BOOK REVIEW One mainland, two systems Rural Democracy in China by Baogang He
Reviewed by Sreeram Chaulia
Since the formal promulgation of the Organic Law of Village Committees in 1987,
about 800 million rural Chinese have experienced semi-competitive elections.
Due to the domination of communist party cadres over representative assemblies,
skepticism about village elections is justified. Yet, the experiment of
participatory institutions within the Chinese authoritarian state tests cynics
who insist that the two cannot coexist.
Using extensive data gathered in 12 years of field research, political
scientist Baogang He argues in a new book that progress has been made in
China's grassroots governance and power
structures. In the same breath, he cautions against exaltation of village
democracy's benefits, since it is "an instrumental mechanism for the
continuation of Chinese resilient authoritarianism". (p7)
The Chinese government's theory of village democracy combines authoritarian
ideas of self-government under tight party control with liberal ideas of free
and fair elections by secret ballot. He reminds readers of an alternative
"Chinese folk theory" that expects tempering of the rich and caring for the
disadvantaged groups in the village. This is the normative ideal against which
he juxtaposes the actual practice of grassroots democratic experiments.
The
1987 Organic Law took three years and over 30 revisions of drafts before being
passed. After several rounds of contested debates over whether rural China
needs elections, it was converted from "provisional" into final law only in
1998. Attempts to legislate an independent electoral commission have so far run
into determined obstruction from various layers of the government. The state
"ensures its significant presence in the whole process of elections" through
its point persons on the ground, the village party secretaries.
While these structural roadblocks remain, they are being resisted by villagers
who often do not vote for candidates handpicked by the party. Beginning in
Jilin province in 1993, villagers invented and practiced haixuan, or
direct nomination of candidates, a move that proved to be highly successful in
solving administrative problems such as the common rural refusal to pay taxes
and fees. Since 1999, the dismissal by recall of corrupt village heads and
committee members by majority vote before completion of their terms has risen
in frequency.
The question of who is a "villager" and an eligible voter has become
increasingly problematic in the context of China's rapid economic growth.
Fighting for villager status implies staking claim for a share of the
collective wealth and welfare provisions. Large-scale migration in and out of
villages has generated a floating population that is not recognized as part of
the electorate. If decisions of voter eligibility are left to village
assemblies, it can lead to discrimination against minority groups. This type of
iniquity has increased the need for local courts to "intervene and
counterbalance the majoritarian tendencies of democratic institutions". (p51)
The author sees in these developments the emergence of a "rights-based
political morality".
Progressively, the competition of village elections has shifted from single to
multiple candidates. In some cases, the competition is so stiff that no
candidate is able to win an absolute majority. The rate of re-election of
incumbents is declining and the names of winners are no longer foregone
conclusions before voting takes place. Although Chinese officials denounce
election campaigning as "bourgeois", villagers express a desire for it in order
to make better choices.
Political marketplace
Generally, He finds greater electoral competition in richer villages because
they allocate handsome salaries and allowances for holders of posts. In these
villages, "different groups with their interests are able to compete for power,
thereby forming a political market". (p64) However, wherever the communist
party branch has the keys to economic resources, competition is low. Wealthier
villagers also score better in degree of political participation since the
economic prize of obtaining power is bigger. Village committees also function
more efficiently in prosperous villages because of their healthier budgets. The
main policy inference from He in this context is that "for village democracy to
work, the rural economy needs to be improved". (p174)
Although voter turnout in village elections has been high, it could be the
result of rewards between 5 to 60 yuan (US$0.70 $8.30) as compensation for lost
labor or of inducements of government officials anxious to achieve quotas. A
2005 survey found 25% of the respondents to be apathetic to the electoral
process. This is in sync with the government's predisposition for "orderly
participation" so that discipline and obedience are not upturned.
A majority of villagers cast votes for candidates who can develop the local
economy. Rural entrepreneurs and directors of private enterprises frequently
get elected as village heads. Quite a high percentage of voters also choose
candidates considered to have high moral standard and character. The author
notes a movement away from kinship ties as a basis of vote choice, heralding
"modern village citizenship". (p79) This is occurring despite the post-Mao
resurrection of lineage identities in a milieu of looser ideological
supervision.
