliged to investigate all complaints, even those delivered anonymously, but the process for handling those complaints and for meting out punishments remains opaque.46 The Discipline Inspection Committee metes out discipline internally, only referring serious cases to the judicial system for prosecution. Senior officials in both agencies are generalist bureaucrats rather than trained specialists and are frequently rotated in and out of agencies. Just like any other leading cadre, local patrons desire to have allies in these sensitive and potentially important posts so that they can be called upon when necessary to assist with unwelcome investigations. Another formal feature of the discipline inspection system that undermines its effectiveness is the lack of independent authority of the head of the Discipline Inspection Committee. In Poshan Precture and Laxiang County the head of the party’s Discipline Inspection Committees is a deputy party secretary who reports to the party secretary. Further, the party secretary must personally approve the launch of any investigation into an official ranked deputy section chief (county bureau

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chiefs/prefectural deputy bureau chiefs) or above. Without giving a reason, the party secretary is able to withhold his approval of an investigation. Party secretaries are generally reluctant to approve investigations because it is difficult to target an individual official without implicating others. According to a retired Laxiang deputy party secretary, “the party secretary almost never approves investigations into officials above the rank of deputy section chief. Once the process is unleashed, nobody can be sure where it will end.”47 In Poshan party secretaries were sometimes forced to turn a blind eye to transgressions by subordinate officials not only because referring them to the Discipline Inspection Committee could be messy and unpredictable, but also because investigations could end up reflecting badly on the party secretary himself. In one case, the Laxiang County party secretary as well as the county head was forced to ignore evidence of large-scale embezzlement during a road construction project. According to officials associated with the case, it was widely known that the project was rotten—a substandard road had been built in Longtan Township for an exorbitant cost. However, the parties behind the project made sure that documentation for the project was signed off by key government agencies including the county government executive. Even though the county head was not an ally of the main actors behind the road project, his office was vulnerable in the event of an investigation. According to a former aide, both the county head and the party secretary took steps to bury the problem.48 Official corruption tended to be a collective enterprise. Accessing spoils required coordination across multiple agencies—a process facilitated by patronage networks. This collective nature of official corruption underscored its systemic nature and entrenched a set of informal rules that shaped local officials’ behavior as powerfully as the state’s formal rules. According to a retired county official, it’s difficult to blow a whistle on wrong-doing without the risk of harming your own people at the same time. But that’s not the only reason people keep their mouths shut. This is a small place and there are eyes and ears everywhere. If you tell tales, your enemies can find out who’s the source. The people you report on can use their connections in the province to cover it up, and you might end up dead. Everybody knows what’s going on, but who’ll do anything about it?49

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Pat ron ag e N e t wor k s, C or ru p t ion, and Economic Development Scholars have traditionally assumed spoils systems to have a negative impact on the economy. This is because corruption and rent-seeking behavior are believed to deter investment and misallocate resources. Corruption creates inefficiencies by rewarding those with connections and creating market barriers for others. Because patronage politics is said to favor inefficient subsidies and monopoly benefits over productive activity, the pursuit of spoils can channel resources into wasteful projects such as “bridges to nowhere” and result in poor-quality public investments—a problem discussed in more detail in Chapter Five.50 It must be noted, however, that the system of spoils politics in Poshan emerged during an era of rapid economic development. Similar observations elsewhere in the world have prompted some political scientists to argue that official corruption can be compatible with, and even conducive to, economic growth.51 These scholars have suggested that corruption can serve to grease the wheels of economic growth by allowing capital to circumvent cumbersome regulations.52 The evidence from Laxiang County and Poshan Prefecture suggests that patronage networks do indeed perform this function, stimulating economic activity while simultaneously sucking spoils from it. Indeed, in a political and bureaucratic environment encumbered by fragmented authority and weak formal regulations, patronage networks helped to make things happen. Patronage provided an incentive for bureaucrats to circumvent red tape and the cover necessary to use personal power to supplement the lack of formal institutional guarantees.53 Poshan’s spoils system was not the only driver of local decision making. Most of the officials I came to know in Poshan Prefecture and Laxiang County appeared to be genuinely concerned about local development. Many regularly expressed an interest in helping local communities to enjoy a better quality of life. But the desire to foster local growth and development and the desire to siphon spoils from local development were not mutually exclusive. The two often went hand in hand. Local officials were often highly motivated to assist their home townships and villages when they had the opportunity. Officials often collaborated with other members of their networks to secure special-purpose grants

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for their home areas. This served three purposes. First, officials I knew appeared to believe they were serving the people by improving the living conditions of the local populace. Second, securing investment for one’s hometown earned an official local legitimacy and prestige. Third, ensuring that projects were implemented in a locality with which an official or group of officials had close personal ties meant that spoils could be more easily extracted. Like the infamous George Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, many officials I came to know considered spoils taking to be “honest graft” because there was something for everyone.54 It was part of a moral economy that was galvanized by popular sentiment. Many villagers I spoke with generally agreed that a share in the spoils was an acceptable reward for bringing investment to their locality. The competition over spoils from rural development grants is the subject of the next chapter.

five

Political Competition over State-Funded Programs

Generating revenue to fund mandates has been a preoccupation of local governments in China since economic and administrative reforms introduced from the late 1970s made China one of the most decentralized states in the world. Much of the early scholarship on the local state in reformera China focused on different local government approaches to funding mandates and the implications of their approaches for China’s political economy and for state-society relations. In the industrialized coastal areas scholars observed that local governments were funding their mandates by developing local state-owned enterprises and by promoting private industry that could be taxed. Scholars working in these regions identified a “developmental” local state motivated to provide the conditions necessary for further industrialization and economic development.1 Subsequent case studies of China’s agricultural hinterland identified a very different type of local state. Without access to proceeds from industrialization, many rural counties and townships preyed on farmers by raising taxes and fees.2 The hardship caused by these taxes and fees became widely known as the “peasant burden” (农民负担nongmin fudan).

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Laxiang County represents a third type of local state in China. As in the central provinces, livelihoods in China’s western regions are primarily dependent on agriculture. There is very little secondary industry and average incomes are much lower than in the coastal provinces. Indeed, much of China’s remaining rural poverty is concentrated in the western regions.3 However, unlike in many other parts of China’s agricultural heartlands, local governments in the Poshan area have not been financially squeezed; neither have they been overly predatory toward the rural populace. This is because Laxiang County and many other counties in the region have benefited from central government subsidies, which they receive as a result of their official status as either impoverished counties (贫困县 pinkun xian) or as ethnic regions (民族地区 minzu diqu), or both.4 Central and provincial government subsidies are the main source of revenue for counties such as Laxiang. Fiscal transfers account for nearly 90 percent of local government expenditures in the Poshan region.5 The general-purpose fiscal transfers that are provided annually cover operating expenses such as salaries, routine administration, and basic services. However, for a wide range of policies and programs designed to develop the economy and improve local livelihoods, Poshan-area governments rely on special-purpose funds. Special-purpose funds could be announced at any time by ministries seeking to further a policy goal. In Laxiang County in 2010–2011, projects funded by special-purpose funds included hospital and rural health clinic construction (Ministry of Health), upgrades to low-yielding farmland (Ministry of Agriculture), maintenance and reconstruction of schools (Ministry of Education), earthquake-proofing of houses (Ministry of Construction), and forest fire prevention (Ministry of Forestry). There was also funding for youth and elderly outreach activities supported by the Ministry of Civil Affairs.6 Special-purpose funds are usually allocated to specific bureaus for specific projects. In 2011, for example, Laxiang County was allocated a grant to earthquake-proof rural houses. A total of 4,150 houses were to receive a combined total of 15.5 million yuan for retrofitting and reconstruction.7 The funds were provided by the central government’s Construction Bureau for management and implementation by county construction bureaus. In 2012 the provincial government provided a grant for the purchase of winter clothing and bedding for students from low-income families. These funds were allocated to the Laxiang County Education Bureau for disbursement to local schools.

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The agency with the largest resources for special-purpose grants is the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) because it funds large public infrastructure. Under the supervision of the NDRC two additional offices provide special-purpose grants to western areas such as Poshan. They are the Western Region Development Office and the Population Resettlement Office (PRO), both of which have offices in Poshan Prefecture and Laxiang County. Another important agency providing funds to western areas such as Poshan is the Poor Area Development Office (PADO). PADO was established in 1986 to coordinate the activities of the various agencies involved in poverty alleviation work, but it has since grown into a large bureaucracy with its own directly administered funds totaling more than US$5 billion annually and representative offices at each level of local government in target regions. Since 2000, Poshan-area governments have benefited from a dramatic increase in special-purpose grants provided by the central government under the auspices of the Great Western Development Campaign (GWD, 西部大开发 xibu dakaifa). This policy framework promised to invest tens of billions of dollars to reduce growing economic inequalities between China’s eastern coastal provinces and the western regions. The GWD represented an ambitious attempt by the central government to integrate the resource-rich, but slow-growth economies of the western and southwestern provinces with the dynamic but resourcepoor economies of the eastern provinces through investments in public infrastructure. While there has been much debate about the intentions of the GWD and its benefits for the diverse communities of western China,8 the scale of public investment and its impact on western areas such as Poshan have been enormous. During the first decade of the program (2000–2009), total fiscal transfers for fixed asset investment across the western provinces amounted to 3.66 trillion yuan (approximately US$500 billion), which was equivalent to more than five and a half times the total investment of the preceding five decades.9 A further twenty-three projects worth an estimated US$100 billion were being undertaken in 2010.10 In 2011 and 2012 new large-scale hydropower, rail, and highway projects were rolled out, with more infrastructure investments planned for 2013, 2014, and 2015 as part of a new fiscal stimulus package.11

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The Political Competition over Speci a l-Pur pose Funds Competition over special-purpose funds in Poshan was intense. At a formal institutional level, county governments competed with each other for funding. Within the county, townships also competed for access to grants as many grants were only made available to select pilot townships and villages. There was also intense competition between county government agencies over the control of grants, especially when they were not provided by line ministries—i.e., it was not predetermined which agency might be responsible for a particular project. Poshan-area officials had multiple reasons for pursuing special-purpose grants. Securing a grant was considered a tangible achievement officials could highlight when applying for promotion. It also demonstrated skills that might enable an official to impress a patron who might then provide him with other professional opportunities. Importantly, winning and managing a grant also provided an opportunity for networking with senior officials, including officials from the province. This could lead to other grant opportunities. As a former township head told me, every project is an opportunity to meet higher-level officials with whom one can establish guanxi.12 Securing a special-purpose grant for a locality also enhanced the social status of the officials responsible. Although it can be safely assumed that local governments are under no clear pressure to be accountable to local citizens when spending grants from higher levels, during more than decade of fieldwork I came to understand that many officials cared deeply about what people thought of them, especially people from their hometowns. Reputations mattered in Poshan’s moral economy and it was important for officials to be seen to be doing something for their home area. The expectations that an official would look after his own people reflected the same set of values that sustained native-place-based patronage networks. Laxiang County officials pursued special-purpose grants aggressively for the reasons outlined above, but also because they presented an opportunity to cover revenue shortfalls in other areas. Cash-strapped county governments were adept at diverting grants to more immediate needs, regardless of their intended purposes. This is made possible by creative accounting, but also by lax reporting requirements. Site visits by higher-level officials also tend to be cursory. Sometimes inspectors never make it to a project

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site because local officials ensure they are kept busy with entertainment in the county seat. County governments allocate a large amount of funding to the county Protocol Office so that visiting officials are provided with generous hospitality. Visiting officials are so accustomed to being looked after when visiting lower levels of government that they frequently ask the local government officials to make arrangements for themselves and their families even when visiting in a private capacity, such as when they are on vacation. On several occasions I was introduced to provincial and central government officials who were visiting Poshan on vacation, but whose lodging, transportation, and expenses were being covered by local government agencies. When I queried a prefectural official responsible for organizing one of the visits, he explained that “it’s a lot of work hosting these visitors, but it’s an important way to cultivate guanxi. You never know when you might need their help one day.” Even in the case-specific earmarks such as student clothing or building materials designated for spending by specific bureaus, it is possible for the county executive to divert such funds by transferring other financial burdens to the implementing bureau in “exchange” for these grants.13 This forces the bureau to spend part of the special-purpose fund on operating costs. This is easily facilitated because all monies flow through the prefectural Finance Bureau, which ultimately determines what funds are to be made available to the project. And it is not always clear how much funds have been allocated by higher levels. This depends on how the grant has been negotiated—i.e., between which parties. Because financial information does not flow transparently through the formal system, it is often necessary to request intervention by a patron or an ally in the patronage network to avoid being tricked out of funds by competing agencies and rival officials. As a county official explained, “you have to fight to get funds, and you have to fight to keep them.” In extreme cases, funding for particular projects was diverted entirely to other ends. One such project was a small hydropower station designed to provide electricity for several villages in one of Laxiang County’s townships. The provincial office of the NDRC provided a 13 million yuan grant for the project and Laxiang County was supposed to provide matching funds. The funding from the province arrived in the financial year in which it was committed, but the county decided to delay the project, presumably because local officials in charge of the project wanted to use the funds for

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something else. Land preparation work for the project eventually started, but was soon discontinued, ostensibly because the contractor went bankrupt. In due course, Laxiang County’s Hydroelectricity Bureau reported that the hydropower station was completed as planned, but claimed it was subsequently destroyed by a landslide. When I visited the township in 2011, local farmers informed me that no such landslide ever occurred and no power station was ever built. Nobody knew what happened to the 13 million yuan that was reportedly spent on the project. One way local governments divert special-purpose grants to other ends is to double dip. It is sometimes possible to secure more than one grant for the same project and to acquit the same costs against two budgets. One area where this is common is in school construction. The central government has provided large sums of money for school construction under the auspices of the GWD and also as part of the fiscal stimulus programs rolled out in 2008 and 2012. At the same time, numerous national and international charities and, increasingly, Chinese companies through their corporate social responsibility programs engage in school building projects in impoverished counties. According to a Poshan Prefectural Education Bureau official, “these days if a school needs to be built, the government can easily find the money. So if a non-government organization wants to fund a school construction project, we can use this money for something else.”14

Speci a l-Pur pose Gr a nts a n d Pat ron ag e N e t wor k s Special-purpose grants were a major prize in the informal contest over spoils in Poshan. Kickbacks of between 10 and 20 percent were standard on all local construction projects. Such kickbacks were the currency of patronage networks and the primary means by which local officials have been able to enrich themselves. Kickbacks and favors flow in all directions from projects. Township heads will provide kickbacks to county officials for assistance in securing a project, just as county and prefectural officials provide kickbacks to provincial officials for assistance in securing a project. Private sector contractors engaged to provide services and materials will provide kickbacks to officials at various levels. As explained in Chapter

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Four, patronage networks served as the primary vehicle for facilitating such transactions. As noted above, patronage did not flow only through intrastate patronclient networks. Local officials sometimes used their control of a specialpurpose grant to dispense patronage through rural social networks in their home townships and villages. An example of this was a small enterprise development project in Poshan funded by the provincial office of the Poor Area Development Office. In 2010 the province provided Poshan Prefecture with a 10 million yuan special-purpose grant. It was intended that 2.5 million yuan would be allocated to small business management training and that 7.5 million yuan would be provided in microcredit loans to small business start-ups. The Poshan Prefectural Federation of Commerce and Industry (工商联 gongshanglian)—a Communist Party agency with a mandate to represent the interests of entrepreneurs—was responsible for organizing the training; the Poshan Prefectural Agricultural Credit Cooperative was given responsibility for managing the microfinance component. The Federation of Commerce and Industry found matching funds for the training component, which allowed it to retain part of the grant. The head of the office ensured that nearly all of the positions in the training program were offered to relatives and friends from his home county. The vast majority of the three hundred participants in the training came from only two or three townships in one county. The Federation of Commerce and Industry then designed the program so that only those who attended the training were eligible to apply for the small grants of 50,000 yuan each, thus ensuring that the funds would be allocated to specific individuals from the office head’s hometown. A lot of people would be indebted to him for this, especially considering that the “loans” would not need to be repaid. As a former Poshan Prefectural Finance Bureau official explained, this money is really a grant. The province has to call it microfinance because it is fashionable to do microfinance these days. The reality is that it costs more to administer the loans than the loans themselves are worth, so nobody will be forced to repay. The money was provided to the Agricultural Credit Cooperative as a grant so it has no reason to chase repayment either.15

Patronage networks provide channels of communication between local government officials and village leaders. These channels provide essential information about funding opportunities. Indeed, it is often important to

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access information informally before official notification about a grant opportunity has been received in order for patronage networks to better position themselves for success. Individuals and groups with access to this information have a head start in preparing applications for the proposed funding and in making sure they meet the eligibility conditions of the grant. If funding is available for village infrastructure development, for example, local officials might work to ensure that certain villages are included in the list. Rival groups of officials will also work to ensure that their preferred villages are included. This enables officials to build legitimacy in their base areas and to maximize the opportunities for spoils by ensuring that projects are implemented in a place where they have strong personal ties. Information accessed informally through patronage networks is particularly important if funding is earmarked for a limited number of pilots or model villages (示范村 shifancun).16 The national leadership during the tenure of Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao (2002–2012) placed a policy emphasis on raising rural incomes by modernizing and developing the countryside. Under the auspices of the Building the New Socialist Countryside program, additional special-purpose transfers were provided for villages to achieve a number of goals.17 Examples of these policy goals were recorded on a poster on the wall of the Zulin Township office (see Figure 4). As discussed in Chapter Two, villages that met specific policy targets could win cash prizes, providing a strong incentive for village leaders to participate in such initiatives. In 2012, different groups of Laxiang officials vied with each other to access a new special-purpose grant provided by the province for a “model rural enterprise village.” The pilot project provided cheap credit for promising rural enterprises and a large grant for village infrastructure. I knew of two county officials who approached village leaders in their home townships to suggest collaboration in submitting a proposal for the grant. In both cases the officials’ families had business interests in the villages concerned (a pig farm in one case and an organic orchard in the other) that they sought to expand with the grant. Also in both cases the officials consulted their higher-level patrons to see if leverage was available to influence project site selection. One of the county officials was ultimately successful in finding the higher-level influence needed to secure the project for his home village. The proceeds of this grant would benefit the village, but the largest benefit would flow to the village enterprise controlled by the

