8. Village Governance in China Under the Complexities of the “Three Rural Issues”

On October 14, 1998, “The Resolution of the CPC Central Committee on Several Major Issues Concerning Agriculture and Rural Work,” which was passed at the Third Plenary Session of the 15th CPC Central Committee, emphasized the importance of improving village self-governance: “The key point is to establish and perfect the democratic election system of village committees. Villagers’ meeting or villager representatives’ meeting should be the main form of the democratic deliberation system, as well as a democratic supervision system featuring the open disclosure of village affairs, democratic appraisal, and regular reporting work by villagers’ committees…to promote the institutionalization and standardization of village self-governance.” See volume edited by the CPC Central Archives: Selected Important Documents Since the 15th National People’s Congress (Vol. 1), People’s Publishing House, 2000 edition, p. 576.

According to various documents of the CPC Central Committee, the State Council and the Ministry of Civil Affairs on the work of the villagers’ self-governance in recent years, the main contents of this work has been to improve the system of making the affairs of the village and government open to the public on a regular basis, i.e., disclosing to the villagers financial revenue and expenditure, family planning policies, homestead approvals, peasant burden apportionments, electricity fee collections, contracting of collective economy projects and other issues. Emphasis has been put on the township Party committees and governments to strengthen the specific guidance of democratic construction to villagers. See on August 5, 1997 the Ministry of Civil Affairs’ “Notice on Further Establishing and Perfecting the System of Village Affairs Disclosing and Deepening the Work of Village Self-governance” (compilation by Ministry of Civil Affairs, Grassroots Political Construction Department Village Division: “1997 Rural Grassroots Political Construction Materials Compilation,” p. 123), Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Agriculture and Rural Work in 1998, promulgated on January 24, 1998 (CPC Central Archives: Selected Important Documents Since the 15th National People’s Congress Vol. 1), People’s Publishing House, 2000 edition, pp. 31–32.

According to a survey released recently by the Ministry of Land and Resources, the area of cultivable land decreased by 25.29 million mu in 2002, of which 21.383 million mu, equivalent to more than three times the average annual area of ecological restoration in the previous five years. In the meantime, adjustments in the agriculture structure also reduced 5.24 million mu of cultivable land and converted it into forest land, gardens and pastures. In addition, investments in real estate and capital construction account for a total of nearly 2.95 million mu of arable land, an increase of 24.5 mu from the arable land that was occupied in the previous five years. According to China’s on-the-ground conditions, the state stipulated that the national average amount of cultivated land shall not be less than a bottom line of 1.6 billion mu. The statistics obtained in 2002 have begun to approach the bottom line stipulated by the state. See China News Network, March 8, 2003.

See China Macroeconomic Information Network, December 2002, “Tax Reform: A Major Move to Crack Down on Rural Problems—Interview with Huang Weijian, Deputy Director of the Office of Rural Tax Reform in the State Council.”