Local officials and party secretaries looked at villager representative
meetings as threats to their own power, but these have grown more active since
2000. In parts of Guangdong province, representative assemblies are the highest
village power institutions that are impervious to manipulation by party cadres.
Fears held by critics that representative assemblies were undermining the ideal
of direct democracy are being answered with innovative solutions like "village
opinion cards" and weekly dialogues.
Private capitalists and the new rich invariably run representative assemblies
like exclusive elite clubs. Township authorities "take pains to train the rich
man into a politician, name him as candidate, and help him get elected". (p106)
The nouveau riche who get elected have to balance pressures from above (party
officials) and below (voters). Some village heads even put the villagers'
interests before those of the township authorities. However, He's survey
reveals that only 15% of village heads think they have more power than the
party secretary. The party maintains its hegemony through its legally defined
"leading role" and by its grip on the economic resources of the village.
Thanks to China's patriarchal family structure, women's participation in
village democracy is relatively low. Democratic methods are regularly used to
deny women who marry into other villages the rights to vote and receive
economic benefits. The number of female village committee members has been
decreasing since 1998. The few who do get into office are allocated secondary
roles that match alleged "female qualities". In the face of societal prejudices
against women in public affairs, affirmative action policies of the Chinese
legal system have not gone far.
Township leaders play a complex role in China's rural democracy. By law, they
administer, arbitrate and oversee the conduct of village elections. Yet, some
of them oppose village elections as hindrances in implementation of party
policies in the countryside. The author found township officials holding
beliefs that "villagers have no interest in elections because what they care
most is to make more money". (p148) A number of them are evolving sophisticated
ways of manipulating village elections from behind the scenes, prompting He to
coin the label, "democratic Machiavellianism".
The author concludes with the big question of whether village elections could
extend to townships through a "moving-up process". The answer is relevant to
the issue of democratization of the Chinese state organization itself. Village
elections raise doubts about the legitimacy of appointed township leaders,
reflecting "internal tensions between the electoral logic and the authoritarian
logic". (p201)
Sporadic incidences of direct voting for the positions of township heads and
party secretaries have been occurring since 1998, but with serious
deficiencies. A small "leading group" of the party organization usually
manufactures the outcomes of these events. Among the central leadership, former
premier Zhu Rongji and Premier Wen Jiabao have expressed support for township
elections but the National People's Congress and the Central Party Organization
have shot down the balloon owing to fear that they could "threaten a rapid
unraveling of CCP [Chinese Communist Party] authority". (p211)
In He's judgement, most Chinese villagers today enjoy formalistic democracy but
are a long way from substantive democracy. Village democracy is distant from
"state democracy" and has had little impact on the Chinese state's governance
at the macro-level. Using the comparisons of the Philippines, Indonesia and
Taiwan, which also introduced local elections within authoritarian states, He
predicts that it will take several more years before a national election can
happen in China.
The author characterizes Chinese authoritarianism with limited democratic
elements as a "mixed regime" that, despite contradictions, fortifies the CCP's
supremacy. "One Country, Two Systems" has been applied in Chinese legend to
offshore territories Hong Kong and Macau. He's study does not use this
particular formulation but allows it to be employed to describe the mainland's
political system as well. His book offers a salutary check on tendencies to
assess China solely on the basis of national level trends.
Rural Democracy in China. The Role of Village Elections by Baogang He,
Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2007. ISBN: 978-0-230-60016-4. Price: US$74.95,
277 pages.
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The
1987 Organic Law took three years and over 30 revisions of drafts before being
passed. After several rounds of contested debates over whether rural China
needs elections, it was converted from "provisional" into final law only in
1998. Attempts to legislate an independent electoral commission have so far run
into determined obstruction from various layers of the government. The state
"ensures its significant presence in the whole process of elections" through
its point persons on the ground, the village party secretaries.