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Zulin Township Standards for a Prosperous (xiaokang) Community 1. Increase cash incomes 2. Reduce the number of poor 3. Increase use of brick and timber-frame housing 4. Increase number of televisions per capita 5. Increase number of years of average education 6. Electricity, running water, telephones, and a road for each village 7. Public toilets in each village 8. Meet family planning targets Figure 4. Zulin Township Government Development Targets. Source: Zulin Township government.

county official. An immediate benefit was a low-interest loan of 2,000,000 yuan (US$320,000), which could be diverted into other business activities.18 Formally applying for special-purpose grants is a bottom-up process. If the special-purpose grant is for a township-level project, the township will prepare an application (usually with the county’s assistance) which is then submitted to the county for approval. Once the appropriate county signatures have been obtained the application is submitted to the prefecture for approval. The prefecture will then submit the grant application to the province. If the funding source is the central government, counties will often negotiate directly with the relevant central government agencies. Protocol, however, demands that the paperwork be submitted via prefecture and province. This is where local patronage networks become important. Even if a county has received unofficial approval from a central government ministry, several bureaucratic hoops need to be jumped through in order to secure the funds. In the very rare case that a county official has a strong connection in the relevant central government ministry with the power and motivation to be an advocate for the county official’s proposal, progress through provincial and prefectural governments is likely to be smooth. However, as noted in Chapter Four, veto players can stall or block the receipt of funds if they have personal or professional reasons to do so. I learned of numerous projects in Laxiang County that were blocked by veto players for personal reasons—e.g., out of long-standing rivalry with another official or group of officials. In one case, a deputy prefectural governor blocked a proposal from

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the county education bureau because the project’s advocates were associated with a political rival in the prefectural government.19 It is important, therefore, that the relevant deputy county and prefectural heads and the relevant deputy party secretaries at those levels are on board. If funding opportunities are limited and a deputy party secretary or other senior official in the prefecture or province has interests in promoting another project or project site, the bureaucratic journey can be arduous. Competing county officials must run from office to office lobbying, providing gifts, and exchanging favors through intermediaries at each step. Local officials referred to the process of visiting multiple higher-level offices to generate support for special-purpose grants as “chasing projects” (跑项目 pao xiangmu). The fragmentation of formal authority and the secrecy of government communications create a need for extensive informal coordination both horizontally across government departments and vertically between levels of government. In this environment patronage networks thrive. The larger the project the more important coordination by patronage networks becomes. For large infrastructure projects, vertical coordination between township, county, and prefecture is often essential for success. Patronage networks provided the necessary coordination, and, in doing so, helped to grease the wheels of the formal bureaucracy. Patronage networks also provided security for those involved. Strategically placed clients also created opportunities for the transfer of spoils. Indeed, the ideal situation for a spoils-seeking local power broker was a project that could be coordinated by trusted allies at each level. The two population resettlement schemes examined in the next section shed light on how spoils are extracted from special-purpose grants.

The Spoils of Rur al Development: Popul ation R esettlement Progr a ms In the past two decades the central government has allocated an increasing number of special-purpose grants to population resettlement schemes in impoverished parts of western China. There are two main types of resettlement projects in China. This first type are programs that relocate populations displaced by large hydropower projects such as the Three Gorges Dam.20 The second and lesser-known type is the resettlement of

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impoverished farmers from low-yielding (usually mountainous) lands to more productive fields. These resettlements are common in the southwestern and western provinces and typically target mountainous areas. The projects are based on an admirable central government determination to eradicate abject poverty and the assumption that the only way to improve livelihoods in areas suffering from low soil fertility and/or environmental degradation is to relocate affected communities. Between 1993 and 2011 approximately 10 million Chinese citizens were relocated by one type or another of resettlement scheme.21 Since 2002, local governments have been able to apply for special-purpose grants to resettle impoverished communities. Through the NDRC’s Population Resettlement Office, the central government has made billions of dollars available for such schemes. The projects have been hugely popular among governments because they provide generous funding for comprehensive public works projects. Counties regularly apply for such funding even when the need for resettlement is debatable. Indeed, according to the former chief of the Laxiang County Population Resettlement Office, the county government “will move any village if they can get the money for it.”22 Laxiang County implemented several small-scale resettlement projects between 2002 and 2012. One of the first to be initiated by the newly established Population Resettlement Office (PRO) was the Dapingzi resettlement in the southeast of the county. Like many such small-scale resettlements, the project would create an entirely new farming community where none had existed previously. Project plans included the clearing and leveling of land to be farmed by the new residents, the construction of an elaborate concrete irrigation network, a new bitumen road, a school, a health clinic, and timber-framed brick housing for 96 households. The households were to be relocated from a high-altitude location in a neighboring township. According to the former head of the Laxiang County Population Resettlement Office, because long-distance resettlements had generated so much controversy, the policy was to resettle people as close as possible to their original communities. This also suited the county government, which would not be able to benefit from the resettlement funds if communities were relocated elsewhere. According to officials at the PRO, the total cost of relocating the 463 villagers was 30 million yuan (US$4.8 million) or 312,500 yuan (US$38,000)

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per household, which was a staggering sum for this part of rural China. Indeed, US$38,000 is more money than many of the participating households could hope to earn in an entire lifetime. According to officials, a large part of the grant was to be invested in concrete irrigation channels for the newly cleared farmlands. Irrigation is often a major cost in such small-scale resettlements, because untilled land has usually been left untilled due to low rainfall or otherwise poor access to water.

The Dongli Tow nship Popul ation Resettlement Scheme The Dongli Township resettlement project provides insights into the creative ways local state agents maneuver to capture fiscal transfers from higher levels. When Laxiang County NDRC officials learned that a new round of funding would soon become available, the agency’s deputy director decided he would seek a resettlement grant for his home township of Dongli. Liao was an official that I came to know well over the years. In his semi-retirement, he spoke frankly to me about the project’s genesis and implementation: This was a good chance to do some things for my native place (laoxiang). Dongli Township never gets much attention from the government. And you know they have lots of problems there. Back then there was one telephone for five thousand people, electricity one day and not the next, and a road so bad you couldn’t pass during the wet season. I thought we could use the resettlement funds to fix these things.

To win a resettlement grant, Liao needed to identify a community to resettle. Liao told me that the target community had to have a low per capita income and be located in a poor physical environment. He eventually chose a cluster of hamlets from the southern part of the county, saying that he was confident the province would approve these hamlets for relocation because they had already been identified by PADO as poverty alleviation target villages. However, neither Liao nor his colleagues visited the communities to discuss the idea with them. As it later turned out, such consultations were unnecessary. By the time the NDRC announced a call for proposals for resettlement grants the deputy director of the Laxiang County NDRC had already

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completed a draft proposal. Liao’s plan was to relocate five hamlets from Bala Village in the southern part of the county to an uncultivated splinter valley of Dongli Township. The area had a good climate, but it was not farmed by Dongli Township residents because it had a poor water supply. Liao’s resettlement proposal had a total budget of 130 million yuan (US$20 million). It included provisions for a new road, land clearing, irrigation, housing, a new school, and a new hospital. When the proposal was complete it was dispatched to the prefectural office of the NDRC for tentative approval before being sent to the county head for his office’s authorization. With the county’s stamp of approval the proposal was then submitted to the provincial government via the prefectural office. Within a few months Liao learned that the provincial office of the NDRC had approved the project, promising to provide 80 million yuan (US$13 million) in funding. Any additional costs would have to be met locally. Officials from relevant agencies in Laxiang County and Poshan Prefecture then met to discuss governance arrangements. It was agreed that the county Population Resettlement Office, the county office of the NDRC, and the Landu District government—the intermediate level of administration between the county and the township—would take responsibility for coordinating the project. The prefectural office of PADO and the NDRC would take responsibility for project monitoring. The PRO established a project management office in Dongli Township with two permanent technical staff and a representative of the Landu District government. The project office also hosted several officials from the local office of the NDRC and the Transport Bureau on an ad hoc basis. Once the formal governance arrangements were in place, Liao and his allies maneuvered to maximize their informal control of the project. Liao was not a member of either of Laxiang County’s two largest patronage networks, but he had contacts with officials in Network A with whom he regularly traded information and favors. He used his contacts to secure the influence of patrons in Network A to support his promotion to head of the county Finance Bureau—a position that had recently become vacant. Liao lobbied tirelessly for the position, knowing that it would give him greater control over the project’s finances. He succeeded. As head of the county Finance Bureau, Liao could make sure funds were disbursed to the project even if actual monies had not yet been received from the province. Delays of payment of special-purpose grants of two or more years were not

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uncommon. To further shore up their informal control of the project, Liao and his allies arranged for authority over the project to be transferred from the county Population Resettlement Office to the county PADO. This was because the head of the county PADO office was a trusted ally whereas the head of the newly established Resettlement Office was a member of a rival patronage network. Over several months Liao’s allies effected the change in the project’s governance arrangements by enlisting the support of allies in the prefectural government to approve an amendment to the county Resettlement Office’s mandate. Henceforth, the county PRO would be responsible only for rural-urban resettlements, but not for rural-rural resettlements such as the Dongli Township project. Figure 5 shows the formal governance arrangements for the Dongli Township resettlement scheme, and Figure 6 shows where Liao and his allies were positioned within the formal governance framework. Strategically located in the agencies responsible for project implementation and monitoring, Liao’s allies enjoyed nearly complete bureaucratic control over the project. This enabled them to redesign the project to mutual advantage. Their first step was to make a modification to the initial proposal. Liao told me that their plan was to invest resettlement funds in the construction of a new road between Dongli Township and the main intercounty highway, a distance of 15 kilometers. The township badly needed the road, but its construction would also provide lucrative kickbacks for Liao and his supporters in each level of government. As a construction engineer working in the region explained, “road building is very expensive, especially in mountainous areas, but there are many ways to cut costs in labor and materials. You can take a lot of money out of a road project and no one will know until the road falls apart a few years after it’s finished.” Reducing the quality and thickness of the bitumen as well as the road’s foundations, for example, can cut costs by 50 percent or more. An official at the construction bureau told me that road construction budgets were regularly inflated by more than 100 percent. Liao’s collaborators also decided to extend the road by eight kilometers. This decision was made partly as a favor to the Dongli Township head, who wanted the road to pass through the township’s upper valley village of Longjin. According to Liao, the road extension was part of the township head’s plan to secure the support of Longjin’s villagers, who represented an important block of votes in township elections. The proposed extension

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Figure 5.  Bureaucratic Authority for the Dongli Resettlement Project

also suited Liao and his allies in the county because roads are budgeted on a per-kilometer basis, and an extra eight kilometers of well-funded road would substantially increase the kickbacks available to project controllers. The proposed modification to the road, however, posed a bureaucratic challenge for Liao and his allies. Not only did the planned road extension fall short of connecting the proposed resettlement site, but it also meant the budget for this component of the project would increase by 50 percent. The change was large enough to require the county executive’s authorization. The new county head, only two months into his position, would be difficult to approach. He was a core member of Network B and his people were a different group from Liao’s backers. To enlist his support, the county NDRC director mobilized allies in the Finance and Transport Bureaus to make a policy case that this was a one-off opportunity to help a marginalized village in Dongli Township—one of the county’s poorest—to get a decent road. At a meeting of relevant department heads, the director of the county PADO reportedly hinted that the entire resettlement project might fail unless modifications were made to the road. Liao decided that it might also help their case if the Dongli Township head made a personal appeal to the county head on behalf of the residents of Dongli Township. The township head’s uncle, who was the chair of the County People’s Congress, arranged a meeting between the two heads of

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Figure 6.  Liao’s Network

government. According to Liao, at the meeting the township head underscored the need to use this project to assist villagers in Dongli or they risked a popular revolt against the resettlement plan. The combined effect of this meeting and the persistent lobbying of other county and prefectural officials associated with the project ultimately succeeded in winning the county head’s approval. The county executive signed off on the modification with the proviso that the road be presented as phase one of the project, with phase two to include a road extension to the resettlement site. This could be justified because the province was not funding the entire resettlement scheme. The county head also advised the county NDRC director that he needed to start looking for more funds because the new plan would put the overall project over budget. What the county head did not know at the time was that Liao and his allies were uninterested in seeing the resettlement project through to completion. With the county’s approval in hand, the County NDRC director and the head of PADO moved to arrange tendering for the project. It was through the tender that the lion’s share of spoils would be siphoned from the grant. Rigging tenders is one of the most common forms of official corruption in China’s rural development. In some cases, local companies, which are often controlled by local officials, collude to inflate tenders. In other cases local companies will bribe or bully competitors. The initial phase of the

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Dongli resettlement scheme, the new 23-kilometer corrugated dirt road, was awarded to a firm controlled by the county NDRC director for a price of 9 million yuan (US$1.43 million). According to a local engineer familiar with the project, the contract awarded was several times actual costs. Liao admitted that the tender was rigged so that maximum spoils would flow to him and his allies. For Liao this was simply business as usual: The problem is that official salaries are too low. We don’t make enough money to send our children to college. Everybody has to find ways to supplement their incomes. I took money and I won’t deny it. But look at my situation; my brother is dead and I have his children to care for as well. What am I supposed to do? Starve? . . . Everybody knows what’s going on. When you work for the government, you work with your colleagues to find ways to make a little money. Look at all the officials who own houses and cars. They can’t pay for them with their meager salaries. But you know, the interesting thing is that higher levels of government just turn a blind eye to it. For one, they’re doing the same thing. But they also know they can’t raise local government salaries for fear of angering the peasants, who think we’re too rich already! So, it’s kind of a compromise.

Phase one of the Dongli road project commenced just as Liao and his allies had arranged. The contractor took the usual shortcuts in order to reduce costs to ensure that he retained a profit once the officials controlling the project had taken their cut. This, of course, meant that the life span of the road would be limited. But building roads of limited life spans was commonplace in Poshan. If roads were built to last, there would not be lucrative opportunities to build them again. Between 2002 and 2013 I observed that several stretches of road in Poshan were rebuilt three, and in one case, four times. Sometimes a road was repaved even when it was still in reasonably good condition. As a county official explained, “if there’s money available for road works, you build a road.” If, for example, the Ministry of Transport is offering special-purpose grants for building connecting roads to the county seat, and no roads into the county seat need paving, one will simply be torn up and rebuilt. When I asked a former Laxiang County Urban Construction Bureau official about the apparent wastage, he explained: “Every new leader wants to build a new road as his political achievement. Even if the same road was only built two years ago, nobody remembers it. It’s easy to argue that the road was poorly built or that it was damaged by rains or some other reason and that it needs to be upgraded or rebuilt.”23

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Special-purpose grants for construction projects are now formally subjected to increased scrutiny, but patronage networks are usually able to prevent unwelcome intrusions. For example, project progress reports must now be submitted quarterly to the county People’s Congress. However, the People’s Congress is generally controlled by local power brokers, which ensures that its feedback is censored. In the present case, at least one deputy reportedly made informal complaints to colleagues about the cost of the road. However, the chair of the Laxiang County People’s Congress was in a position to protect his allies by ensuring that criticism of the project did not enter the official record. There was no formal discussion of the project at the annual congressional assembly in the year the road was constructed. Site visits by provincial government officials also need to be managed. This involved establishing good personal relations with visiting officials and, perhaps more importantly, providing excellent local hospitality. In the case of the Dongli resettlement project, inspection was carried out by the provincial office of PADO. The inspector’s county and prefectural hosts treated him lavishly during his visit, wining and dining him at Laxiang’s best restaurants, where they showed him plans and photographs of progress.24 The inspector returned to the provincial capital after two days without having visited the project site. According to an official who used to work in the county government’s protocol office, local hosts seek to keep inspectors away from project sites as much as they can. According to the official, “when you go to the countryside, you can’t be sure what you’ll see or what people will say. Maybe villagers will complain about the project. It’s impossible to control events.”25 Keeping provincial officials away from projects was relatively easy according to an official from the Poshan Prefectural Commerce Bureau: “leaders (lingdao) from the province don’t really want to go into the field. The drives are long and boring and there are no good places to eat. They’re happy if we can provide them with reports and other documentation.”26 In the case of the Dongli resettlement project there was a particularly good reason to prevent close investigation by province-level officials. Liao explained this was because his group never intended to implement the resettlement project in accordance with the grant proposal. The Dongli Township road was the only part of the project Liao and his allies were interested in. They knew they were unlikely to find additional funding to complete the resettlement project as it was designed and that anyhow it was unlikely to be technically viable. Liao admitted his goal all along

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had been to fund a new road for his township and to take his share of the spoils. While Liao’s candor about his own involvement in corruption was remarkable, even on condition of anonymity, what surprised me even more from my interviews with local officials and contractors was the extent to which the politics of spoils had become the norm. Local officials such as Liao considered such behavior to be a legitimate exercise of political creativity. According to the retired chief of the Poshan Prefectural Party Discipline Inspection Committee, “these days officials think it’s okay to skim from fiscal transfers—that they give something to the community and keep something for themselves. That’s how it works.”27 And, as noted in Chapter Two, there was also a remarkable degree of acceptance of spoils-taking within rural communities. In the moral economy of Poshan’s rural society it was understood that benefits flowed through patronage networks and that those with the best connections would obtain the most benefits. Though some people complained about the system, most people accepted that this was the way things worked. As one farmer remarked, “sure there is unfairness, but things are better than before. In Mao’s day we had more fairness, but that’s because we all had an equal share of nothing!” As can be seen from the Dongli Township example, patronage networks played an important part in the distribution of resources in Poshan. They facilitated official corruption and provided protection from the party-state’s feeble formal integrity system. However, it would be wrong to suggest that the role of patronage networks was entirely nefarious. Patronage networks were often able to ensure that funds were secured and that public works got carried out. Public projects varied in their quality and usefulness, but patronage networks nevertheless channeled real benefits to local communities. Special-purpose grants in Poshan meant that roads and schools were built and that rural communities were able to acquire much needed infrastructure. In fact, it appeared that the most successful local power brokers in Poshan (i.e., those who enjoyed a high degree of influence, status, and legitimacy) would generally make sure there was something for everyone in a project. While patronage networks could be harnessed to transfer public resources into private hands, they also helped to get projects approved and implemented. As discussed in Chapter Four, the coordinating role of patronage networks in a dysfunctional or fragmented formal institutional

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environment also helps to explain how economic development and corruption can coexist. These findings also suggest that previous typologies of the local state might be overly simplistic. The emphasis in scholarship on China’s local states has tended to be on regional variation in local state behavior,28 but it is possible that local states in China have more in common than scholars once thought. Indeed, local states might be found to simultaneously exhibit a range of behaviors with incentives and expectations shaped as much by the source of local government revenue as by geography and institutional legacies.

