Authority And Hierarchy Under Rural Urbanization

We now turn to an analysis of how the distribution of power within the local bureaucratic hierarchy affects rural urbanization. While numerous indicators demonstrate the distribution of authority within the rural political economy, I focus only on those related to the growth, development, and control of rural urbanization. Reform policies, by their very nature, create possibilities for reallocating resources. Thus the extent to which those resources are reallocated—compared with following the old pattern—will be a good measure of the degree to which the rural reforms have affected the distribution of power within the Chinese bureaucracy and the extent to which that bureaucracy can still affect society at large.^[15]

[12] According to Yok-shiu Lee, counties can make land-use plans for designated and undesignated towns but can make economic plans for only the designated towns. Personal communication.

[13] As communes shifted to townships, many more townships were established, suggesting that on average, townships were about 65 percent the size of the former communes. While the final number of communes we have was 56,331 in 1983, by 1984 there were 91,171 township and town governments (ZGNYNJ 1985, 94). Since the number of towns was 7,320 (Ma and Cui 1987, 377), the number of townships must have been approximately 85,000, significantly more than the number of communes.

[14] The size of these administrative villages increased, given that the number dropped by 10 percent between 1985 and 1986. In 1985 the number of rural residence committees (cunmin weiyuanhui ), which are the local governmental committees for managing the "administrative villages," dropped from 940,617 to 847,894. See ZGTJZY 1987, 23.

[15] A cautionary note: The situation on the ground is changing rapidly. Chinese articles written in 1984 and published in 1986 or 1987 may reflect a reality that already has changed. For a discussion of these problems, see chapter 1 in this volume.

The Special Case of Jiangsu Province

Writing about local changes in China is complicated by the vast regional discrepancies that have emerged. Although these were not insignificant under Mao, today less pressure for uniform policy implementation allows each locality's natural or historical characteristics to affect policy implementation. Therefore one must be cognizant of the uniqueness of Jiangsu province and the focal points of this discussion, Jiangpu county, outside Nanjing, where I did most of my interviewing, and southern Jiangsu (Sunan), where I also did some interviewing, but which is the primary locale referred to in many of the secondary sources used for this chapter. Jiangpu county, as a suburban county (shiqu ), may be more tightly controlled than counties in China that are not directly under a city administration.^[16] However, Nanjing has contributed little to its economic development, leaving it with only average per capita income for the nation as a whole. Jiangpu's county-towns and townships are poorer than Sunan's, and rural industries, though important, are less developed. Therefore Jiangpu reflects national trends more than Sunan. However, unlike those in Guangdong and Fujian provinces, private businesses in Jiangpu were quite restricted. As of 1986 there were few private entrepreneurs in the county-towns and townships, although in 1987–88 their numbers increased. Also, there has been little migration to this area from outside the county.

Conditions in Sunan, particularly in counties in Suzhou and Wuxi municipalities, do not reflect national trends. Sunan is more industrialized and urbanized, with a tradition of small towns. For example, Wujiang county, outside Suzhou, where I carried out some interviews in summer 1988, has seven county-towns that have historically been of significant size. As county-towns they had only two vegetable brigades under their authority. Since 1983, however, six of them have been combined with neighboring townships, thus increasing their control over the surrounding countryside. The extent to which this has occurred in other parts of China is unclear; moreover, it is unlikely that there were more than a thousand towns like these Wujiang towns in all of China in the early 1980s.

Towns in Sunan also have powerful industrial bases, and these local government-owned factories inhibit private industrial activity. Wujiang county's Supply and Marketing Co-op simply "swallows" private industrial firms before they become serious competitors.^[17] Also, although rural migration is a major factor in parts of rural China (Vogel 1989, 404–

[16] All counties in Jiangsu province are under the direct administration of some city. This policy was introduced throughout the province in March 1983. Some other provinces have followed suit.

[17] Interview, Wujiang county, 12 July 1988.

5; Siu 1988), Wujiang and Wuxi factories employ outsiders mainly as construction workers. The townships treat the factories as community resources that should benefit local residents. Only one town in Wujiang county hires outside laborers. Another experimented with moving peasants into town; six hundred peasants moved in, but the policy was not introduced elsewhere in the county.

As owners of most enterprises in this area, Sunan township and county-town governments have more leverage with both peasants and the county government than governments elsewhere in China. Private enterprises may resist government demands for investment funds, but county-town governments can draw funds from factories they own far more easily. Also, county-towns in Wuxi county are wealthy, so the new "financial responsibility system" (caizheng baogan )—a new form of tax farming where each level of government has a fixed tax quota to pass up to the next level of government—makes them more independent, for with so many factories they still have enough funds for urban development.^[18] On the other hand, towns in poorer areas in Jiangsu province, such as those in Jiangpu county, which rely on county assistance for urban development, remain vulnerable to county control. To this extent, Jiangpu is more representative of trends elsewhere in China, although the limited development of the private sector and the tighter constraints on migration there strengthen the town's authority vis-à-vis the peasants.

Indicators of the Persistence of County Control

As a formal level of government, the county has numerous measures for influencing local urbanization. It controls the taxation process, including the income tax for rural industries, a new value-added tax, as well as construction and commercial taxes available for infrastructural development; and since it can impose its own taxes, it can negotiate tax breaks in return for various concessions. Through its branch offices that are "nested" in the towns and townships—including the tax office, grain station, supply and marketing co-op, post office, market management committee, local police station, local branch of the Agricultural Bank of China or credit co-op, and middle school (Barnett 1965, 352–57)—it can directly and indirectly influence local development. Similarly, counties own factories, mines, forests, and other productive enterprises located within the spatial domain of county-towns or townships. Because of the

[18] During a January 1989 visit to Wuxi county I was told by the director of Meicun town that the "financial responsibility system" made his town more independent; after it paid its taxes, the town could determine how to allocate the rest of its funds. Dongting town, also in Wuxi county, is undergoing a major urban expansion program, and when all current projects are completed the town will be more modern and bigger than Jiangpu county's county seat.

shortage of funds for town development and the major role taxes and profits from productive units play in local development, control over these enterprises gives the county significant leverage when dealing with town and township officials. Also, county investments in town development helps them control outcomes in their own favor. Other mechanisms include labeling designated towns, drawing up development plans, controlling land usage, making loans, and particularly in the case of the county seat, exercising direct administrative control.

