Local Government Activities in China

Local governments have largely been responsible for the large investments that have stoked the economy to double digit growth. Their investments have also been responsible for rampant corruption, waste and environmental damage and practices such a real estate speculation and risky lending that may create a bubble and bring down the entire economy. Cities and counties are not allowed to raise money through municipal bonds and the like so they often turn to real estate to make money. Often they use underhanded methods to get people off their land and sell the land rights for large profits. It is not unusual for the government to obtain the rights for $1 million and sell them three years alter to a developer for $30 million. By some estimates 40 to 60 percent of local government revenues are acquired this way. Local officials are usually given a heads up when officials from Beijing make an inspection tour and usually have enough time to apply fresh coats of paint, coerce local people to be on their best behavior and fix whatever problems the Beijing officials have come to investigate. In 2007, when Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao came to check pollution produced by a dye plant on Lake Tai, the factory was given a makeover and canals around it were drained, dredged and filled with fresh water, with thousands of carp tossed in the water hours before Wen arrived and farmers positioned around the canals with fishing poles minutes before he arrived. . Local officials are behind many illegal land sales. See Land Seizures, Agriculture A lot of this activity has gone on with Beijing unable to control it. A scandal in Shanghai in 2006 has given Beijing an excuse to extend more control over local governments. See corruption.

Neighborhood Committees in China

On a local level the Communist Party bureaucracy is made up of millions of neighborhood committees which have to answer to the next level up, the street or village committees. In the cities, several street committees make up a district committee which in turn are under the jurisdiction of the Municipal People's government or the Regional People's government. All of these committees follow guidelines laid out by the Central Chinese government. To keep their members in line, the local committees often use social pressure in the form of face-losing criticism. Neighborhood committees in urban areas make sure the poor are fed, the elderly are looked after, petty crimes are brought to justice, one-child polices are adhered to, and family disputesmostly between wives and mothers-in-lawsare settled. For the most part the streets in cities are safe, so safe in fact some residents bring their beds outdoors in the summer and sleep in the streets. [Source: William Ellis, National Geographic, March 1994] A typical neighborhood committee controls three blocks and contains about 1,000 households. The leader and his or 30 or so "group leaders" are in charge of hanging party propaganda posters, leading weekly meetings of the local party cell, where new polices and rules are announced. Retired women often hold the job. They are sometimes called "bound feet detectives" because of their shuffling feet and busybody attitude. [Source: Wall Street Journal] Neighborhoods are kept in line with building bosses and their helpers, door watchers, who keep an eye on what is going on in almost every

house. Informers are everywhere. Communist-era proverb: "One Chinese watches a thousand; a thousand Chinese watch one."

Work Units in China

Most Chinese also have to answer to "community units" or "work units" (dawei) in their place of work, whether it be a factory, hospital or commune. These organizations exert control on almost every aspect of an individual's life: they give out ration cards, arrange day care, supply train tickets, choose which doctors and hospitals people must see, decide who gets housing, set salaries and recruit party members. Work units are the main channel in Communist China for distributing social benefits and exerting social control. They keep files on their members and they often have to be consulted about personal matters such as travel, marriage, divorce, and birth control. The work units can pressure people by reducing wages and bonuses, by denying promotions and transfers, or by taking away the job completely. In the old days, work units and neighborhood committees controlled marriages, divorces, pregnancies and birth control. To get married, a couple needed permission from a local board and a letter from an employer stating that a person is single. In some cases, employers would use their authority to solicit a bribe or demand some concession before the form was submitted. In most cases the employers provided the paper work but the couples felt inconvenienced and embarrassed asking for permission. In the Mao era, people lived in assigned housing in state dormitories, communes and factory quarters and bought food and clothing with rationed coupons.