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Political Competition over Local Resources

Senior local officials are very active in the private sector despite formal laws prohibiting officials from engaging in business activity. This chapter shows how senior officials use patronage networks to capture profits from a burgeoning service sector. Attention is also given to the the role of patronage networks in facilitating land deals, which have become a major source of revenue and spoils for local governments throughout China. The chapter argues that competition between political rivals has become more intense in recent years as rapid economic development has increased the number and value of economic prizes available in the political arena. The intensification of intrastate competition over the bureaucratic levers of power has reinforced the value of patronage networks as a source of political capital.

L a x i a n g C o u n t y ’s P o l i t i c a l E c o n o m y, 19 75–19 95 For the first three decades of the People’s Republic, Laxiang County was a backwater, even by the standards of its region. During the 1950s and 1960s

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access to the county seat was via a single-lane dirt road. Rural communities practiced subsistence agriculture and grazing and local trade operated largely on the basis of a barter system. One kilogram of rice, for example, could be traded anywhere for three kilograms of potatoes. Before the 1980s, most of Laxiang’s rural communities remained largely unexposed to the cash economy. Things began to change from the late 1970s when economic growth in the eastern parts of China stimulated an increased demand for natural resources. Laxiang County and the surrounding region had some of the highest concentrations of valuable hardwood timber in the country. As the more accessible forests of northeast China became depleted, industry began looking to western China for timber and other natural resources. Commercial logging presented the Poshan Prefectural and Laxiang County governments in the 1980s with a rare opportunity to increase their very narrow local revenue base. The prefectural and county governments threw their weight behind the nascent forestry industry, setting up local state-owned monopolies, with profits divided between township, county, and prefecture. Logging was based on a quota system. The provincial government allocated logging quotas to the prefecture that the prefecture further allocated to the counties and so on. The quotas specified the amount of timber to be felled for each particular tree species, and the price to be paid for each cubic meter. At the bottom of the pyramid, villagers were paid a piece-rate to log specific trees and to transport them to an agreed collection point. Villagers were compensated for their labor, but not for the timber because the trees were considered property of the state. Even though Chinese law distinguishes between state-owned and community-owned forests, before the 1990s both types were effectively under state control.1 As China’s economy began to expand in the 1980s, the price of timber soared, and with it local government profits. Entrepreneurial local officials and village leaders borrowed money to privately invest in bulldozers and other heavy machinery they could lease to the Forestry Bureau or use for constructing the expanding network of logging roads. Timber mills mushroomed across the prefecture. By the mid-1990s, the prefecture contained 84 mills, of which 6 were county-controlled and 78 were township-owned enterprises. Together, these mills officially generated annual revenues of 300–400 million yuan (US$40–50 million), which was a large

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boost in revenue for the economically underdeveloped region. But the real value was probably much greater due to the large amount of off-the-books transactions.2 Logging provided not only profits, taxes, and fees but also a steady stream of off-budget revenue and spoils. Because of an insatiable demand for timber from the eastern provinces, illegal logging became a lucrative sideline business for many local government officials in Poshan. Illegal logging largely consisted of selling on black markets timber that had been logged outside of the officially sanctioned quotas. Local officials could also generate extra revenue by falsifying quotas and land management records. It was a common practice at the planning stage, for example, to ensure that all townships applied for logging quotas, including townships that had no timber to harvest. Those township quotas could then be filled by overlogging in other townships. Contracts for timber mills, road construction, and timber transport provided opportunities for local government officials to award contracts to their own sideline businesses. One powerful Poshan Prefectural official began building his personal fortune in the early 1980s when he invested in a second-hand Japanese bulldozer and excavator. Government contracts kept his equipment busy around the clock. He used his political contacts to expand his business and used his business revenues to further his political career—a standard modus operandi of local power brokers in Poshan.3 The massive profits generated by the timber industry had a profound impact on intrastate political competition, since management of the industry and its spoils required coordination across multiple tiers of government. Patronage networks mobilized to coordinate this process. Different networks within the local state positioned themselves to control different parts of the government’s logging business. The patronage networks used their informal organizational clout to navigate the bureaucracy, arrange permits and contracts, limit outside scrutiny, and minimize individual risk. Many of Poshan Prefecture’s and Laxiang County’s most senior and influential political actors in the first decade of the new millennium had initially built their patronage networks with proceeds from the logging industry. Laxiang County’s Network B, for example, was built by a logging baron on the back of logging revenues.4 In other parts of China local dukedoms were built around proceeds from other industries such as manufacturing.5

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From the late 1970s to the early 1990s, the logging industry continued to be the primary source of local government revenue and spoils. By 1993, however, timber volumes and prices had begun to fall due to trade liberalization and the increasing competition from Southeast Asian timber exporters, notably Myanmar and Laos, and also due to rapacious logging, including unchecked clear-felling. By the early 1990s, stocks of the most valuable hardwood species were largely depleted in the Poshan area. Such forests were not easily replaced. Regrowth in upland areas was slow, and replanting was poorly managed. The Poshan Prefectural and Laxiang County governments began to look elsewhere for sources of income to replace the falling revenues from commercial forestry. Poshan Prefecture was home to other valuable natural resources including metals, but officials understood that new industries would take time to develop and would therefore be slow in contributing to government coffers. There was also increasing potential for hydropower projects, as demand for electricity was skyrocketing in the industrial east. Because of their national strategic significance, however, the larger hydropower schemes were administered directly by either the provincial or central government, leaving few profits for local governments. In the short to medium term, the authorities turned their attention to forest products other than timber, among which the matsutake, or pine mushroom, was demonstrating the most commercial potential. Trade in matsutake began in the late 1980s and increased steadily each year. Improved transport infrastructure and trade links expanded the supply of this truffle-like forest delicacy for which there was high demand in Japan. As trade boomed, the county government began applying new local taxes to the fungus, including a “commercial forest product” tax as well as new trading and management “fees.” Other regulations followed, establishing a range of licenses and fees at various stages in the trade, providing even more opportunities for official revenue and for graft. A mushroom trade market and food processing zone was established in the county seat, where only a select few traders were permitted to export the mushrooms to Japan via the provincial capital. Traders depended on political connections to obtain these lucrative trading licenses. By 1995–1996 the mushroom export trade provided close to 30 percent of locally generated revenues (自 筹资金 zichou zijin) in Laxiang County.6

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Economic R estructur ing and a Shifting R e v e n u e B a s e s i n c e 19 95 From the mid-1990s Poshan Prefecture’s leaders began to consider the possibilities of promoting tourism as an additional source of revenue and employment. Domestic tourism was a relatively new industry in China, but was growing rapidly alongside the rise in disposable incomes of China’s middle classes. Poshan’s natural and cultural diversity underscored its tourism potential, but infrastructure and services were inadequate to support large numbers of visitors. The nearest airport to the prefectural/ county seat was six hours away by car and roads were poor. Accommodation was basic and its availability limited. Prefectural and county leaders embarked on study tours to successful tourism hotspots to better understand what was required to successfully promote the industry in Poshan. As the anointed hub of Poshan’s nascent tourism industry, Laxiang County established a tourism bureau, which prepared the region’s first tourism development plan. The plan identified three key initiatives: restoration of a regionally significant Buddhist monastery; renovation of the region’s largest hotel, which was owned by the prefectural government; and building a second major hotel in the county seat. According to county records, in 1995, 35,000 domestic and 8,000 foreign tourists visited. Revenues from tourism remained very small compared to revenues from logging or even the mushroom trade. Laxiang County’s campaign to develop tourism was further energized following the national government’s introduction of a total logging ban in 1998. China’s State Council introduced the ban on the basis of scientific assessments that suggested disastrous flooding of the Yangtze River and the prolonged flow stoppage of the Yellow River were caused by deforestation in the wider region’s catchment areas.7 Poshan Prefecture’s and Laxiang County’s primary source of revenue and a major source of private wealth for local elites dried up almost overnight. Some illegal logging continued on a smaller scale, but not enough to have much of an effect. Local government leaders urgently threw their collective weight behind tourism, and they won special-purpose grants from the provincial government to improve roads and tourist facilities. Construction began on a new airport and funds were sought to improve the main road into the county. Further resources were invested in marketing the region’s attractions. The timing

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was serendipitous. Increasingly wealthy urbanites from the eastern seaboard were holidaying in ever greater numbers and traveling to ever more exotic locales. Tourism numbers received a further boost in 2000 when the central government increased the number of public holidays in order to stimulate the leisure economy. In that year, Labor Day in May, National Day in October, and Chinese New Year all officially became week-long holidays. According to the Laxiang County Tourism Bureau, a record number of 1.24 million people visited Laxiang County in 2001. While this figure included all arrivals—e.g., business travel and locals returning home—it still represented a large increase and the economic impact was profound and immediate. Dozens of new hotels and restaurants sprang up in the county seat, and the local government rushed to secure additional specialpurpose grants and loans from higher levels to develop new tourist sites, some of which were provided under the auspices of the newly established Great Western Development Campaign.

Tour ism and Local State R evenues In the early years of tourism, most local government revenue came from ticket sales at tourist attractions, some of which was shared between the county and township governments. The most prominent tourist attraction in the county was a large Buddhist monastery at the edge of town. In years past the monastery had only charged a token entrance fee of two jiao (US$0.04) to cover cleaning and other administrative expenses. The county government had already established an office inside the monastery to manage tourists and entrance fees. In 1996 the price of an entrance ticket was increased by ten times to two yuan (US$0.25), half of which went to the monastery. In 1998, the county government raised the ticket price by 500 percent to 10 yuan (US$1.20). In 2000, county government revenues from monastery ticket sales reached 2.5 million yuan (US$350,000). The entrance price was increased to 80 yuan (US$12) in 2008 and 120 yuan in 2012. Revenues from ticket sales in 2011 were in the range of 120 and 130 million yuan (US$20–21 million) and were estimated to increase to more than US$30 million in 2013.8 Because this revenue was categorized as extra-budgetary, it could be used at the discretion of the county executive.

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Prefectural and county officials had quickly realized the lucrative potential of developing other tourist sites where entrance fees could be charged. In the early 2000s, the Laxiang County government commissioned a university to conduct a survey to identify sites with untapped tourism development potential. The research team produced a blueprint for developing tourism in the region, including budget estimates for upgrades to transport infrastructure, accommodation, and other tourist facilities. The blueprint recommended state investment in tourism development totaling more than 700 million yuan (US$85 million). The county did not have the financial resources or expertise to embark on even a fraction of the blueprint’s recommendations, so county leaders considered options for public-private partnerships—a new approach to local economic development that was being encouraged nationwide by the Communist Party. A handful of developers from outside the region had already begun cultivating relationships with local officials. Cashed-up with profits collected from tourism projects in other parts of China, these developers impressed local officials with their hi-tech charts, profit projections, lavish banquets, and junket tours to other parts of the country. The developers piqued the interest of local officials by promising to contribute to much-needed infrastructure and an annual dividend or fixed fee in return for exclusive rights and control over entrance fees. The local government could reap the rewards without investing funds or labor. Not surprisingly, competition for such an easy source of revenue was intense. But the rush to develop tourism sites in Poshan caused new conflicts within the state because of a lack of clarity about the formal powers of township and county government agencies to enter into contracts with private developers. One of the first such tourism development contracts was signed in 2000 between a property developer and a township party secretary, even though it was generally understood that party leaders did not have the authority to enter into such contracts on behalf of the government. The contract gave the property developer the right to collect entrance fees to a scenic attraction known as the Hundred Waterfalls, where visitors could enjoy spectacular views of lakes and snow-capped mountain peaks. The developer proposed to build a new road and a cable car as well as an eco-lodge to accommodate overnight visitors. In return the developer would pay an undisclosed annual sum to the township government. An NGO based in the provincial capital that was promoting its own ecotourism development project in the area protested the deal, filing a

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complaint with the county government. A Laxiang County official admitted to me that the contract signed by the party secretary rather than by a head of government was not legally valid. However, the township party secretary had close personal connections with allies of the county head (Laxiang County’s Network A), which gave him protection. According to a county official familiar with the situation, “nobody wants to make an issue out of this because of the party secretary’s connections. If you say something about it, you’ll only make enemies.”9 But another reason for the county government’s reluctance to clarify such contracts was that so many local officials had entered into murky land deals for various commercial purposes that the problem had become a Pandora’s box. So many officials benefited directly or indirectly from land deals and contracts with private developers that few were willing to challenge existing contracts. According to a prefectural official, since the 1990s there have been so many land contracts signed by this and that level of government that the whole thing is a mess. Village heads sign contracts for this piece of land, township heads sign contracts for that piece, and county and prefectural governments make their own contracts with hoteliers and industrialists. Everybody knows that the Hundred Waterfalls contract isn’t worth the paper it’s written on, but no government agency or court in this prefecture will declare it so. That’s because there are hundreds of other deals just like it. A contract is valid if you can get away with it and you have the power to do it. The situation is improving now, but a few years back all you needed were big balls to get away with it.10

Additional pressure was brought to bear on officials associated with the Hundred Waterfalls deal when the NGO opposed to the project succeeded in attracting national media attention (the leader of the NGO project had a contact in a Beijing-based youth newspaper). Media attention was a concern to the Laxiang County government because it sometimes forced the hand of higher-level officials. Allies of the township party secretary in the county government decided to tie up loose ends by relocating the site of the proposed development a few kilometers to the north and by reissuing the contract as one between the property developer and the Laxiang County government. Across rural China, many land transfers have taken place illegally, and local governments at all levels have been guilty of exceeding their authority and breaching central government laws in approving land transfers.

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This legal ambiguity has empowered Poshan’s patronage networks because they are able to provide the web of trust needed to secure an investor’s property rights, albeit informally. In the Hundred Waterfalls case above, the township party secretary was able to ensure that the property developer’s investments were secure even though he did not have the formal legal authority to do so. The trust and facilitation provided by Poshan’s patronage networks to private investors amounted to an informal enforcement of property rights. Indeed, it was quite common for officials to defend private sector allies against elements within their own bureaucracies, which again highlights the importance of distinguishing between formal and informal boundaries of organization and interests in China’s local politics.11 By the mid-2000s the amounts of money generated by Poshan’s tourist industry had already dwarfed revenues from the earlier logging era. A major source of profits for local governments and of spoils for patronage networks continued to be the leasing of sites to private companies for tourism development. However, the national government became concerned about the careless leasing of public lands, especially wilderness areas and other areas of natural heritage significance. A new national government regulation issued in 2005 prohibited county and township governments from contracting out natural heritage sites to private developers. But Poshan-area counties quickly discovered how to circumvent the regulation. The new law applied to natural heritage sites of national significance (国家级 guojiaji). Hitherto, local governments in Poshan had been eager to apply for recognition on national-level status for natural heritage sites because such recognition was accompanied by national government resources. However, because such recognition would severely restrict the ability of patronage networks to arrange deals and to collect informal fees, Poshan Prefecture’s constituent counties stopped applying for national recognition of their natural heritage sites.12 Between 2002 and 2012 local government engaged in what can only be described as a frenzy of contracting natural heritage sites, including contracts for two lakes and several scenic gorges. In many cases, tourism developers did little more than erect gates and fences to facilitate the collection of entrance fees. One of the first such contracts in Laxiang County was based on a proposal put forward by a Chengdu-based developer to link four scenic spots in a two-day tourist circuit. Bearing gifts and sponsoring “study tours,” including a trip to Thailand for county officials, the developer succeeded in

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convincing a group of officials within the county government of the merits of its proposal. The new company would develop four tourist sites, on the understanding that county government partners would develop the roads that connected the sites. The company boss and county officials agreed to set up a new public-private joint venture company to manage the project. They called it the Sacred Springs Tourism Development Company. The county would also help facilitate the necessary agreements with district, township, and village administrations, shoring up the support of key political stakeholders—a task that would be coordinated by members of one of Laxiang County’s smaller patronage networks. Because this patronage network centered on officials that did not have close personal ties to the locality targeted for the tourist development project, the officials concerned had to invest extra time in building local coalitions of support. This involved the frequent wining and dining of district, township, and village leaders and the provision of material benefits to cooperative local partners. Following his retirement many years later, the former district governor admitted to me that he had received 100,000 yuan (US$12,500) in cash from the company. The company’s allies in the county also arranged for his subsequent promotion to a sinecure in the county Political Consultative Conference. The former district governor later expressed regret that the project had not delivered the benefits he had imagined it would bring to local communities.13 Following a nationwide trend, the Poshan Prefectural and Laxiang County governments also established public investment companies (投 资公司 touzi gongsi) that could partner with private enterprises in local development projects. Importantly, these companies also served as investment vehicles that could borrow funds when local governments were prohibited from doing so directly.14 The new companies also benefited from favorable tax rates, access to state resources, government support with related infrastructure such as new roads, and smooth negotiation of permits, licenses, and other bureaucratic requirements. This made them very profitable. The investment companies also acted as a conduit for delivering kickbacks and for channeling funds into enterprises and activities in which local officials had private interests. Not surprisingly, patronage networks competed for control over such investment companies. In addition to cash profits, the companies generated new jobs that could be distributed as patronage.

