SUN
WUKONG A Chinese harvest of
shame By Wu Zhong, China Editor
HONG KONG - One of the distinguishing
features of China's Stalinist-style command
economy in the three decades after 1949 was that
nearly every economic activity could be pursued
only with a license issued by the government.
In agriculture, for example, the
government would dictate what crops farmers in a
region could grow and how to grow them. A
peasant family would need
permission to raise pigs or chickens at home and
their numbers were strictly specified.
After three decades of reform and opening
up, China's economy has become pretty much a
capitalist-style free-wheeling one. Many outdated
restrictions on economic activities have been
lifted to give greater freedom in doing business.
In the process, the government has to be changing
its role - from a commander of economic activities
to a supervisor or regulator.
It seems,
however, some local officials see such a change as
weakening their power and are reluctant to adapt
themselves to it. Hence, in some regions, while
some old restrictions are lifted, new ones are
imposed. And some of the new restrictions sound
unimaginably absurd.
Autumn is always the
harvest season for Chinese peasants. Zhuzhuan is a
village under Zhanghedian Township in Cheng'an
county of Hebei province in north China. On
September 24, Zhang Zhenlin, a local farmer in his
70s, cut down corn in his field to harvest the
cobs. He was beaten and scolded by officials from
the township government for the reason that he did
not have a license from the county government to
cut down the corn stalks, according to a report by
Legal Daily, a national newspaper based in
Beijing.
So Zhang's daughter rushed to the
township government to ask why. The township
Communist Party chief replied: "If you cut down
corn stalks without a license, you would be
punished by the police. This is a rule set by the
superiority [the county government]."
China is traditionally an agrarian
country. Corn is one of the major crops grown by
Chinese farmers in various regions for hundreds,
if not thousands, of years. But farmers have never
needed government licenses to cut down corn stalks
in their fields.
It turned out that this
is a local regulation set by the Cheng'an county
government as local officials were eager to
"creatively" carry out a central government policy
so as to show off their "politically correctness"
and "outstanding performance" in governance.
Traditionally, Chinese farmers would cut
down the corn plants, harvest the corncobs and
then burn the stalks in the fields after they
become dry. But with modern technology corn stalks
can now be processed for various purposes such as
to produce alcohol or make pig or chicken feed. Or
they could simply be buried in the fields to
become organic fertilizer.
Seeing the
burning corn stalks as wasteful and polluting, six
central government departments including the State
Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) and
Ministry of Agriculture jointly issued a circular
in 1999 to ban the burning of corn stalks and
encourage multipurpose utilization. While it fails
to give details about how multipurpose utilization
could be pursued, it does demand a tough ban on
burning corn stalks.
While many of
Beijing's good-intention policies have been
arbitrarily interpreted, got around or simply
ignored at localities, some regional governments
seemed to be fond of this particularly one as it
them more power over their peasant-subjects.
Cheng'an is probably just the unlucky one that was
exposed by the media.
Hence the Communist
Party committee and government of Cheng'an county
jointly issued this year's No 18 circular to ban
the burning of corn stalks demanding them to be
buried in the fields. An ad hoc taskforce was set
up to oversee the implementation of this polic and
it demanded that a farmer to apply for a license
before cutting down his corn plants.
It is
intriguing that the Cheng'an circular also
particularly stipulated that farming fields within
one kilometer along the two sides of the seven
major highways in the country were designated as
"demonstration fields" where the burning ban on
burning was to be strictly enforced. In these
fields, all corn stalks were be plowed into the
soil to become fertilizer. Peasants who legally
owned these corn stalks were not even allowed to
take some of them home for cooking fuel.
But the designation of "demonstration
fields" was also meant that due to their proximity
to the highways they were easily seen, so the ban
should be there for all to see. It also implied
that the Cheng'an county government did not care
about what farmers did in the remote fields. In
other words, "demonstration fields" were
designated to showcase the "good performance" of
local officials.
Unfortunately, old
Zhang's corn field was one of those "demonstration
fields". After he was beaten, he angrily said,
"Since the ancient times, we peasants always cut
down corn plants first to harvest the corncobs. I
have never heard that we needed a license ... Does
the county government now want to even regulate on
how we harvest our corps?"
The situation
is absurd. Yet it's just another case of some
local Chinese officials abusing their power to
bully their "subjects".
If Cheng'an
officials truly want to help farmers more
efficiently dispose their corn stalks, they should
aid them with multi-purpose utilization, a measure
which could also increase their incomes. But it
would look as thought the officials are serving
the peasants, instead of commanding them. So by
imposing a ban, local official could better
satisfy their lust for power.
But the
Cheng'an ban is illegal. The Communist Party
pledges to govern the country by rule of law. In
rule of law, anything not banned by the law is
legal and should not be prosecuted by the
government. There no stipulation in any existing
law which bans the farmers from cutting or burning
corn stalks. Cheng'an did it because like in many
places in China the local party committee and
government still think they are above the law.
Hence such cases must be seriously dealt with if
China is serious about having a rule of law.
The fact that this scandal was exposed by
a national newspaper is evidence that Beijing is
becoming serious about not tolerating these
abuses, and it casts a ray of hope that similar
incidents will be more effectively checked with
the gradually growing watchdog role of the Chinese
media.
(Copyright 2007 Asia Times Online
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