Decline of Neighborhood Committees and Work Units in China

Neighborhood committees and work units no longer exert the control on people's lived they once did. The process began in the in the 1980s with the rapid collapse of rural communes when farmers were given land and decision-making. Next the work units began collapsing as state-owned industries went bankrupt and stop functioning. Work units and neighborhood committees don't control marriages, travel. divorces, pregnancies and birth control like they used to although they are still on the front line in the battle to uphold teh one-child policy. There are still an estimated 500,000 neighborhood committee cadres. The leaders are paid around $250 a month. These days their duties include assisting the unemployed find jobs, organizing anti-crime efforts, keeping track of childbearing women, and helping married couples stay together. From time to time, the leader are called on to do things like count Falun Gong members. There is now some discussion about making the neighborhood committees small welfare agencies and hiring college graduates instead of retired women. See State White-Collar Workers in the Mid-2000s, Labor, Economics

Rural People Fight Against Party Control in China

One village chief told the New York Times, "Sometimes, when we dont like a decision we procrastinate on purpose and we won't execute it. For example the government pushed hard to build a fertilizer plant and asked our village to raise 100,000 yuan [$12,000]. We didnt like it, and finally our procrastination trashed the deal."

In August 2005, more than 10,000 protestors rioted in the city of Daye in Hubei Province over a plan by the larger city of Huangshi to annex it. Windows were broken. Dogs were brought into to control the crowd.

Shenzhen Reforms in China

By 2011 the mayor of Shenzhen is supposed to be elected by the municipal people's congress, or local parliament. A policy will also be introduced to assure that elections will field more local candidates than available seats. This mandate will apply to the selection of the heads of Shenzhen's districts by the respective people's congresses. Some Chinese academics have said if the experiment in Shenzhen succeeds, the reforms will be instituted nationwide.[Source: Sun Wukong, Asia Times, July 31, 2008] Sun Wukong wrote in the Asia Times, At present, the mayor of Shenzhen - and likewise in all other cities - is already elected by the municipal people's congress. But, as it stands, such democracy is only a word: congressional deputies have no choice but to vote for the only candidate recommended by the Shenzhen municipal committee of the CCP. The practice has become so commonplace that many deputies sarcastically call themselves hand-raising robots. After all, in the one candidate, one seat elections the only option is to endorse whomever is presented. The introduction of additional candidates means the next Shenzhen mayor, although still likely to be nominated by the local party committee, must compete with other candidates. Clearly, this will force all mayoral hopefuls to elucidate and differentiate their respective platforms in order to win votes. This is an important first step toward political democratization, but there is a long journey ahead. Candidates will likely still be nominated by the party and there is no sign that entry into the contest election will be free. Also, many of the deputies in Shenzhen municipal people's congress were not freely elected to their positions and may owe debts of patronage. [Ibid]

Separation of Powers in Shenzhen

The most prominent and ambitious item in the Shenzhen reforms, Stephanie Wang wrote in the Asia Times, is reform of the administrative system, which will divide the municipal government departments into three categories, namely, decision-making, execution and supervision. The reform has been wildly tagged as an experiment in separation of powers, something new and definitely challenging for the Middle Kingdom. [Source: Stephanie Wang, Asia Times, June 13, 2009]

Beijing News said the Shenzhen municipal government had a threeyear plan for a step-by-step separation of powers, with the main idea having a single mayor and a deputy. Under the mayor, there will be policymaking commissions under which there are policy execution departments. The existing Supervision Bureau and Audit Bureau will be incorporated into a single body, which will take over all supervision functions now exercised by various departments. [Ibid] But a cloud of suspicion still hangs over the city's reform plan. Qiu Feng, a well-known liberal scholar, has pointed out no matter how the structure is designed, the mayor will always be above the three branches. Then comes the tough question - who will oversee the mayor? The reform can also be interpreted as giving the administration all legislative, executive and judicial powers. [Ibid] Shenzhen has drawn a lot of its ideas from Hong Kong, for instance, from the Hong Kong Independent Commission Against Corruption and Audit Commission. Hong Kong and Singapore are executive-led models, meaning the governments are very powerful. But both governments are also known for their integrity and efficiency. The secret of their success lies in the design of the separation of powers. [Ibid] Image Sources: Landsberger Posters http://www.iisg.nl/~landsberger/ except Vanity project (Julie Chao http://juliechao.com/pix-china.html ) and offical (Cgstock http://www.cgstock.com/china ) Text Sources: New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Times of London, National Geographic, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, Reuters, AP, Lonely Planet Guides, Comptons Encyclopedia and various books and other publications. Page Top 2008 Jeffrey Hays Last updated April 2012