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Economic Grow th and the Politics of Spoils During the 2000s Poshan’s rapid tourism-led economic growth placed new prizes in the political arena. As discussed in Chapter Four, powerful local officials owned sideline businesses, which were often registered in the names of relatives because serving officials were prohibited from engaging in commercial activity. Most of the officials I spoke with agreed that upwards of 60 percent of county and prefectural officials at the rank of full section chief (正科 zhengke)15 and above owned sideline businesses in this fashion. Anecdotal evidence suggests that such practices are common at all levels.16 According to a Laxiang County official, most officials at the section chief level (科级 keji) and above have either a sideline business (产业 chanye) or a private sector partner. That’s the only way you can meet your expenses—especially if you want to live in a nice house and send your kids to college. Look at all the new houses being built around the town. They all belong to local officials and they all cost hundreds of thousands of yuan. But even the most senior officials only make 3,000 yuan a month.17

Businesses that I knew to be controlled by mid-level and high-ranking county and prefectural officials are in construction, the supply and manufacture of building materials, earth moving equipment, transport, the supply and installation of solar panels, furniture-making, professional training, restaurants, hotels, guesthouses, retail stores, herbal medicines, supermarkets, stationery supplies, computer retail and repair, sign writing, printing, and advertising. Many of these businesses benefited from state contracts and preferential treatment. But local officials could not obtain such benefits alone in a highly fragmented bureaucracy. They needed a support network of patrons above, clients below, and other trusted allies to their side. Patronage networks assisted with access to cheap credit and government contracts. They also helped to restrict market competition. In Poshan I encountered several examples of anti-competitive practices designed to enrich certain officials and their allies. In one example, the earliest provider of methane gas bottles for household stoves was squeezed out of the market when a local power broker identified it as a profitable enterprise and decided to enter the market through a relative. According to the sister and business partner of the original supplier, their rival’s allies in the Tax and Urban

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Construction Bureaus fettered them in red tape and burdened them with additional charges so that they were forced to shut down.18 After securing a monopoly on the trade, the new operator immediately raised prices.19

The Great Urban Land Gr ab Laxiang County’s tourism boom led to a spike in land values, particularly in the county seat, where tourism facilities and related services were concentrated. During the rapid growth in tourism in the 2000s, more than two hundred hotels and guesthouses sprang up in and around the burgeoning town, and there was a similar proliferation of restaurants and stores. The growing wealth of entrepreneurs and officials stimulated demand for better housing, particularly among local government officials, leading to multiple new residential housing projects. All of this economic activity created a strong demand for land, much of which needed to be expropriated from farmers living on the periphery of the county seat. As in many other parts of China, land transactions in Laxiang became a major source of local government revenue and a major source of spoils for local government officials. Laxiang County profited from land transactions in two main ways. The first involved the sale or lease of state-owned land to commercial enterprises. The second involved the state’s mediation in the expropriation of farmland for commercial development.

Allocating State-Owned Land to Commercial Enterprises Starting in the 1980s, the Poshan Prefectural and Laxiang County governments began expropriating tracts of peri-urban farmland for urban construction. Such expropriations required only small compensation payments, sometimes as little as 200 yuan (US$35) per mu. At that time, rural incomes and agricultural productivity were much lower, so farmers generally considered this amount of compensation to be fair. In accordance with Chinese law, the county and prefectural governments allocated this land to party agencies, government departments, or state-owned enterprises— a process known as huabo (划拨). As local administration expanded during the 1980s and 1990s, the county and prefectural governments allocated prime tracts of land in and around the seat of government to a wide variety of state work units, keeping some land in reserve for future developments.

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The recipients of the land acquired the land’s use rights, but in accordance with the law, the county and prefecture reserved the right to reallocate the land according to changing needs. During the tourism-led boom of the 2000s, party and government agencies found themselves sitting on increasingly valuable tracts of land. Profits could be made by transferring land use rights from state to private hands. Developers were hungry for land on which to build hotels and shopping centers. In many cases the government was able to sell land use rights to private enterprises for several hundred times the price at which it had originally acquired the land from local farmers. Revenues from the sale of land could be retained as off-budget revenues for use at the local government’s discretion. A 2011 survey of similar land transactions across seventeen provinces showed that the average price per acre paid for farmland was US$17,850. When it was resold by local authorities to commercial property developers and other buyers, the average sale price was US$740,000 per acre.20 With large profits to be made, land deals soon became another source of political competition within the local state. Local power brokers could use their influence to arrange the transfer of land to a private enterprise at much below the market value of the land and earn a share of the difference. This was especially easy to arrange if the beneficiary was designated a strategic local enterprise, and thereby eligible for special assistance. Local officials could also make large profits through insider speculation. Officials with access to government urban development plans, especially the construction of new roads, could easily predict which tracts of land would likely increase in value in the future—a common feature of local political corruption in many parts of the world. Setting up front companies in the names of relatives or friends, local officials first acquired the land and then sold it at a profit when the infrastructure was completed. In the early 2000s Laxiang County built two new thoroughfares for government offices, residential complexes, and shopping malls to be built between 2002 and 2012 in accordance with an urban master plan. Between 2002 and 2005 the commercial lots along these avenues sold for previously unimaginable sums. Several officials who had access to insider information about the city’s construction plans became rich. As land pressures mounted, local power brokers realized that additional revenues could be generated by relocating government departments to the

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outskirts of town, freeing up prime real estate for commercial development. Not surprisingly, the ensuing turf battles became a source of conflict between rival patronage networks. One victim of the inter-bureaucratic competition over land use rights was Laxiang County’s Road Management Authority. A property developer lobbied the county leadership for access to the land on which the Road Management Authority’s headquarters was located. The developer had plans to build the county’s largest retail shopping complex. The head of the Road Management Authority lobbied county leaders to retain the land for the agency, promising to undertake the shopping center construction project himself if that is what county bosses wanted. But the Road Management Authority boss had weak ties to the county head and party secretary and was unable to influence the outcome. Indeed, the Road Management Authority chief was associated with Network B, which had recently been involved in an intensive struggle over a series of appointments with power brokers in Network A, including the county head. According to an observer, “in these kinds of situations there’s nothing you can do.”21

Land Laws and the Expropriation of Farmland for Commercial Development Rural land in China is generally classified as either (1) farmland, (2) land for residential construction/commercial development, or (3) wasteland. Forests and pastures are technically counted as farmland. As in other parts of the world, these zoning categories determine the legally permitted use of the land. Land classified as farmland, for example, may only be used for farming and not for residential or industrial purposes. Before farmland can be used for these purposes, it must undergo a title conversion. While thousands of land transactions have taken place without properly converting land titles, central authorities began to crack down on the misuse of farmland designations from the early 2000s, and any conversion of farmland for commercial use is now strictly regulated by the Land and Resources Bureau (formerly the Land Management Bureau). The new laws offered farmers some protection against predation by the local state, but they did little to help farmers profit from the rising commercial value of their property. In Poshan, for example, many villages with land bordering the town wanted to develop their land for non-farm purposes or sell it to developers,

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but only the Land Bureau had the authority to convert the title and permit the sale. The fees charged for rezoning were often as high as the value of the land itself. In Poshan in 2012 the fee was 80,000 yuan per mu. Because most villages could not afford to pay this fee up-front, they were put at an immediate disadvantage in their negotiations with prospective developers. Effectively, the land laws prevent villager small groups—the collective unit that holds the title to the land—from developing their property for nonagricultural purposes. So, too, on the village land that is designated for houses, farmers are forbidden from building shops or buildings other than residential dwellings. This empowers local officials, who are the only ones able to convert the title, to emancipate the land’s underlying value. Often local officials take advantage of this situation to privately acquire land for future sale to developers. With access to local infrastructure development plans, officials can estimate a tract of land’s potential value and acquire it early at very low prices. During the 2000s, I witnessed a frenzy of such speculative land buying in Poshan Prefecture. Much of the farmland surrounding the Laxiang County seat was acquired by local officials and a handful of private speculators with close connections to local officials. Many tracts have since been sold to hotels and other commercial projects. Land expropriations and transfers have become one of the most controversial issues in rural China today. Every year the Chinese government expropriates land from an average of four million people.22 And every year tens of thousands of protests are triggered by farmers’ grievances over inadequate compensation from compulsory acquisitions and other types of land deals. Approximately 65 percent of rural conflicts are believed to be caused by disputes over land requisitions.23 Only a handful of such disputes attract national and international media attention. A recent case was the village of Wukan in Guangdong Province. In September 2011 villagers in Wukan took to the streets to protest the local government’s sale of land to property developers without adequate compensation to farmers. Villagers nominated a group of thirteen representatives to conduct peaceful negotiations with the local authorities, but to intimidate villagers, local police abducted five members of the group. When one of the abductees later died in police custody, villagers evicted the corrupt village leaders from the village and fought off the local police controlled by the local authorities, resulting in a blockade of the village by a thousand police. Following international publicity and the widespread public sympathy the case received on the

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Chinese-language web, provincial officials intervened, acknowledging the villagers’ grievances and criticizing local authorities.24 In Poshan conflicts relating to land expropriations have been few compared with many other parts of China. This is because the local state acquired peri-urban land from farmers in the 1980s, long before the spike in land values. During the 2000s there were occasional protests by villagers living near the Laxiang County seat when their land, which was purportedly acquired many years earlier for government use, was sold on to developers. In two cases, villagers erected roadblocks to prevent access to the land. But these protests did not lead to violence or serious conflict. Among other things, compared with people in other parts of China, villagers in the Poshan area had relatively large tracts of land per capita and villagers were generally able to part with some of their collective lands—much of which was unsuited to agriculture—without it affecting agricultural production. In villages I visited near the county seat between 2002 and 2012, I found most people to be generally satisfied with the payments they had received, even though some complained that officials and developers were making much more money. In Poshan the outcome of land-related conflicts was often determined by personal ties between village leaders and local power brokers as well as by village internal politics. In 2010, a village located a slight distance from the county seat agreed to sell a well-located tract of collective land to a local company for 18,000 yuan (US$3,000) per mu. The company—a local property developer—was controlled by a local official. What the villagers did not know at the time was that the company was acquiring the land in order to resell it to the People’s Armed Police, which was looking for a site for a new training facility. The land deal had been negotiated through members of a small patronage network centered on officials from a central district in the county next to Laxiang. The network included officers in the People’s Armed Police, the Prefectural Public Security Bureau, the Land and Resources Bureau, and the operators of the local property developer, who had also cultivated ties with the village head. When villagers learned in 2011 that the land sale was going ahead at the price of 80,000 yuan (US$18,500) per mu, a rival of the village leader, and member of another kinship group in the village, seized the opportunity to accuse the village leader and the property developer of ripping off the villagers. He led a delegation of villagers to the county head’s office to protest the inadequacy

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of their compensation. There the villagers met with sympathetic ears, not because they had a legitimate grievance in the eyes of local officials, but because the land deal had been executed by officials unconnected with the county head’s office and network. Unlike many other such protests in rural China, however, the villagers’ land had not been forcibly expropriated. Villagers had agreed to the deal and were satisfied with the price until they learned how much more their land was worth one year later. According to an observer, if allies of the county head had been involved in the land deal he would have told the villagers to go home. Encouraged by their sympathetic reception at the county executive, the villagers hired a lawyer who found an error in the paperwork related to the transaction, and advised them that they might raise a lawsuit on these grounds. The county executive sent word to the company advising it that if the villagers made trouble (闹事 naoshi) the company would be held responsible. Under pressure, the company negotiated to pay an additional 2,000,000 yuan (US$350,000) to the village, which represented a large share of the developer’s profits. The outcome was shaped not by law or due process, but by the alignment of political rivalries within the county.25 The additional costs the company was forced to pay could be seen to reflect a just outcome, but it also reflected the weaker status of the informal network behind the deal—i.e., the players were not associated with either of the county or prefecture’s two dominant patronage networks.

L and and En vironmental Policy Commercial development is not the only reason land is becoming an increasingly contested commodity in Poshan. Since the logging ban of 1998 the central government has increasingly emphasized environmental policies, particularly in forested watersheds. New environmental programs have been a major feature of state investment in the western and southwestern provinces where China’s largest remaining wilderness areas are concentrated, including the habitat of the Giant Panda. A large part of central government funding for environmental protection is invested in the creation and management of nature reserves (自然保护区 ziran baohuqu). According to the Ministry of Environmental Protection, China has 2,541 nature reserves covering 1.5 million square kilometers, or 15 percent of China’s total land area.26 The central government directly funds 303 national-level

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reserves. Other reserves are funded by provinces, prefectures, and counties.27 Regardless of funding source, the responsibility for managing the reserves typically rests with prefectural and county governments. Nature reserves and related environmental programs have provided a new source of revenue in Poshan Prefecture. This comes in the form of fiscal transfers and of entrance fees paid by visitors to the reserves. The increased revenues have made the reserves highly contested spaces. Conflicts have arisen between villagers and the local state over use of natural resources in the reserves and between different groups within the state over access to park entrance fees. I observed several such conflicts in two Laxiang County nature reserves, which I present as case studies below. These case studies highlight the contested nature of China’s environmental politics in western regions such as Poshan, and also the complex ways community-based and state-based informal networks interact. The two nature reserves examined in the case studies are both provincial-level reserves, and are managed by the Laxiang County Forestry Bureau.

A Case Study: Haidi Snow Mountain Nature Reserve The Haidi Snow Mountain Reserve, covering 21,908 hectares around the base of Mount Haidi, was established in 1981. The reserve encompasses farmlands and collective forests belonging to several villages, including Balong Village, which was introduced in Chapter One. Because of its remoteness, very few people visited the reserve before the late 1990s, but the number of visitors has steadily increased during the 2000s alongside improvements in roads and transport services. A paved road now connects the reserve to two county seats and to two airports with regular domestic flights to major cities in the east. When the reserve first opened, its operating budget was barely enough to cover salaries and administrative expenses. Only a few of its staff were civil servants with salaries provided by state budgets.28 Indeed, nature reserve management was another example of the unfunded mandates of local governments. However, as tourism numbers expanded, nature reserve managers identified new opportunities for generating revenues. When they received a grant to build a new headquarters in 2003, they used the funds to build a guesthouse, which enabled them to rent rooms to tourists, and a small restaurant. The reserve managers also began charging a 10 yuan entrance fee for visitors to the nature reserve, which had the additional

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benefit of forcing all visitors to stop at the guesthouse and restaurant to purchase tickets. The gate fee was increased to 30 yuan in 2006 and to 60 yuan in 2009. Revenue from ticket sales was supposed to be passed on to the county Forestry Bureau, but the reserve managers were permitted to retain the income from the guesthouse and restaurant. The reserve was home to one of the tourist sites included in the twoday tourist circuit that was being jointly promoted by the Laxiang County government and a Chengdu-based developer. The company argued its contract gave it a right to the reserve’s entrance fees to subsidize its efforts to develop the site, and claimed that the county head shared this understanding of the contract. But, the head of the Laxiang County Forestry Bureau, who was a member of Network B, said he did not agree and he refused to cooperate. A turf war ensued between the county government executive and the Forestry Bureau chief over control of the increasingly lucrative park entrance fees. Because of tiao-kuai (vertical-horizontal) fragmentation of authority over line agencies such as the Forestry Bureau, the dispute could not be easily settled by executive order. Although the Forestry Bureau chief theoretically reported to the county head, he also reported to the prefectural and provincial Forestry Bureaus. In western areas such as Poshan line ministries had a high degree of clout because they were responsible for funding much of the agencies’ activities. In disputes with the county executive, for example, the head of the county Forestry Bureau could, if well connected, go over the county executive’s head by appealing for higher-level support through his own bureaucratic channels and networks of patronage within the province. The victor of such bureaucratic wrangles was typically the one with the stronger patronage network in the relevant agencies. And this would vary according to the policy sector and agencies concerned. In the case of the Haidi Nature Reserve, a similar turf war erupted between the Haidi Nature Reserve managers and the Balong villagers. For generations, the Balong villagers had used the reserve’s trees for constructing houses and firewood, forest plants for food and medicine, and its grasslands for grazing livestock. Before the arrival of the tourist industry, the villagers practiced their traditional livelihoods unimpeded. But county officials had become more interested in the nature tourism revenue potential of the reserve. This demanded strict environmental controls over activities carried out in the reserve. From the mid-2000s, for example, the Forestry

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Bureau instructed reserve managers to clamp down on grazing and the harvesting of forest products by Balong villagers. Villagers were accustomed to moving their cattle to higher pastures within the reserve during the summer months. Herders stayed with the cattle in small shelters, and the dairy products they produced were carried down to the village at regular intervals. In the upper rangelands there were fewer trees, so herders cut peony for fuel. In the mid-2000s reserve managers introduced a ban on the cutting of the attractive peony bush. Park rangers tried to fine offenders when caught, but villagers refused to pay, claiming they had no money. Villagers reported that the rangers had resorted to intimidation and on at least one occasion threatened villagers with guns. These conflicts highlight the competing interests of sections within the county government and the land’s traditional users. Villagers also complained about increasing restrictions on their access to timber. New regulations permitted them to cut only the timber necessary to build their own homes, and only two households each year had permission to build. Villagers first had to obtain approval from the head of the villager small group (former production team) and then from the administrative village office. The nature reserve demanded that villagers also obtain approval from them before the paperwork was submitted to the township government for final approval. The approval process was not coordinated between the reserve and the administrative village office. Each used its own documents, and villagers wishing to cut timber had to travel back and forth, sometimes making several trips before they received the required approval. An even greater source of tension between Balong villagers and the new reserve authority was a new ban on the building of shelters for trekkers and mountain climbers within the nature reserve. Herders from the village had converted one of the rangeland huts into a small lodge where they could accommodate overnight hikers for a small fee. The lodge proved very popular—the prefectural governor himself had stayed there during a visit to the nature reserve. But the nature reserve manager determined that in building it the villagers had contravened reserve regulations, and sent rangers to close it down. The rangers told the herders that they must get written permission from the reserve authority to conduct business or to erect any buildings in the reserve. According to the herders, when they refused to dismantle the lodge, one of the park rangers forced them to do it at

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gunpoint. After they left, the herders rebuilt the lodge and within a few days were again open for business. One month later the rangers returned. This time the herders fled, and in their absence the park rangers tore down the wooden edifice and smashed everything inside. Balong’s village head (who has appeared in Chapters One and Three) appealed to his cousin for help in resolving the conflict between the villagers and park rangers. His cousin was reserve manager for the nearby Lake Pinzi Nature Reserve. He advised the village head that he would stand a better chance of reaching an amicable settlement if he disassociated himself from the Sacred Springs Tourism Development Company. Balong’s village head had been courting the company to promote tourism in the village and had built a new guesthouse in the village in anticipation of the arrival of more tourist groups. The company had reciprocated because it considered Balong to be a key launch pad for tourism in the reserve and a stopping point on the two-day tourist circuit it was marketing. But Forestry Bureau officials were wary of the public-private joint venture and the attempt by its political allies in the county executive to wrest control of park entrance fees from the Forestry Bureau. The dispute between the park rangers and the Balong villagers thus became entangled in the rivalry between competing coalitions of officials within the local state.

