Xiaobo Lü

Taxation without Representation: Peasants, the Central and the Local States in Reform China

Chinas countryside has undergone tremendous changes in the last two decades, but the changes and the benefits that came with them were not distributed evenly. Rapid rural industrialization in the Eastern, coastal provinces under the aegis of the local developmental state dramatically improved the lives of villagers. In contrast, township and village enterprises (TVEs) and incomes grew much more slowly in the Central belt of provinces and still more slowly in the Western belt. Because agriculture was the major resource, rural governments had to rely on extraction of taxes and fees from the peasants in order to meet their expenses and to carry out developmental programmes. Here, predatory state agents imposed heavy financial burdens on the peasants. The result was a long festering crisis in the relations between peasants and the local state. Since the mid-1980s, the central authorities have been ordering their local agents to lighten the burdens of the peasants, yet the problem persists to the present. Why has it been so intractable?

The politics of peasant burden in reform china

This article analyses the changing nature and role of the state in rural China during reform by examining the issue of peasant financial burdens. It argues that, despite some successes in transforming Chinas countryside, the state has not been reduced since the reform began in 1978. Rather, it is being reshaped (with certain distortions) with its major role changing from ‘redistributive’ to ‘regulatory’. This transition, epitomised by continuing expansion of the state and growing unruly exaction from peasants by local state agents, has been in the direction of neo‐patrimonialism where resources are contested by state, officials, and the masses. This three‐way struggle has led to tensions among the state, cadres, and peasants.

From rank-seeking to rent-seeking: Changing administrative ethos and corruption in reform China

There are two contrasting images of the contemporaryChinese bureaucracy: the first is one of stiffrevolutionary cadres working under a marginallyreformed mobilization regime; the second is one ofrationalization of administrative institutions withthe transformation of cadres into modern rule-orientedbureaucrats. By examining some prevailing informalbehaviors of Chinese public officials, this articleoffers an alternative image: a neotraditionalistofficialdom with a reconfiguration of somepatrimonial, revolutionary, and legal-rationalinstitutions, ethos, and modes of operation.There are two contrasting images of the contemporaryChinese bureaucracy: the first is one of stiffrevolutionary cadres working under a marginallyreformed mobilization regime; the second is one ofrationalization of administrative institutions withthe transformation of cadres into modern rule-orientedbureaucrats. By examining some prevailing informalbehaviors of Chinese public officials, this articleoffers an alternative image: a neotraditionalistofficialdom with a reconfiguration of somepatrimonial, revolutionary, and legal-rationalinstitutions, ethos, and modes of operation.

Taxation without Representation in Contemporary Rural China

1. Introduction 2. Peasants and taxation in historical perspective 3. Extracting funds from the peasants 4. Institutional sources of informal tax burdens 5. Burdens and resistance: peasant collective action 6. Containing burdens: change and persistence 7. Burden reduction: village democratization and farmer national interest representation 8. Conclusions.

Burden Reduction: Village Democratization and Farmer National Interest Representation

THE financial and administrative reforms analyzed in the preceding chapter did not make much of a dent in the burden problem. They therefore did not end the crisis in state-peasant relations caused to a significant extent by the imposition of unreasonable financial levies. Attempting to control local officials only from above was simply inadequate. Pressure on cadres had to be exerted from below as well, that is, by the peasantry. Otherwise, as officials of the Ministry of Civil Affairs argued in seeking to convince central leaders of the necessity for village elections, it would not be possible to contain the explosive potential of peasant anger. Villagers needed legitimate institutionalized means through which to advance their claims and seek redress lest they be compelled to take to the street. The regime recognized this. As shown in Chapter 6, it allowed the system of individual and collective petitioning to function and it fostered the establishment of legal institutions in the countryside. In addition, it promoted democratization, including elections of village leaders, village self-rule, and “open and transparent” conduct of village affairs ( cunwu gongkai ). The latter applied especially to finances, in which villagers had a keen and vital interest. Empowering villagers to defend themselves against illegal exactions and the abuses associated with them entailed alterations in the triangular relationship between the central state, the local state, and the peasants, essentially to the disadvantage of the local authorities.

Taxation without Representation in Contemporary Rural China: Containing Burdens: Change and Persistence

PEASANT protest and violence were a major reason why the Party-state sought to solve the burden problems. Ever since the mid-1980s, central leaders have taken measures to curb excessive taxes and fees. Nonetheless, despite years of effort, the state was unable to solve the problem as of the year 2002. This chapter examines three state strategies adopted by the government to address the problem. First, the war on burdens was waged by means of exhortation, promulgation of rules and regulations, and campaigns. These were efforts to pressure and constrain local officials to reduce burdens. This approach was important. It served to call widespread attention to the problem and to indicate to lower-level officials that the issue was a core concern of the central leaders and that therefore it had to become part of their agendas. And it served to inform the peasants that the Center was on their side. A second strategy was to allow peasants themselves to seek redress using these tactics: by the “letters and visits” system, which enabled peasants to lodge complaints with the local and higher authorities in the hope of enlisting their aid in curbing burdens; by making the legal system more accessible to villagers in the hope that legal intervention, including lawsuits, would remedy particular grievances; and by promoting village democracy to enhance the accountability of cadres (see Chapter 7). A third strategy consisted of attempts to address some of the institutional roots of the burden problem in the financial and bureaucratic systems.

Taxation without Representation in Contemporary Rural China: Peasants and Taxation in Historical Perspective

HISTORICAL comparison can often yield telling clues about contemporary problems. To a remarkable extent, taxation as an issue in state–peasant relations in the 1990s echoes Chinas prerevolution past. Then as now, regimes appeared unable to devise, implement, and enforce a fair, equitable, and reasonably honest system of taxation. Then as now, regimes relied heavily on informal, ad hoc ways of funding governmental activities. Then as now, informal levies gave rise to widespread corruption. Then as now, the authorities had difficulty determining just how much households owed in terms of land and other taxes. Then as now, rural taxation was a major source of grievance and social instability. The aim of this chapter is to illuminate the continuities and differences in the Chinese history of rural taxation by briefly examining the imperial and Republican periods as well as the Communist revolution and the Maoist era. RURAL TAXATION IN IMPERIAL CHINA China was an agrarian economy. Land taxes were the major source of revenue for the imperial government. As Table 2.1 indicates, the land tax plus surcharges ( haoxian ) together accounted for more than two-thirds of total revenue. Because of their dependence on the agricultural population, most Chinese emperors adhered to a low-tax doctrine. They thought of themselves as Confucian benevolent rulers whose task it was to nourish the people. They feared that encroaching on peasant subsistence would threaten dynastic legitimacy and lead to disorder, if not rebellion.