Administrative Structures And Changes Since 1983

Since the early 1950s the People's Republic of China (PRC) has maintained a sharp dichotomy, almost a "Second Great Wall," between urban and rural: for individuals it was their household registration; for settlements it was whether they were "designated towns" (jianzhi zhen ).^[7] For both, the critical question was whether the state would share with a larger population the benefits urbanites were receiving.^[8] Thus the PRC has established a hierarchy of urban and rural towns that reinforces these differences and structures the distribution of these benefits.

There are four categories of small towns in China: county seats (xian zhengfu suozaidi ), county-towns (xianshu zhen ), township seats (xiang zhengfu suozaidi ), and rural market towns (nongcun jizhen ). Their characteristics are outlined in the appendix to this chapter. As part of the urban hierarchy of settlements, county seats and county-towns are "designated towns" in that their status within the urban hierarchy has been approved by the appropriate provincial authorities according to the guidelines of the State Council (Ma and Cui 1987: 376). Both are under the direct control of the county government. County seats, sites of the county government, are most directly controlled by that government, but before 1984 over 370 of the 2,074 county seats were not designated towns.^[9] County-towns include market towns and former commune headquarters—now sites of township governments—whose population and employment structure meet the necessary criteria to become towns. These guidelines have varied over the years and today they vary regionally also.^[10] Since 1984 the state has

[7] For the best discussion of the discrimination toward peasants under state socialism, see Potter 1983. For a discussion of the changing nature of rural-urban relations under the reforms, see Zweig 1987 and Friedman 1990.

[8] Whereas residents of designated towns were eligible for state-subsidized grain, nonagricultural residents in undesignated towns were counted as "rural population" and were ineligible for state grain (Ma and Cui 1986, 377–78). During the famine of the 1960s the state cut the number of designated towns and knocked millions of people out of the ranks of "state grain" eaters. Today, the introduction of the "households that are self-sufficient in grain" (zili kouliang ) means that towns can become designated without increasing the demand for subsidized grain.

[9] Larger county-seats may be cities (shi ); also some administered towns in city suburbs are directly under the control of cities, not counties. These are not included here. See Cui and Ma 1987.

[10] According to a 1955 State Council resolution, to be considered "urban" a settlement had to have a total population of over 2,000, of which half were not engaged in agricultural pursuits. Smaller places of between 1,000 and 2,000 people could be counted as urban if 75 percent of their inhabitants were registered as nonagricultural (Kirkby 1985, 74). In response to the great famine, the criteria became stricter in 1963: only settlements of 3,000 where nonagricultural laborers were 70 percent or over, or of 2,500–3,000 with 85 percent as nonagricultural population, could be designated as part of the urban sector.

raised the status of rural towns to brake the flow of peasants into larger cities, so the number of designated towns has expanded from 2,781 (1983) to 7,956 (1985) and by 1987 to 10,280 (ZGTJNJ 1988, 23). As part of the urban hierarchy, designated towns are eligible for more benefits than their poorer cousins, the township seat and small market town.

Township seats and market towns, which are under administrative control of the township government, are at the top of the rural hierarchy and are treated as part of the rural areas. Although their population is increasing as well, they receive little state assistance and must extract funds from their own industries and the surrounding countryside to expand their urban infrastructure.

But being "designated" has both advantages and disadvantages. Designation increases a county-town's authority vis-à-vis the county government, the township around it, and the county-town's "ability and authority to manage well enterprises and units established at the town over whose affairs they must have administrative authority and responsibility" (Zhang Yuelin 1986, 98). They can levy more taxes than undesignated towns.^[11] Also, the county helps former commune headquarters that are designated as county-towns before it helps those that remain township government seats. As a result, some township officials seek ways, such as padding the number of "urban" residents, to shift into the urban hierarchy. Township leaders in Jiangpu county, Jiangsu province, argued successfully that because the residence permits of agricultural workers on the nearby state farm, who ate state-supplied grain, were kept in their town's police station, the town's "urban" population sufficed to qualify it as a county-town. Since then the county has helped build new roads, a drinking-water system, and a new school.

Yet after towns become part of the urban hierarchy, county penetration can increase. The current policy to expand the county's economic role could place more bureaucrats in the county-towns (T. White 1988, 29–31). Officials in a Guangdong township resisted designation because acquiring county-town status would subject their industries to demands from the state industrial sector and stricter tax supervision (Siu 1988). Also, after a town becomes designated, the county can determine its

[11] This situation changed somewhat in 1986 with the establishment of the "township public finance system," which gave township governments the right to collect an abovequota tax, after the fixed tax quota had been paid to the county government, thereby increasing the township seats' financial resources and tax base.

"developmental nature" (fazhan de xingzhi ) and make the town's economic plan.^[12]

Other administrative changes have had only limited effect. Replacing the commune administration with the township government only affected the size of the area they administered.^[13] Efforts to separate township Party, government, and economic structures had little impact on the real distribution of power; Party control still dominates. If these township seats do not meet the criteria of county-towns, they remain part of the rural hierarchy with the same control over the countryside that they exercised when they were the commune headquarters. Former brigades have become administrative villages (xingzheng cun ), but they are still run by the Party branch, not the village management committee. Only their size may have changed.^[14]