A Case Study: Lake Pinzi Nature Reserve The Lake Pinzi Nature Reserve was founded in 1984 as a provincial-level reserve under the administration of the Forestry Bureau. Unlike in Haidi Snow Mountain Nature Reserve, there were no communities living within the boundaries of the reserve, but there were several just outside the reserve’s boundary whose livelihoods depended on access to the reserve’s resources. Shanpo Village, introduced in Chapter One, was one of the communities that depended on the reserve’s grasslands to feed its livestock. Shanpo villagers harvested mushrooms and other non-timber forest products from the reserve during the summer months. Since the arrival of tourists, several families supplemented their income by ferrying tourists on horseback along the mile-long track between the road and the lake. Eighty to ninety households from four villages participated in the horse trek business, which contributed a sizeable share of their annual income. Situated 28 kilometers from the county seat, Lake Pinzi had grown into one of the county’s premier tourist attractions. In 2001 ticket sales

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to the picturesque lake earned the Forestry Bureau four million yuan (US$600,000). By 2012 ticket sales were worth 90 million yuan (US$14.5 million) annually. The county government designated Lake Pinzi as its second most important tourist destination. With this special status, and increasing revenue from nature tourism, the reserve’s management came under increasing pressure to preserve the pristine lakeside environment. On the basis of a government-commissioned research report that identified grazing and mushroom collecting as among the biggest environmental threats to the reserve, reserve managers began to place restrictions on these traditional economic practices. To minimize the impact on local livelihoods, Forestry Bureau officials asked the Animal Husbandry Bureau to assist villagers in finding alternative grazing areas for their livestock. The reserve also banned overnight camping in order to deter mushroom collectors. The reserve manager explained that villagers used a lot of firewood and left rubbish behind when they camped in the reserve during the mushroom season. Shanpo residents and other villagers were vehemently against the restrictions. According to a village elder, “A few years back, before the logging ban, state-owned logging companies cleared entire hillsides of forest around here. Now they tell us that using firewood is destroying the forests. That’s ridiculous.”29 A herder expressed his concern about the changing environmental regime: We understand that we have to take care of nature and that there have to be some rules. Right now we can live with the rules, but we’re afraid that if the rules get tighter, we won’t be able to live here anymore. For example, the rangers are saying that we can’t dig out toxic weeds from the rangelands because it looks ugly. We dig out the weeds because they outgrow the good grasses. We’re especially worried that there won’t be enough places to graze our cattle and goats and they won’t eat enough to produce milk.30

Like the conflict between villagers and park rangers in the Haidi Snow Mountain Nature Reserve, the conflict at Lake Pinzi was also entangled in the political rivalry between senior officials in the powerful Laxiang County Forestry Bureau (Network B) and other senior officials in the county executive, including the county head (Network A). Lake Pinzi was another one of the sites on the Sacred Springs Tourism Development Company’s tourist circuit, and the company had signed a separate agreement with the county government to manage the lake on behalf of the county government. But Network B officials in the Forestry Bureau refused to relinquish control.

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The county executive suggested that the Forestry Bureau could continue to manage the nature reserve, if Sacred Springs was given control of tourism management in the reserve. It was understood that “tourism management” included the collection of park entrance fees. The county executive argued that the facilities being developed by the Sacred Springs Tourism Development Company at Lake Pinzi, which included a public toilet and a new path and steps between the car park and the lake, were evidence that it was already managing tourism in the park. Officials from the Forestry Bureau argued that professional tourism developers were not needed to build such basic facilities, and the bureau commissioned its own tourism development plan to demonstrate its commitment to the reserve’s sustainable tourism development and management. Frustrated by the Forestry Bureau’s determination to monopolize the reserve’s entrance fees, the Sacred Springs Tourism Development Company hatched a scheme of its own. The route to the lake took visitors to the far side of the lake—a trip of more than an hour by bus from the county seat, where most tourists stayed, and then a further 30 minutes on foot or by horse. With support from Network A officials in the county, the Sacred Springs Tourism Development Company arranged to build a new road that would halve the travel time and allow vehicles to drive right to the lake’s edge. Such a route would not only be more attractive to tour companies, but would potentially increase the number of visitors to the reserve. The company’s plan was to establish a separate ticket office at the new entrance to the park. To increase its control over visitors to the park and to demonstrate its green credentials, it borrowed an idea from another well-known nature reserve that prevented private vehicles from entering the reserve.31 Tourist buses would have to park outside of the reserve, where the Forestry Bureau had no jurisdiction, and where visitors would board eco-friendly low emission buses for onward travel into the reserve. As work began on the new road, officials in the Forestry Bureau became concerned at the revenue losses they would face if the Sacred Springs project succeeded. They decided to fight back, enlisting the support of the provincial Forestry Bureau. The county Forestry Bureau filed a complaint against the new road, arguing that it contravened the central government’s Natural Forest Protection Program. The complaint accused the county executive of condoning the illegal felling of trees within the reserve to make way for greater numbers of tourists. The deputy secretary of the provincial Forestry

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Bureau sent a red-letter (official) rebuke to the county executive summoning a county government representative to the provincial capital. The deputy county head responsible for tourism and forestry policy was dispatched. He received a thorough dressing-down from the deputy party secretary of the provincial Forestry Bureau, a man three ranks his senior. The deputy secretary warned him that under the present policies, cutting trees was enough to have him disciplined, which could prevent his promotion.32 At the same time, senior officials at the Forestry Bureau were mobilizing allies at three levels of government to prevent the public-private venture from seizing control of Lake Pinzi’s revenues. Eventually, they were able to bring enough pressure to bear, forcing the company to cease and desist. With the road nearly completed, a ticket office erected, and staff hired, the company was forced to hand over the new facilities to the Forestry Bureau–controlled reserve management. As part of the agreement, the Forestry Bureau would retain the staff the company had hired to manage the ticket office. Once the Forestry Bureau had defeated the Sacred Springs public-private company, it proceeded to complete the company’s project, including the necessary tree felling to make way for the final stretch of road. The Forestry Bureau founded its own “Forest Tourism Development Company” that mimicked the Sacred Springs model. It would serve as the Forestry Bureau’s investment vehicle, leveraging cheap loans and controlling revenues. And to protect themselves from complaints on environmental grounds, Forestry Bureau officials registered the new road with planning authorities as a “firebreak,” declaring the project to be in the interests of forest protection.33 Using their control over the Forestry Bureau and both personal and formal bureaucratic connections in the province, Network B officials won this particular battle, but there were many more battles to be fought.

conclusion

Patterns of Local Politics in Rural China

This case study of Laxiang County and Poshan Prefecture has highlighted the role of informal institutions in local politics, explaining how informal institutions have evolved in response to post-Mao economic and administrative reforms. Just as informal institutions such as kinship have (re) emerged as a basis for social and political organization within rural communities, so too have informal institutions such as patronage (re)emerged as a basis of political organization within the local state. Studying the role of informal institutions and the nature of their interaction with formal institutions helps us to understand how contemporary China is governed and how the Chinese Communist Party-state has held together through several decades of dramatic social and economic change. At the village level informal networks based on kinship and patron-client ties play a decisive role in the outcome of village elections and in the distribution of resources. Such networks are an important source of political capital for village leaders. Aspiring village leaders need access to a wide kinship network in order to get elected. Village leaders also need access to informal networks of local officials in order to attract favors in the form

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of grants, public works, services, and subsidized loans. Local state officials also rely on informal ties to supplement their administrative relationship with village leaders. Township leaders need to cultivate informal ties with village leaders to maximize compliance with policy directives and to boost their own gains from rural development projects. In Laxiang county village leaders and local officials often worked together in order to win grants, which generated spoils that they could then share. Working together in pursuit of spoils served to further strengthen ties between village elites and local officials. Such findings challenge the state-society conflict paradigm that informs much of the contemporary analysis of rural China. While conflicts between the local state and local communities are certainly common—peasant protests over land expropriations in many parts of China are a prominent example—findings from this study suggest that such conflicts are only part of the rural story. Indeed, one of the central findings of this research project is that political and economic interests crisscross state and society boundaries, and align in surprising ways. The complexity of overlapping interests between community-based actors and local state-based actors underlines the need for a more nuanced approach to studying politics and political change in contemporary rural China. Of particular importance is the need for a thorough disaggregation of the local state in the study of China’s local politics. Even though it is a large and complex beast, spanning three separate levels of administration— township, county, and prefecture/municipality (some would even include the province)—the local state is still often treated as a unified actor, typically in contradistinction to the central government above or local communities below. The case study of elections in two townships (see Chapter Three) provides a useful prism for understanding how webs of interests crisscrossed state and community. In both townships members of villagebased kin networks teamed up with allies in local state–based patronage networks to promote the candidates who best represented their interests. Moving up the governing ladder, patronage-based networks were found to be a dominant force within county and prefectural administration in Poshan. At the core of each patronage network was a group of officials with strong ties to a rural locality—often a township or county. Native place ties served as a powerful bond between group members. Other bonds included shared professional experiences in the army or bureaucracy, school ties or complementary business interests, but core members of the patronage

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network tended to hail from the same locality. Poshan Prefecture’s patronage networks were not formally organized, but they were easily identifiable. Local political actors knew well who belonged to which network and how this association was likely to affect someone’s decisions and actions. Scholars have long been aware of the importance of patronage networks in Chinese politics, but this is one of the first case studies to systematically examine the structure and function of patronage networks in a local context, the nature of their interaction with formal institutions, and their impact on local political behavior more generally. Local officials in Poshan Prefecture and Laxiang County were members of patronage networks because they had to be. In a system in which personal power relations trumped formal rules, patronage was essential for protection and advancement. Even though patronage networks drew on the cultural resources and institutional legacies of an earlier period, they were profoundly shaped by the institutional context of the post-Mao era—i.e., by the challenges and opportunities presented by decollectivization and decentralization. Poshan’s current configuration of patronage networks began to take shape during the 1980s. This was a time of rapid change, ideological decay, weak rule of law, and bureaucratic indiscipline. During this tumultuous period, patronage networks provided local officials with a supplementary set of (informal) rules for organizing governmental affairs. Patronage networks served as a well of trust during a time of danger and opportunity, as a source of protection against arbitrary power, and as a mechanism for organizing political competition. Patronage networks also helped to grease the wheels of bureaucracy, overcoming red tape, the fragmentation of authority, and unclear formal rules. They provided supplementary channels for coordination across party and government agencies, which brought a degree of stability to local decision making. Greasing the wheels of bureaucracy may have benefited the public, but patronage networks also were vehicles for greasing the palms of local officials. The early post-Mao period ushered in unprecedented opportunities for wealth accumulation. Patronage networks provided a means for local officials to coordinate and collude across multiple bureaus in order to extract spoils from the public purse. Spoils became an essential resource for political competition in a system dominated by personal power relations. Power brokers came to depend on spoils to buy influence and to reward loyalty among their allies. And extracting spoils was surprisingly easy in a

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political economy characterized by a high degree of state control over the economy during a time of rapid economic growth and an unclear distinction between public and private. Local officials used a variety of techniques to siphon spoils from the local economy and from state budgets to fund their political machinations and to enrich themselves. In Poshan it was clear that a majority of local officials above a certain rank were engaged in this pursuit of spoils. Like the machine politics of U.S. cities such as Chicago and New York in the latter part of the nineteenth and first part of the twentieth centuries, spoils had become inseparable from politics.1 Spoils and the patronage networks that distributed the spoils had become essential to political survival and advancement. Officials could not compete for the top jobs or for local influence unless they had significant material resources at their disposal. In Poshan aspiring junior officials were denied access to the political arena unless they could demonstrate a commitment to the informal rules of patronage politics. As was noted earlier, one official admitted candidly in an interview, “if you’re not corrupt, no one will trust you.” The pursuit of spoils sparked a new era of political competition within the local state in Poshan. This was a competition over access to state power, especially over the bureaucratic levers that determined the distribution of economic rewards. Patronage networks sought to install their own people (zijiren) in positions of influence across the local bureaucracy. Senior members of patronage networks invested much of their energy in trying to influence the appointment and promotion of local officials who would remain trusted allies in future endeavors. In doing so, patronage networks acted like executive placement agencies. The most coveted posts were those that commanded large budget and off-budget revenues as well as posts that could influence personnel appointments, such as leadership positions represented in the county and prefectural Communist Party Standing Committees. By mobilizing allies across party and government agencies, patronage networks enhanced members’ collective ability to influence decisions, to control projects, and to access valuable information. The power of local patronage networks to influence cadre evaluations and appointments challenges recent scholarship on the mechanisms by which China’s highly decentralized political system is held together. If my findings from a prefecture and county are at all generalizable, they raise questions about the central leadership’s ability to control local officials

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through the cadre management and political contracting system. Certainly, the cadre management system creates incentives that shape local officials’ priorities—e.g., the pursuit of economic growth and the maintenance of social stability—but unless Poshan is an anomaly, my research suggests that the actual influence of the cadre management system is limited to the setting of policy priorities. That is, it has little influence on the methods by which local officials achieve policy targets, and arguably less influence on political behavior more generally. While scholars have argued that the resilience of the Chinese Communist Party during the era of decentralization and economic reform lies in its ability to recruit and reward the political elite through its nomenklatura system, the weakness of the party and government’s disciplinary institutions and their vulnerability to capture by local patronage networks suggests that the nomenklatura system is less effective as a tool of control than many analysts previously thought. However, the extent to which patronage networks undermine the formal authority of the Chinese Communist Party is a question requiring careful consideration. Formally, there is no doubt that the party has extended its control over the state in recent years, largely through its system of interlocking directorates—i.e., the fusion of party and government posts, and the assertion of party leadership in economic policy and governance. But the deep penetration of patronage-based networks observed in Poshan raises questions about local officials’ loyalty to the party. In all my conversations with local officials over more than a decade in Poshan, my sense was that party membership was seen as little more than a vehicle for career advancement. As one official told me frankly, “if you join the party you get access to more information about what’s going on in decision making.” And it was also clear that formal party membership meant little without the backing of an informal patronage network. By shaping expectations and incentives for local officials, it can be argued that patronage networks in some ways constrained the autonomous power of the local state and its constituent bureaucratic agencies. But informal politics did not paralyze or hollow out the local state. In Poshan, patronage networks helped make government work. With authority dispersed among different leading groups, among vertical (line agencies) and horizontal (executive) axes, and among party and government agencies, most important policy decisions and projects required coordination among a multitude of agencies and actors at different levels.

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Within this fragmented system, compromises and compacts arranged by patronage networks served as a supplementary informal order, providing the stability, trust, and predictability needed for policy coordination and bureaucratic bargaining. Patronage networks in Poshan enabled political actors to cooperate and to trust each other, even in the absence of clear formal rules and rule enforcement. Patronage networks provided channels of communication horizontally across party and government agencies and vertically across multiple tiers of state administration. These reliable channels of communication were especially important during periods of rapid economic change and bureaucratic upheaval. The potential rewards of spoils also motivated officials to act—to design projects, to raise capital, and to invest funds, highlighting the complicated relationship between corruption and development. Patronage networks enabled county and prefectural governments to get things done, albeit within the constraints posed by the informal rules of the game. Patronage networks in Poshan also provided an important means of organizing political competition within the local state. Without the informal rules of patronage politics uniting political actors in the local spoils system and retaining cooperation between different networks on matters of mutual interest, it is conceivable that a system characterized by personal power politics and lawlessness could have been more violent and certainly much less stable. In Poshan a shared interest in the preservation of a lucrative system ensured that political rivals remained civil in their conduct. Just as patronage networks provided protection against the political hazards of the system, the spoils system provided incentives for cooperation, even among rivals, to sustain the system as a whole. Another important function of patronage networks was to link citizens and officials in Poshan. Poshan’s patronage networks had strong roots in localities. By mobilizing their allies in order to channel resources to their localities, local officials earned legitimacy in the eyes of the rural populace. Local officials were also motivated to secure projects for their native places because personal ties with village elites ensured they would have greater control over project implementation, which in turn provided greater access to spoils. Patronage networks also provided a channel of communication between officials and village leaders. Through such networks, local officials were able to read the pulse of communities and to ensure that influential members of rural communities were adequately rewarded with a stake in

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the spoils. Such relationships made it easier for local officials to mobilize village leaders to enforce policy dictates when required. Many of the findings of this case study of a rural southwestern locality in China will resonate with scholars working on different parts of the countryside. A handful of studies from diverse places such as Anhui and Hainan suggest that there may be striking similarities in the way local politics revolves around the machinations of informal networks.2 Studies from Taiwan during the authoritarian period under Chiang Kai-shek and Chiang Ching-kuo also suggest striking similarities in how patronage networks have evolved under one-party rule in a culturally Chinese context.3 Closer to home, anecdotal evidence from across the People’s Republic suggests that the drivers of local political behavior might not vary as much as some analysts have suggested. It may be that the appearance of regional variation in local state behavior lies more in the prizes over which local officials compete. In Poshan, a key prize has been control of fiscal transfers from higher levels. In other parts of China where greater local wealth is being generated, political elites may be more interested in controlling lucrative state-owned enterprises or the bureaucratic levers regulating private sector activity. Clearly, more in-depth research is needed before we can have a fuller understanding of the role of informal institutions in local Chinese politics and society. Continued examination of the role of patronage networks within the Chinese state and the links between such networks and local communities will be critical to our understanding of China’s political system as it evolves in response to a fast-changing society and economy. As other studies from around the world have shown,4 patronage politics and spoils systems can be resilient under authoritarian regimes, during transitions to democracy, and within democratic political systems.

Notes

Introduction 1. A party-state is a state in which a single party has a legal or de facto monopoly over formal political activity. In China’s case the monopoly has a legal basis in the constitution of the People’s Republic of China. According to Article 1, “The People’s Republic of China is a socialist state under the people’s democratic dictatorship led by the working class and based on the alliance of workers and peasants.” 2. Zhongguo tongji nianjian (China Statistical Yearbook), National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2009. 3. The term “local state” has not always been used consistently. Some scholars have used it interchangeably with “local government.” Others use the term to refer to the entire “local” governing apparatus, which includes the parallel administrations of the Chinese Communist Party and local government at the county and township levels. Some even extend the definition to village administration, even though village administration is community-based and technically not part of the state. In this book I use the term “local state” to refer to the multiple levels of party-state administration below the province—i.e., the prefecture, county, and township. For more discussion of definitions of the “local state” in the Chinese context, see Remick, Building Local States; and Tsai, “Locating the Local State in China.” 4. Oi, State and Peasant in Contemporary China, and Rural China Takes Off. On the corporatist local state and its relations with rural society, see also Unger and Chan, “Inheritors of the Boom.” 5. Walder, “The County Government as an Industrial Corporation.” 6. For an overview of the multiple characterizations of the post-Mao state in the early local states literature, see Baum and Shevchenko, “The State of the State.” 7. On the “entrepreneurial” local state, see Jane Duckett’s case study of urban property development in the port city of Tianjin: Duckett, The Entrepreneurial State in China. On “bureau-preneurial,” see Lü, “Booty Socialism, Bureau-Preneurs, and the State in Transition.” 8. Blecher and Shue, Tethered Deer.

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9. Bernstein and Lü, Taxation without Representation in Contemporary Rural China. 10. Cao, Huanghe bian de Zhongguo. 11. Guo, “The Role of Local Government in Creating Property Rights.” 12. Pye, “Factions and the Politics of Guanxi.” 13. Meyer and Rowan, “Institutionalized Organizations,” 350. 14. Jepperson, “Institutions, Institutional Effects, and Institutionalism,” 145. 15. Helmke and Levitsky, “Informal Institutions and Comparative Politics,” 725. 16. See, for example, O’Donnell, “Illusions about Consolidation”; Kitschelt and Wilkinson, eds., Patrons, Clients, and Policies; Fine, Social Capital Versus Social Theory; Gold, Guthrie, and Wank, Social Connections in China; and Harriss, Depoliticizing Development. 17. Robison and Hadiz, Reorganizing Power in Indonesia. 18. Szetfel, “Misunderstanding African Politics.” 19. Informal institutions can, of course, be either good or bad. They can be observed to make formal institutions more effective—e.g., unwritten rules on parliamentary procedure or the so-called folkways of the U.S. Senate. In other situations, informal institutions undermine the effectiveness of formal institutions—e.g., nepotism and the buying and selling of government positions. 20. Gretchen Helmke and Steven Levitsky propose a typology of informal institutions based on their relationship with formal institutions. According to this framework, informal institutions can be categorized variously as “complementing,” accommodating,” “substitutive,” or “competing.” See Helmke and Levitsky, “Informal Institutions and Comparative Politics,” 728. 21. While sub-national government begins with the province, I do not include the province in my working definition of the “local state” in rural China. I argue that the local state begins at the prefectural/municipality level. As can be seen in Figure 1, China’s provinces are simply too large—many are bigger than France or Germany—for their administrations to be meaningfully considered “local.” Citizens are not likely to come into direct contact with provincial officials. And provincial leaders tend to identify more closely with political actors at the center rather than those below. 22. See, for example, Zhao, “Difang zhengfu gongsihua”; Zhou, “The Institutional Logic of Collusion among Local Governments in China”; and Green, “China—Masterclass.” 23. O’Brien, “How Authoritarian Rule Works.” 24. On guanxi and guanxi networks, see Chapter Four. 25. See, for example, Schurmann, Ideology and Organization in Communist China; Dittmer, “Modernizing Chinese Informal Politics”; Lieberthal, Governing China; Pye, “Factions and the Politics of Guanxi”; and Shambaugh, “The Chinese State in the Post-Mao Era.”

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Chapter One 1. On the prominence of kinship and lineage organizations in contemporary rural China, see Chan, Madsen, and Unger, Chen Village under Mao and Deng; Hillman, “The Rise of the Community in Rural China”; and Jing, Temple of Memories. 2. Chan, Madsen, and Unger, Chen Village under Mao and Deng, examines in detail the nature of such feuds in a south China village. 3. Huang, “Two-Way Changes,” has noted how, elsewhere in China, kinship groups have mobilized to control local industry and village leadership positions. For other examples of the importance of kinship groups in rural social and economic organization, see Ruf, Cadres and Kin; and Tsai, “Cadres, Temple and Lineage Institutions, and Governance in Rural China.” 4. According to the Poshan Prefectural Tourism Bureau, more than three million visits were recorded in 2011. Of these visits, an estimated 60–70 percent were tourists from other parts of China. 5. See Chapter Five for more details on officially designated “impoverished” counties and fiscal transfers. 6. The district level of government is not common in all parts of rural China. Sitting between the county and the township, it is usually found only in sparsely populated regions of China where there are large distances and poor communications between the county and township. 7. Local governments usually receive a fee for facilitating labor exchanges. On local state profiteering in rural to urban labor migration, see Lei, “The State Connection in China’s Rural-Urban Migration.” 8. Dynamics are different in parts of China, particularly the south, where villages are often dominated by one lineage. Although, as Chan, Madsen, and Unger point out in the third edition of their case study of Chen Village, labor migration can make the original lineage a minority in the village—something which serves to strengthen lineage ties, and generate creative strategies for retaining lineage control over village affairs. See Chan, Madsen, and Unger, Chen Village under Mao and Deng. 9. A similar pattern emerges in political competition at the township level, which is discussed in the next two chapters. 10. For a detailed study of the politics of implementing the of the Sloping Land Conversion Program, see Hillman, “Cunshe xuanju yu ziran ziyuan guanli.” 11. Interviews with Pubu Village head, 15 April 2005 and 12 December 2011. Quote is from the 2005 interview. 12. Interview with Dawan Village head, 8 July 2003. 13. Various interviews with Shanpo villagers in August 2003, July 2004, and April 2006.

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Chapter Two 1. Zhong, Local Government and Politics in China; Smith “The Hollow State.” 2. This is generally true of township government throughout China. For other studies of this phenomenon see Sun and Wen, “Caizheng yali yu tizhi bianqian”; Zhao, Xiangzhen zhili yu zhengfu zhiduhua. 3. Laxiang County Annals (1992). 4. Communes differed greatly in size across China. Apart from a time in the late 1950s during the Great Leap Forward when the commune was given totalitarian control over rural activity, the communes largely served as agents of the counties, communicating policy to the village party secretaries and reporting back information. In practice, commune and brigade leaders shared many functions including the responsibility for social services such as health and education. 5. Interviews with officials from prefectural and county civil affairs bureaus, May 2004. 6. Laxiang County Statistical Bureau, July 2012. 7. Group interviews were conducted with Dongli Township residents in May 2002, July 2005, and September 2009. 8. The significance of fiscal transfers for local political competition is discussed in greater detail in Chapter Five. 9. All election results in China must be endorsed by the next highest level of government. 10. Interview with former township party secretary, 19 May 2005. 11. Lowering the age (nianqinghua) of party-state officials has been one of four principles of cadre recruitment Deng Xiaoping’s “four transformations” (sihua) reforms of the late 1970s. The other three principles are “revolutionariness” (geminghua), “knowledgability” (zhilihua), and “professionalism” (zhuanyehua). 12. These rates were increased by approximately 50 percent in 2010. 13. Interview with township head, 12 September 2005. 14. Interviews with former County Finance chief conducted on several occasions between 2005 and 2012. The quote is from an interview on 10 August 2004. 15. While conducting fieldwork in Dongli I learned that one of the village elementary schools had collapsed in a landslide. I helped to raise funds to build the village a new school. 16. Interview with Dongli Township head, 29 April 2004. 17. Interview with former township head and Laxiang County government official, 17 August 2005. 18. Interview with Haidi Township head, 4 April 2004. 19. See Chapter Four for more information on the role of the Communist Party Discipline Inspection Committee. 20. Also known as the “Grain for Green Project.” The Sloping Land Conversion Program was conducted across all forested regions in China. Designed to combat both soil erosion and improve rural livelihoods, it aimed to convert 14.67 million hectares of fragile cropland to forests by the year 2010 at a cost of approximately

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US$40 billion, making it the largest reforestation program in the developing world. For a statistical analysis of the program’s impacts on rural livelihoods, see Li Jie et al., “Rural Household Income and Inequality under the Sloping Land Conversion Program in Western China.”

Chapter Three 1. On the early experiments with township elections, see Li Lianjiang, “The Politics of Introducing Direct Township Elections in China”; and Saich and Yang, “Innovation in China’s Local Governance.” 2. Long Hair admitted to me that he had sent cash gifts, but he refused to say how much. The estimate of 100,000 yuan is based on discussions with township residents and local officials and their estimates of how many households received payments. 3. While gun ownership is illegal, many villagers in Poshan possess guns, usually for hunting, which is also illegal.

Chapter Four 1. The terms “patronage” and “patronage network” are sometimes used interchangeably in the social sciences literature. In this study I use the terms to mean different things. “Patronage” is best understood as the benefits provided in return for loyalty. These might be tangible or intangible. “Networks” are the channels through which patronage is distributed. Patronage may be distributed through a variety of formal and informal networks. For example, an official might give patronage (in the forms of projects or grants) to his native village or township in exchange for status and loyalty within the community. An official might also provide patronage to a local entrepreneur in the form of preferential treatment (licenses, subsidized credit, access to land) in exchange for personal material benefits. In this study I use the term “patronage network” to refer to the relatively stable informal networks within the local state through which patronage flows between officials. 2. See Blecher and Shue, Tethered Deer, 33. 3. There have been a handful of celebrated publications by local officials drawing attention to the way things really work in local government such as Li Changping’s Wo xiang zongli shuo shihua, but Chinese scholars must be extremely cautious when writing about unwritten rules. 4. The term “faction” is commonly used in the literature on China’s elite politics. Scholars have argued, for example, that many political and policy decisions at the top are the outcome of factional struggles. See, for example, Cai and Treisman, “Did Government Decentralization Cause China’s Economic Miracle?”; and Shih, “Factions Matter.” In an earlier study I used the term “faction” to describe

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the informal coalitions of officials within the local state as a means of highlighting the intensity of competition between these groups. See Hillman, “Factions and Spoils.” For definitions of “factions” and “factionalism,” see the chapters by Ralph Nicholas and Jeremy Boissevain in Schmidt et al. (eds.), Friends, Followers, and Factions. 5. In the social science literature factionalism is generally understood to be a zero-sum game. See Brumfiel, “Introduction.” 6. Practically no women have risen to top ranks in local officialdom. 7. It must be noted that questions of ethnic identity and expression are a major feature of social conflicts in many parts of western China—particularly in Xinjiang and many Tibetan areas. These conflicts have often involved violence between ethnic communities and the state. Increasingly, they have also involved intercommunal violence. My focus here, however, is on informal political ties among local state officials. In Poshan I did not find ethnicity to be an important basis for political organization within the local state. 8. For a discussion of the nature of guanxi in Chinese politics and society, see the essays in Gold, Guthrie and Wank, eds., Social Connections in China; and Yang, Gifts, Favors, and Banquets. 9. See Nathan, “A Factionalism Model for CCP Politics,” 44. 10. Kenneth Lieberthal describes this matrix muddle in detail in Governing China, 169–70. 11. There are several categories of state employees in China, but the most important distinction is between civil servants (公务员 gongwuyuan), who have permanent positions in the nomenklatura and who are paid from the formal budget, and other types of personnel, including service personnel, auxiliary staff and laborers, who are generally paid from off-budget sources of revenue and who are more vulnerable to retrenchment. 12. Leading cadres are those ranked at the division level (county head) and above. All other civil servants are known as ordinary cadres (普通干部 putong ganbu). 13. Interview with the deputy chair of the Poshan Prefectural People’s Congress, 18 July 2012. 14. For other case studies of profiteering by the Tobacco Monopoly Bureau in different parts of southwest China, see Guo, “The Role of Local Government in Creating Property Rights”; and Peng, “The Politics of Tobacco.” 15. This is also true of other localities in China. See Hsing, The Great Urban Transformation. 16. There is no private ownership of land in China. Land is owned either by the state or the collective (village community). Long-term leases on use rights provide a form of effective ownership. 17. Official profiteering from land deals at the expense of farmers has become a major source of social conflict in rural China. Conflicts are particularly intense in peri-urban areas where farmland has been acquired at a rapid rate for industrial

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expansion. See Sargeson, “The Politics of Land Development in Urbanizing China”; and Hsing, The Great Urban Transformation. 18. Choi, “The Politics of Fee Extraction from Private Enterprises 1996–2003,” 81. 19. Interview with the deputy head of the Poshan Prefectural Commerce Bureau, 13 July 2012. 20. A survey conducted by China’s Ministry of Finance in the mid-1990s, for example, found that 63 percent of 2,074 counties were in deficit as many as threequarters of county governments were struggling to meet payrolls and other routine operational expenses. See Xianji caizheng yanjiu xiaozu (Task Force on the Study of County Finance), “Xianji caizheng weiji jiqi duice” (County financial crisis and responses), Caizheng yanjiu (Fiscal Studies), no. 5 (1996): 55–59. 21. Wong, “Budget Reform in China.” 22. Leading proponents of this view are Maria Edin, “State Capacity and Local Agent Control in China”; and Pierre Landry, Decentralized Authoritarianism in China. Dali Yang has also argued that recent reforms have strengthened performance and reduced corruption in the public service. See Yang, Remaking the Leviathan. Minxin Pei offers a different view. Consistent with my arguments, Pei argues that administrative decentralization has compounded principal-agent problems and given rise to local political monopolies. See Pei, China’s Trapped Transition. 23. Landry, Decentralized Authoritarianism in China, 16. 24. Ibid., 17. 25. See, for example, Yang, Remaking the Chinese Leviathan; Lü, Cadres and Corruption; and Pei, China’s Trapped Transition. 26. Shih, “Getting Ahead in the Communist Party.” 27. Promotion to a higher rank often occurs prior to appointment to a position of the higher rank. 28. Burns and Wang, “Civil Service Reform in China,” 64. 29. On the localization (bentuhua) of local party secretaries across China, see Li and Bachman, “Localism, Elitism, and Immobilism.” 30. Burns and Wang, “Civil Service Reform in China,” 68. 31. Pei, China’s Trapped Transition, 45. 32. Burns and Wang, “Civil Service Reform in China,” 69. 33. On this particular case, see Shi, “Fubai shuji mai guan, zuzhi bumen yao fuze.” 34. Fewsmith, “The Politics of Economic Liberalization,” 86. 35. Interview with Laxiang County official, 12 August 2011. 36. Graeme Smith has made a similar finding in Benghai County in Anhui Province, where his local sources estimated that 80 percent of all positions were bought and sold in this manner. See Smith, “Political Machinations in a Rural County.” 37. Interview with Laxiang County official, 27 July 2011. 38. See Wedeman, “Corruption: Crisis or Constant?” 39. Wang, “Huise shouru yu guomin shouru fenpei.”

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40. GroupM Knowledge and Hurun Wealth Report 2011, www.hurun.net/ hurun/listreleaseen548.aspx (accessed 31 May 2012). 41. The People’s Bank of China report noted that many of the officials who fled the country with embezzled or otherwise illegally obtained funds had done so with the help of a spouse or relative who was already residing abroad. The report was originally posted on the bank’s website, but has since been removed. The report was widely cited in the Chinese and international media in June and July 2012. See, for example, the following Asia Times report from July 2012: www. atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/NG12Cb02.html. 42. According to retired officials, patronage networks existed in Poshan in the pre-reform era, but they were more oriented toward political protection than toward spoils. Indeed, before the 1980s there were few material resources to compete over. 43. Wank, “The Institutional Process of Market Clientelism.” 44. In Laxiang County in 2012 a county bureau chief earned between 4,000 and 5,000 yuan a month, including allowances. More-senior officials, such as the head of the county and the county party secretary, earned between 5,000 and 6,000 yuan. 45. The Chinese Communist Party continues to use mass campaigns, moral exhortations, and the shaming of high-profile miscreants as part of its anti-corruption drives, in an approach that has changed little since the 1950s. 46. According to a retired official from the Poshan Prefectural Discipline Inspection Committee, the vast majority of complaints are lodged anonymously due to fear of repercussions. 47. Interview with former Laxiang County deputy party secretary, 2 June 2008. 48. The details of this case are discussed further in Chapter Five. 49. Interview with Laxiang County official, 16 August 2005. 50. On the negative impact of patronage on economic growth, see Mauro, “Corruption and Growth”; and Sun, Corruption and Market in Contemporary China. 51. See, for example, Leff, “Economic Development through Bureaucratic Corruption”; and Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies. 52. Méon and Weill, “Is Corruption an Efficient Grease?” 53. Hans Hendrischke has argued in a similar vein that informal ties between officials and businesspeople provide semi-formal property rights protection, supporting investment and growth in an otherwise volatile system. See Hendrischke, “Local and Informal Institutions in China’s Market Transition.” 54. During interviews with a journalist, former state senator and assemblyman George Washington Plunkitt revealed the city administration to be a machine generating spoils for politicians who shored up their support by providing patronage to party allies. Plunkitt famously and openly advocated “honest graft.” See Riordon, Plunkitt of Tammany Hall. Plunkitt’s admissions reminded me of similar frank comments made by officials in Poshan Prefecture about how the local system worked.

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Chapter Five 1. See, for example, Oi, State and Peasant in Contemporary China, and Rural China Takes Off; and Blecher and Shue, Tethered Deer. 2. On the predatory local state, see Chen and Wu, Zhongguo nongmin diaocha; Bernstein and Lü, Taxation without Representation in Contemporary Rural China. 3. Lu, “Poverty Eradication in China.” 4. The central government began designating counties as targets for poverty relief efforts. In 1986 the State Council identified 273 such counties. All counties with a per capita income below 150 yuan per annum were included, as well as national minority counties (minzu xian) with average per capita income below 200 yuan, and revolutionary base areas (laoqu)—areas that made special contributions to the Communist cause during the Civil War of 1945–1949—with per capita incomes below 300 yuan. In 1994 the number of poor counties was increased to 592 based on a revised poverty line of 400 yuan per capita (county average). Critics argued that this was a very low estimate because definitions of poverty were based on basic human survival. The basic index was raised to 500 yuan in 1995, 580 yuan in 1996, and 635 yuan in 1998. See Hillman, “Opening-Up” and “China’s Mountain Poor.” In 2011 the Chinese government increased the level of income at which an individual is considered poor to the international standard of one US dollar per day. By this measure, China has a population of 128 million people below the poverty line. 5. Three main types of fiscal transfers are available to county governments in China. Tax return transfers (shuihou fanhuan buzhu) provide local governments with 30 percent of any increase in locally collected VAT above a 1993 baseline. General transfers (cailixing buzhu) are redistributive transfers that are mostly provided to cash-strapped local governments in rural areas. They include operating expenses for poor counties and ethnic minority counties, funds for wage adjustments, rewards for high-performing county governments, and subsidies to support rural tax-for-fee reforms. Special-purpose funds (zhuanxiang buzhu) are additional transfers provided mainly to impoverished counties and ethnic autonomous regions, and are offered by various ministries on an ad hoc basis. The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) is the main provider of special-purpose funds. The NDRC funds typically funds large public works projects such as road and dam construction and irrigation. (The NDRC was formerly known as the State Planning Commission and as the State Development Planning Commission.) 6. Interview with deputy director Poshan Prefectural Finance Bureau, 18 July 2012; Poshan prefectural government annual reports to the Poshan Prefectural People’s Congress. 7. This special-purpose fund was established after investigations into the 2008 Sichuan earthquake revealed that many deaths had been caused by poor construction.

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8. Some commentators have accused the Chinese government of using the Go West campaign as little more than a civilizing project, designed to pacify restive minorities through long-term and gradual integration with Han Chinese. See Goodman and Goodman, “Colonialism and China”; and Moneyhon, “China’s Great Western Development Project in Xinjiang.” For an overview of the campaign to develop the west, see Naughton, “The Western Development Program.” 9. Information Office of State Council of the People’s Republic of China, Press conference to mark the tenth anniversary of the “Western Development Strategy,” Beijing, 7 July 2010. 10. Xinhua News Agency, “China’s Western Region Development Plan: A Dual Strategy,” Beijing, 8 July 2010. 11. These new initiatives are outlined in China’s Twelfth Five-Year Program for National Social and Economic Development (2011–2015). 12. Interview with former Laxiang County township head, 15 August 2011. 13. Liu et al. identified a similar pattern in another west China county. They observed that a large share of special-purpose funds was used for bureaucratic expansion. See Liu et al., “The Political Economy of Ear-Marked Transfers in a State-Designated Poor County in Western China.” 14. Interview with Poshan Prefectural Education Bureau official, 15 August 2011. 15. Interview with former Poshan Prefectural Finance Bureau official, 10 December 2011. 16. In a legacy from the Maoist era, the Chinese party-state uses models to promote ideal-type modernization and development. Model villages are used as a policy tool to encourage rural communities to adopt certain practices. For a detailed discussion of the importance of models for the governance of Chinese society, see Bakken, The Exemplary Society. 17. “Building the New Socialist Countryside” was a slogan launched in 2006 as part of the Eleventh Five-Year Plan in 2006. The slogan represented the party center’s renewed focus on rural livelihoods and agriculture as a counterweight to urbanization and industrialization. Some analysts have charged that the “new socialist countryside” is merely a slogan; however, since its launch there has been a noticeable increase in the quality of rural livelihoods. See Warner and Yang, “Marketization, Democratization and the ‘Reach of the State’ in Rural China”; and Rosenberg, “Policy Implementation in Contemporary Rural China.” For a county-level survey of investments made under the auspices of the program, see Wang, Guo, and Li, “Synthetic Evaluation of New Socialist Countryside Construction at County Level in China.” 18. Various interviews with officials and villagers connected with the project in December 2011 and July 2012. 19. The deputy governor’s motives for blocking the project are, of course, difficult to ascertain, but the county officials concerned were convinced that personal rivalry was the reason for their failure. Interview with Laxiang County Education Bureau deputy head, 14 December 2011.

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20. Approximately 1.3 million people were resettled as part of the Three Gorges Dam construction project. Some households were relocated more than 2,000 kilometers away to the outskirts of Shanghai. See Wilmsen, “Progress, Problems and Prospects.” Controversy surrounding its construction led the World Bank to withdraw funding for the project. 21. Ibid. 22. Interview with former head of the Laxiang County Population Resettlement Office, 25 April 2005 and 11 August 2009. 23. Interview with Laxiang County Urban Construction Bureau official, 12 December 2011. 24. I attended one of these dinners as a guest of one of the officials involved with the project. 25. Interview with Laxiang County government official, 18 August 2011. 26. Interview, 22 July 2011. 27. Interview with former director of the Poshan Prefectural Party Discipline Inspection Committee, 18 December 2011. 28. See, for example, Warner and Yang, “Marketization, Democratization and the ‘Reach of the State’ in Rural China”; Remick, Building Local States; and Saich, “The Blind Man and the Elephant.”

Chapter Six 1. Before the forest tenure reforms community-owned forests were administered by the township government. On the forest tenure reforms, see Xu and Jiang, “Collective Forest Tenure Reform in China.” On the current status of China’s collective forests, see Miao and West, “Chinese Collective Forestlands.” 2. Interview with former head of the Poshan Prefectural Forestry Bureau, 22 August 2011. 3. I knew this official personally. Information about his business interests was provided by an engineer from a private construction company who worked in partnership with the official’s excavating business on several projects. The details were corroborated by other reliable sources in the county. 4. The origins and contemporary reach of Laxiang County’s Network B are discussed in Chapter Five. 5. On the emergence of local dukedoms in other parts of China, see Wang and Hu, Zhongguo guojia nengli baogao; and Zheng, De Facto Federalism in China. 6. On the political economy of matsutake mushroom harvesting in southwest China, see He, “Globalised Forest-Products”; and Yeh, “Forest Claims, Conflict and Commodification.” 7. The logging ban applied to 75 million acres of forest across seventeen provinces. More than one million forestry workers lost their jobs as a result of the ban. 8. Interview with Laxiang County Tourism Bureau official, 19 July 2012. 9. Interview with Laxiang County government official, 18 August 2005.

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10. Interview with former deputy head of the Poshan Prefectural Land and Resources Bureau, 25 July 2009 and 12 July 2012. The quote is from the 2009 interview. 11. On the role of informal networks in creating semi-formal property rights, see Hendrischke, “Local and Informal Institutions in China’s Market Transition.” 12. Interview with former head of the Poshan Prefectural Tourism Bureau, 20 July 2009. 13. For example, the company hired many people from outside the locality instead of locally. Interviews with former district governor, August 2005, May 2009, and September 2011. 14. Across China such investment vehicles have been used by local governments to circumvent regulations designed to curtail excessive borrowing by local governments. According to a June 2011 report by China’s National Audit Office there are 6,576 of such entities across China with a combined debt at 4.97 trillion yuan (US$800 billion). See National Audit Office of the People’s Republic of China, “Audit Findings on China’s Local Government Debt,” Report no. 35, www.cnao. gov.cn/main/articleshow_ArtID_1154.htm (accessed 22 June 2012). 15. A full section chief is the rank of a county department head, one rank below the county head. 16. In the Bo Xilai corruption case, which grabbed headlines in 2012, it was revealed that much of the Bo family wealth was held in corporations and investments registered in the names of Bo’s and his wife’s siblings. Bo’s elder brother used an alias to control $10 million dollars in shares in a Hong Kong subsidiary of a state-owned bank. Two of Bo’s wife’s sisters controlled investments of $126 million. The former Chongqing party secretary’s son rented a presidential apartment while studying at Oxford and later drove a Porsche while studying at Harvard. See John Garnaut, “Princelings and Paupers,” Sydney Morning Herald, 26 May 2012, for a summary of media reports on Bo Xilai’s investment empire. Other investigative reports have shown that the relatives of many top officials control vast business empires. See also “Xi Jinping Millionaire Relations Reveal Fortunes of Elite,” Bloomberg News, 29 June 2012, www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-29/xi-jinpingmillionaire-relations-reveal-fortunes-of-elite.html (accessed 31 August 2012). 17. Interview with Laxiang County government official, 6 August 2005. 18. The Tax Bureau determines, often arbitrarily, a business’s monthly tax liabilities. Informal connections can help to reduce a tax liability or to increase that of a competitor. The Urban Construction Bureau controlled licensing for this type of business. 19. Interview, 8 December 2011. 20. See Landesa Rural Development Institute, Landesa 6th 17-Province China Survey. 21. Interview with local property developer, 12 October 2010. 22. Landesa Rural Development Institute, Landesa 6th 17-Province China Survey. 23. Yu, “Tudi wenti yichengwei nongmin weiquan kangzhengde jiaodian.”

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24. For a Chinese media report on the conflict, see Huang, “Investigation in Wukan.” 25. According to a senior manager at the local property developer involved in the transaction, if it were not for the agitation by the village head’s political rival, and his promise to villagers that he could win them more money, there would not have been a dispute. Interview, 13 July 2012. 26. Figures include Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan. See SEPA, “Report on the State of the Environment in China 2009.” 27. Many newly established nature reserves are managed by the more recently created Ministry of Environmental Protection, but most remain under the control of the better resourced Ministry of Forestry. 28. In 2011 eight of the twenty-four reserve employees were civil servants and sixteen were auxiliary staff paid out of project budgets and extra-budgetary revenues. 29. Interview with Shanpo village elder, 13 May 2005. 30. Interview with Shanpo herder, 15 May 2005. 31. The inspiration for this idea was the successfully managed Jiuzaigou Nature Reserve in the north of Sichuan Province. 32. Interviews, former Laxiang County deputy head, 21 May 2005 and 5 August 2011. 33. Interviews with former head of Poshan Prefectural Forestry Bureau, 9 April 2005 and 28 July 2011; and corroborated by interviews with the former deputy head of the county dispatched to the provincial capital and managers at the Sacred Springs Tourism Development Company.

Conclusion 1. Though the regimes in Poshan and early twentieth-century Chicago were clearly different (multiparty democracy versus one-party authoritarianism), in both systems patronage networks purchased political loyalty by channeling spoils from the public purse into private hands. The parallels remind us that the political phenomena I observed in Poshan are not unique China. A comparative study of the spoils system in China’s local government and the spoils politics of local city administrations in the United States would be a worthwhile project for further research. 2. On Hainan, see Lam, “The Local State under Reform”; on Anhui, see Smith, “Political Machinations in a Rural County.” 3. See Huang and Wang, “Local Factions after Twin Transitions of Government in Taiwan”; Bosco, “Taiwan Factions”; and Jacobs, “A Preliminary Model of Particularistic Ties in Chinese Political Alliances.” 4. See, for example, the case studies in Kitschelt and Wilkinson, eds., Patrons, Clients, and Policies.

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Index

administrative villages, 33–34 agencies and bureaus: big budget bureaus, 99–100; County Party agencies, 86–87; County People’s Government, 84–85; land deals relocating government departments, 152–53; private sector, engaged with, 100–103; “quiet earners,” 103; state-funded program grants from, 121–22. See also specific institutions agricultural collectives, 13 Agricultural Credit Cooperative, 126 Animal Husbandry Bureau, 26, 43, 161 anti-competitive business practices, 150–51 anti-corruption campaigns and initiatives, 116–17 Bala Village, 132 Balong Village, 15; credit, access to, 22–23; cultural and religious traditions in, 30; Haidi Nature Reserve and, 158–60; in Haidi Township, 35; kinship group competition in, 21, 22–23, 24; leadership in, 24, 26, 27, 29, 30; production teams, decline of, 18–19; quarry, rights to, 22; reforestation scheme, 21 Blecher, Marc, 3, 83 Bo Xilai corruption case, 182n6

bribes, 23, 51–52, 111–12, 135 Buddhist monastery, tourism at, 144, 145 Building the New Socialist Countryside program, 127, 180n17 Bureau of Minority and Religious Affairs, 103 Burns, John, 109, 111 Buyun Township, 57 cadre recruitment and management: “four transformations” of, 174n11; patronage networks and personnel appointments, 105–11, 167–68 Cao Jinqing, 4 CCP (Chinese Communist Party). See Party Chen Village, 173n8 Chicago, machine politics of, 167, 183n1 China, local state patronage networks in. See local state patronage networks Chinese Communist Party (CCP). See Party Choi, Eun Kyong, 102 Civil Affairs Bureau, 27, 34, 65, 85, 103 collective lands, 40, 52, 155, 176n16 collectives, 13, 32 Commerce Bureau, 102, 137 communes, 13, 32–33, 174n4

200

index

Communist ideology, decline in, 29 Communist Party. See Party Communist Revolution: kinship groups and social classification of peasants, 19–20; poverty relief for areas making special contributions to, 179n4; townships and, 31, 32– 33; villages and, 13, 19–20 competition, business practices restricting, 150–51 construction: road extension project in Dongli Township utilizing population resettlement funds, 133– 38; of schools, 49–50, 71, 121, 125; village kinship group competition over work related to, 22 Construction Bureau, 121 corruption. See spoils system corvée labor, 50 county and prefectural governments, 10, 80–119, 165–66; anti-corruption campaigns and initiatives, 116–17; civil servants and other types of personnel, 176n11; county-level administration, 83–89; economic development, corruption, and patronage networks, 118–19; ethnic autonomous prefectures, 82; factions (pai), 92–93, 98, 175–76n4; fiscal transfers, reliance on, 121–22, 179n5; formal political decision-making in, 89–91; informal patronage networks, 91–98; interactions between formal institutions and informal patronage networks, 98–105; official corruption in, 113–15, 117; Party organizations and agencies, 83, 85– 87, 104, 105; People’s Government, agencies, and bureaus, 83, 84–85; People’s Political Consultative Conference, 50, 83, 88–89, 104, 108, 110, 149; prefecture-level administration, 81–82; township

governments in Laxiang County, evolution of, 32–35, 57. See also People’s Congress; personnel appointments credit, access to, 22–24, 102, 150 Culture Bureau, 110 Daipingzi resettlement scheme, 130–31 Dawan Village, 14–15; in Dongli Township, 38; kinship groups, competition between, 24; leadership in, 24, 27, 28, 29; production teams, decline of, 17–18 decisions, 90 decollectivization, 13, 32, 33, 37, 52, 166 Deng Xiaoping, 174n11 Diluo Village, 75, 76, 77, 78 Discipline Inspection Committees, 51, 83, 104, 107–8, 116, 178n46 districts, 32–33, 173n6 diversion of special-purpose grants, 123–25, 133–38 Dongli Township, 38; local economy and resources, competition over, 39; low levels of off-farm employment in, 37; new township heads elected in, 41, 42–43; party secretary in, 46; political behavior of leadership in, 49, 50–51; population resettlement project, 131–39, 134, 135; road extension project utilizing population resettlement funds, 133–38; township elections in, 70–79 (See also township elections); villagetownship relations in, 53 Duan (Haidi Township head), 44–45 dukedoms, local, 142, 181n5 earthquake-proofing funds, 121, 179n7 East Asian developmental states, compared to Chinese local states, 3

index economic development: local officials, sideline businesses of, 150–51; patronage networks and corruption in county and prefectural government, 118–19 Education Bureaus, 90, 112, 121, 125 elections. See township elections employment: county and prefectural appointments (See personnel appointments); village kinship groups and access to, 24 environmental policies and land deals, 156–63 ethnic autonomous prefectures, 82 ethnicity in China, 82, 97, 176n7, 179n4, 180n8. See also specific ethnic groups extra-budgetary revenues, 102, 103, 145, 183n28 factions (pai), 92–93, 98, 175–76n4 Federation of Commerce and Industry, 86, 126 Finance Bureau, 49, 132 fiscal transfers, county reliance on, 121–22, 179n5 forest guards, 24, 54 forest tenure reforms, 181n1 Forest Tourism Development Company, 163 Forestry Bureau, 21, 27, 48–49, 54, 100, 141, 158–59, 160, 161–63 forests: fuel and firewood, 38, 40, 159, 161; non-timber forest products, 15, 16, 21–22, 29, 36, 40, 43, 143, 158–59, 160, 161; reforestation, 21, 25, 28, 143 (See also Sloping Land Conversion Program); timber, logging, and logging ban, 40, 100, 141–44, 148, 156, 159, 161, 181n7 “four transformations” of cadre recruitment, 174n11 gambling: illegality in China, 73; mahjong, 51, 73, 112; personnel

201

appointments, buying and selling, 112; political responsibility contracts regarding, 91, 94; township elections and, 71, 73, 75, 76 Gede Village, 35, 39, 48 gender: county and prefectural governments, 176n6; kinship group leaders, 20–21; village leadership and, 25 Giant Panda habitat, 156 grave site erected by living official, 72 Great Leap Forward, 13, 33 Great Western Development Campaign (GWD): big budget bureaus, personnel appointment to, 99–100; as ethnic pacification project, 180n8; special-purpose grants provided under, 122, 125 guanxi, 7, 28, 97–98, 113, 123, 124 guideline policies, 90 guns, 79, 175n3 GWD. See Great Western Development Campaign Hadiz, Vedi, 5 Haidi Snow Mountain Nature Reserve, 36, 157–60, 161 Haidi Township, 35–36; credit cooperative officers in, 23; local economy and resources, competition over, 39; new township heads elected in, 41, 44–45; party secretary in, 47; political behavior of leadership in, 50, 51; township elections in, 59–70, 78 (See also township elections); village-township relations in, 53 Han Chinese, 6, 15, 35, 180n8 Helmke, Gretchen, 172n20 Henrischke, Hans, 178n53 Hu Jintao, 127 huabo, 151

202

index

Hui (Han Chinese Muslims), 15, 30, 35 Hundred Waterfalls, 146, 147 hunting, 175n3 Hydroelectricity Bureau, 125 hydropower projects, 122, 124–25, 129, 143 Industry and Commerce Bureau, 101 intimidation and violence: in land deals, 154–55; in nature reserves, 159–60; in township elections, 67, 68, 71, 72, 77–78, 79 Investigation Bureau, 116 irrigation channels, 131 Jepperson, Ronald, 5 Jiuzaigou Nature Reserve, Sichuan Province, 183n31 kickbacks, 51, 71, 73, 100, 125, 133, 134, 149 kinship groups: importance of, 164; labor migration affecting, 173n8; leaders of, 20–21; Nuosu clans, 37; township elections and, 63, 66, 67–68, 74, 75–76; in townships, 42–45; in villages, 19–25 labor migration: kinship groups affected by, 173n8; in Zulin Township, 37 Lake Pinzi Nature Reserve, 160–63 Land and Resources (formerly Land Management) Bureau, 101–2, 153–54, 155 land deals, 151–63; acquisition of land by local officials, 154; environmental policies and, 156–63; expropriations, 154–55; industrial expansion, farmland acquired for, 176–77n17; personnel appointments at big budget bureaus and, 101–2;

spoils system, as part of, 151; state-owned land allocated to commercial enterprises, 151–53; title conversions, 101–2, 153–54; tourism and, 147–49, 151, 152; villages and, 154–56 land ownership in China, 176n16 Landry, Pierre, 105–6 Laxiang County, Poshan Prefecture: description of four townships in, 35–38 (See also Dongli Township; Haidi Township; Longtan Township; Zulin Township); description of four villages in, 14– 17 (See also Balong Village; Dawan Village; Pubu Village; Shanpo Village); evolution of township governments and elections in, 32–35, 57; fieldwork study of, 6–7; government subsidies, reliance on, 121–22; as official “impoverished county,” 22; pseudonyms used for local state units, 6. See also county and prefectural governments leadership: of kinship groups, 20–21; in townships, 41–45, 42, 48–52 (See also township elections); in villages, 24–30 Levitsky, Steven, 172n20 Li Jianbing (Haidi Township head candidate), 64 Li Tiecheng (Baishan Municipal People’s Political Consultative Congress vice chairman), 111–12 Liao (county NDRC deputy director), 131–38, 135 lingti, 77 local dukedoms, 142, 181n5 local economy and resources, competition over, 10–11, 140–63; historical background, 140–43; nature reserves and environmental policies, 156–63, 183n27; prohibition on officials engaging

index in business activity, 140; sideline businesses of government officials, 150–51; in townships, 39–40; between village kinship groups, 21–22. See also forests; land deals; tourism local state patronage networks, 1–11, 164–70; in county and prefectural governments, 10, 80–119, 165–66 (See also county and prefectural governments); decentralization and increased power and authority of, 1–2, 4; disaggregating study of, 165; fieldwork used to study, 6–7; formal and informal institutions, interaction of, 4–5, 164–65, 168–69, 172n19–20; functions of, 168–70; local economy and resources, 10–11, 140–63 (See also local economy and resources, competition over); party state in China, resilience of, vii–viii, 1–2; provinces not included in, 171n21; scholarly attention to, 2–4, 170; spoils system in, 166–67 (See also spoils system); state-funded programs and, 10, 120–39 (See also state-funded programs, competition over); structure of territorial administration of, 3; term “local state,” origins and use of, 2, 171n3; terms “patronage” and “patronage network,” use of, 175n1; township elections, 9–10, 56–79, 165 (See also township elections); townships, 9, 31–65 (See also townships); at village level, 7–9, 12–30 (See also villages); village-township relations, 28, 31, 40–41, 52–55, 165 logging and logging ban, 40, 100, 141– 44, 148, 156, 159, 161, 181n7 Long Hair (Dongli Township head), 41, 42–43, 71–79, 175n2 Longjin Village, 133

203

Longtan Township, 36–37; new township heads elected in, 41, 43–44; party secretary in, 46–47; political behavior of leadership in, 48–49, 50; village-township relations in, 53–54 Lu clan (Nuosu), Longtan Township, 37 mahjong, 51, 73, 112 Mao Zedung, 74–75, 138 marketing districts, 32–33 matsutake (pine mushroom), 21–22, 143, 160, 161 methane gas bottles for household stoves, 150–51 microfinance, 126 “model” households, 26 “model poverty alleviation village” status, 43 “model rural enterprise village” grant, 127 models in Chinese society, 180n16 Moga (Longtan Township head), 43 moral economy, 119, 123, 138 Mu Xiaolin (Balong Village head and Haidi Township election candidate), 59, 60–61, 62, 67 mushroom harvesting, 21–22, 143, 160, 161 Nanchang Township, 57 Nathan, Andrew, 98 National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), 122, 124, 130, 131–32, 134–36, 179n5 National Economic Research Institute, 114 native place, county and prefectural patronage networks based on, 93, 97 nativization of party secretaries, 47–48 Natural Forest Protection Program, 162

204

index

natural heritage sites, 148 nature reserves, 156–63, 183n27 Naxi ethnic group, 15, 35, 38, 75 NDRC (National Development and Reform Commission), 122, 124, 130, 131–32, 134–36, 179n5 Network A (Laxiang County) 93–96, 115, 132, 147, 153, 161, 162 Network B (Laxiang County), 93, 96, 134, 142, 153, 158, 161, 163 networks and local governments in China. See local state patronage networks New York City, machine politics of, 119, 167 nomenklatura, 41, 168, 176n11 Nuosu, 16, 18, 29–30, 36, 37, 38, 43, 47, 75 official corruption, 113–15, 117 Oi, Jean, 2 Old Yang (Haidi Township head candidate): election campaign of, 66–68; on election day, 69; election strategy of, 60–61; loss of election by, 70; nomination and selection as candidate, 62–66, 63; runner-up in previous election, 59–60 one-party state. See party state “one-rank down” recruitment system, 110–11 Organic Law on Village SelfGovernance, 34–35, 57 PADO. See Poor Area Development Office pai or factions, 92–93, 98, 175–76n4 Party: anti-corruption measures, 116–17; authority affected by patronage networks, 168; county level formal political decisionmaking by, 89–90; county level organizations and agencies, 83, 85–87, 104, 105; personnel

appointments and patronage networks, 105–11, 167 Party Discipline Inspection Committees, 51, 83, 104, 107–8, 116, 178n46 Party Organization Bureau, 106–7, 108, 109–10, 112 party secretaries: anti-corruption investigations, 116–17; in townships, 45–48 Party Standing Committee, 82, 86, 87, 89, 104, 108, 167 party state: defined, 171n1; resilience in China, vii–viii, 1–2 patronage networks and local governments in China. See local state patronage networks “peasant burden” (arbitrary taxes and fees), 4, 121 Pei, Minxin, 111, 177n22 Peng (Dongli Township head candidate), 73–79 People’s Armed Police, 78, 155 People’s Bank of China, 114, 178n41 People’s Congress (county level), 83, 87–88; cadre management system and, 110; state-funded programs and, 134, 137; township elections and, 74; township government and, 43, 50, 61; veto player positions and, 104–5 People’s Congress (national level), 114 People’s Government (county level), 83, 84–85 People’s Political Consultative Conference (county level), 50, 83, 88–89, 104, 108, 110, 149 personnel appointments (county and prefectural governments), 167–68; to big budget bureaus, 99–100; buying and selling of, 111–13; cadre management system and, 105–11, 167–68; “one-rank down” recruitment system and, 110–11;

index patronage managed through, 99; private sector, to bureaus engaged with, 100–103; to “quiet earner” agencies, 103; sinecures, 110; to veto player positions, 103–5 pine mushroom (matsutake), 21–22, 143, 160, 161 Planning and Development Committee, 99 Plunkett, George Washington, 119178n54 political responsibility contracts, 90–91, 92, 94–95 Poor Area Development Office (PADO): state-funded program grants and, 122, 126, 131, 133, 134, 135; townships and, 43, 49, 50, 53; villages and, 27 Population Resettlement Office (PRO), 130, 132, 133 population resettlement schemes, 129–39; Daipingzi resettlement, 130–31; defined and described, 129–30; Dongli Township project, 131–39, 134, 135 poverty alleviation target villages, 131 poverty relief efforts, counties designated for, 179n4 prefectural governments. See county and prefectural governments priority policies, 90–91 private sector: government bureaus engaged with, 100–103; stateowned land allocated to commercial enterprises, 151–53 PRO (Population Resettlement Office), 130, 132, 133 production brigades, 33 production teams, 13, 17–19, 24, 102 profiteering. See spoils system provinces, 172n21 public investment companies, 149 public order, responsibility contract for, 91, 94–95

205

Public Security Bureau (police), 44, 155 Pubu Village, 16–17; leadership in, 24, 25–26, 26–27, 28, 29; teachers in, 40; township-village relations, 54–55; in Zulin Township, 37 Pye, Lucian, 4 re-election requirements, 59, 79 Records Bureau, 110 reforestation, 21, 25, 28, 143. See also Sloping Land Conversion Program reform period: “four transformations” of cadre recruitment, 174n11; kinship groups and, 20; villages and, 13, 19–20 regional avoidance policy, 47–48 rent seeking, 102–3, 118 responsibility contracts, 90–91, 92, 94–95 Road Management Authority, 153 Robison, Richard, 5 rural development grants. See statefunded programs Sacred Springs Tourism Development Company, 149, 160, 161–63, 183n33 Shanpo Village, 16; cultural and religious traditions in, 29–30; kinship group competition in, 22, 24; Lake Pinzi Nature Reserve and, 160–63; leadership in, 24, 27, 29–30; in Longtan Township, 36; production teams, decline of, 18; tourist economy in, 22, 161 Shen clan (Nuosu), Longtan Township, 37 Shih, Victor, 107 Shue, Vivienne, 3, 83 Sichuan earthquake (2008), 179n7 Sloping Land Conversion Program (Grain for Green Project), 9, 25, 53, 174–75n20

206

index

small business management training program, 126 Song (Dongli Township head candidate), 74–79 special-purpose funds, 121–22, 179n5. See also state-funded programs spoils system, 166–67; acceptance of, 26, 55, 71, 119, 138; anticorruption campaigns and initiatives, 116–17; bribes, 23, 51–52, 111–12, 135; county and prefectural appointments, buying and selling, 111–13; diversion of special-purpose grants, 123–25, 133–38; economic development, corruption, and patronage networks, 118–19; gift-giving, vote-buying, and deal-making in township elections, 61, 75, 77, 78–79, 175n2; intimidation and violence in township elections, 67, 68, 71, 72, 77–78, 79; kickbacks, 51, 71, 73, 100, 125, 133, 134, 149; land deals, 151 (See also land deals); official corruption, 113–15, 117; prohibition on officials engaging in business activity, 140, 150; sideline businesses of government officials, 150–51; sinecures, 110; tourism development contracts, 147–49; township heads and, 48–52, 71; village leadership and, 26–28 State Council, 144 state-funded programs, 10, 120–39; agencies providing grants, 121–22; applications for grants under, 128– 29; diversion of funds, 123–25, 133– 38; formal authority and informal coordination, 129; kinship rivalries and, 21; main roads, villages near, 36; patronage networks and, 125– 29; political competition over, 123; reliance on government subsidies in Laxiang County, 121–22;

special-purpose funds, 121–22, 179n5; in townships, 40–41, 49–51, 128; types of programs, 121; village leadership and, 26–28; in villages, 127–28. See also population resettlement schemes state-society conflict paradigm, 165 Suyi Village, 74, 76, 77 Szetfel, Morris, 5 Tax Bureau, 74, 101, 150–51, 182n18 tenders, rigging, 135–36 Three Gorges Dam, 130, 181n20 Tibetans, 15, 16–17, 176n7 timber, logging, and logging ban, 40, 100, 141–44, 148, 156, 159, 161, 181n7 Tobacco Monopoly Bureau, 100–101 tombstone erected by living official, 72 tourism: county campaign to develop, 144–45, 146; development contracts for, 146–49; economic growth stemming from, 150; land deals and, 147–49, 151, 152; local state revenues from, 145–49; natural heritage sites, 148; nature reserves, 156–63; in Shanpo Village, 22, 161 township elections, 9–10, 56–79, 165; balloting and election day activities, 58, 68–70, 78–79; campaigns, 66–68; candidate nomination and selection, 58, 61–66, 63, 73–75, 76–77; district officials’ preferred candidates, 73–74, 75, 76; in Dongli Township, 70–79; fieldwork used to study, 57, 59; gift-giving, vote-buying, and deal-making, 61, 75, 77, 78–79, 175n2; in Haidi Township, 59–70, 78; intimidation and violence in, 67, 68, 71, 72, 77– 78, 79; kinship groups and, 63, 66, 67–68, 74, 75–76; Laxiang County township government structure and, 34–35, 57; lingti or write-in

index candidates, 77; local political network, candidates’ relations with, 63–64; national moratorium on, 56, 72; new township heads in Laxiang County, 41–45; re-election requirements, 59, 79; strategies used in, 60–61, 75–76; vote counting, 58–59; voter registration, 57–58 townships, 9, 31–55; decision-making within, 45; description of four townships, 35–38 (See also Dongli Township; Haidi Township; Longtan Township; Zulin Township); historical background, 31, 32–33; kinship groups in, 42–45; Laxiang County, evolution of township governments in, 32–35; leadership in, 41–45, 42, 48–52; local economy and resources, competition over, 39–40; party secretaries, 45–48; political and economic competition in, 38–41; questions about value of township government in China, 35; statefunded programs in, 40–41, 49–51, 128; villages, relations with, 28, 31, 40–41, 52–55, 165 Transport Bureau, 99, 132 Urban Construction Bureau, 99, 107, 136, 150–51, 182n18 veto players, 103–5, 128–29 veto policies, 90–91 villager small groups/small group head, 13, 21, 39, 154, 159 villages, 7–9, 12–30; authority and political capital of village leaders, 28–30; basic unit of rural organization, village as, 12; changing patterns in, 17–19; Communist ideology, decline of, 29; credit, access to, 22–24; cultural and religious traditions, revival of,

207

29–30; description of four villages, 14–17 (See also Balong Village; Dawan Village; Pubu Village; Shanpo Village); employment, access to, 24; formal village-level government, lack of, 12, 13–14; function of local state patronage networks in, 169–70; historical background to, 13–14, 19–20; informal networks, importance of, 164–65; kinship groups, 19–25; in land deals, 154–56; leadership in, 24–30; local economy and resources, competition for, 21–22; Organic Law on Village Self- Governance, 34; production teams, 13, 17–19, 24; state-funded programs in, 127–28; townships, relations with, 28, 31, 40–41, 52–55, 165 violence. See intimidation and violence Walder, Andrew, 2 Wang Lisan (Haidi Township head candidate), 64–65 Wang Xiaolu, 114 Wang Xiaoqi, 109, 111 Wen Jiabao, 127 Wukan Village land expropriations, Guangdong Province, 154–55 Yang, Dali, 177n22 Yang Yimo (Haidi Township head candidate), 65–66 Yi ethnic group, 16, 35, 37 Zhao (Haidi Township head): election campaign of, 66–68; on election day, 69; election strategy and, 60; election win of, 70; as incumbent, 59; nomination and selection as candidate, 62, 63, 64–66 Zulin Township, 37; new township heads elected in, 41, 44; party

208

index

secretary in, 47–48; political behavior of leadership in, 50; Standards for a Prosperous Community, 127, 128;

state-funded programs in, 40; village-township relations in, 54–55 Zulin Village, 37