Planning and Bureaucratic Control

Rural urbanization policy authorizes county governments to compose development plans for all county-towns, thereby increasing the county's control. In the case of the county seat, county governmental control is very tight. The plan for Zhujiang town, the seat of Jiangpu county, was composed by the county's Urban Planning Office, which reported that the town cannot evade the plan.^[19] While officials from the county seat had to approve certain aspects of town construction, they had no decision-making authority: "We want total control of the town, but the county does not want to give it to us, so there is a conflict" (Jiangpu 1986). Mistrust of town planners and the large number of county governmental units in the county seat means that the county must ensure good conditions for its employees. Therefore town development is orchestrated to benefit the county, not the town, even though the county seat may benefit from better funding and urban planning.

Planning for the county seat of Wujiang county is "directly" under control of a fifteen-person County Urban Construction Leadership Small Group (Xian cheng jianshe lingdao xiaozu ), whose sole task is to develop the county seat.^[20] With fourteen members drawn from leaders of various county bureaus,^[21] only one person represents the county-seat government.

A critical planning question concerns land use. Under China's Land Law of April 1987 the amount of land that can shift out of agriculture is fixed at the provincial level, with quotas passed down to counties and towns. Wujiang county can appropriate 144 mou each year,^[22] whose distri-

[19] Interview with officials from the Planning and Management Office, Department of Urban Development and Environmental Protection, Jiangpu county, Jiangsu province, 13 May 1986.

[20] The following comments are based on an interview with the deputy mayor of Songling town and the deputy director of the county's Urban Construction Office (Xiaocheng jianshi bangongwei ), 14 July 1988.

[21] The units included the Materials Bureau, Public Security Bureau, Communications Bureau, Land Management Bureau, Environmental Protection Bureau, Industrial Electricity Bureau, Post Office, Labor Bureau, et cetera.

[22] One mou is one-fifteenth of a hectare.

bution is determined by the county Land Management Bureau. Thus large projects using more than 3 mou of land need county authorization, further limiting county-town autonomy. County-towns have officials responsible to the county Urban Development Bureau who monitor land use and housing construction in the town and in the surrounding countryside as well. All peasants must now get permits from the town government before building new homes, even in distant villages.

But the extent of county control is unclear. If representatives of the Urban Development Bureau are indigenous to the locality, they will be enmeshed in local politics and will have difficulty denying their colleagues a chance to move onto land near the town.^[23] Since towns can expropriate three mou of land without county approval, cadres can take land piece by piece for their homes, so long as the local official responsible for monitoring land usage is party to the scheme. In Tangquan town, between 1985 and 1987, all high-ranking township government officials, and many of their relatives and friends, moved into villages surrounding the town under the pretext of "town development." Inhabitants in these villages were furious, since each new home shrunk the allotment of land from which peasants made their living, but they could only send letters and photos to the provincial, city, and county governments. In response, county officials asked town officials to investigate. Thus, although the county may control large projects, town officials can ignore some county directives and expropriate land on the basis of small-town development.

Labeling County Towns

The county controls the "developmental label" a county-town receives; this in turn affects its position in the county's overall development strategy, its own budget priorities, and the type of outside assistance it receives.^[24] While labels are not part of the formal planning scheme, Fei Xiaotong saw this classification process as "conducive to deciding the direction of future development of small towns" (Fei 1986, 26).

The five county-towns in Jiangpu county were labeled industrial, port, political, cultural, and tourist towns and received a development plan based on these designations. While county officials in the Urban Planning Bureau claim that the "basic direction" of development comes from the towns, the county looks at the issue from both the county's overall perspective and the needs of Nanjing city, whose Urban Planning Office has the ultimate decision-making authority. Tangquan town, a Nanjing test point for small-town planning since 1984, which had been earmarked for tourism (they had a beautiful reservoir), medicinal devel-

[23] Chinese analysts recognize that the main desire of many rural cadres is to move into town (Zhao and Zhang 1986, 326).

[24] The county cannot do this for undesignated towns.

opment (because of their hot spring), and tree nurseries, could not get county permission to develop potentially polluting factories.^[25]

But local perceptions do not mesh with the county's view.^[26] Some Tangquan officials felt that their label restricted their entrepreneurial efforts; they could only seek funds for hotels, while other towns were developing industry. The county's assistance had been limited, and its plan undermined their development. The higher authorities want to bring in foreign tourism, but local officials feel that their lack of funds, equipment, and a decent road from the county seat make plans to bring in foreign tourists unrealistic.

Their plan is empty talk. We can't do it. We have our own plan which fits our reality. We put that plan forward, but the upper levels didn't agree. We want to proceed from the real situation, but they want to do it in a big way, to build a big hotel near the State Tree Farm. We have a contradiction with them, but they want to earn foreign currency. So the province, city, and county all helped draw the plan but it didn't work. There hasn't been any development.

Given that no foreign company appears willing to invest in this project, the local view appears justified. Moreover, the county planning commission is reconsidering its plan. Nevertheless, concern that the hospital and the public school were in the same building, making it easy to pass on diseases, led the county to donate over 300,000 yuan for a new school.

The degree of control incorporated in planning and labeling varies across counties. In Wujiang county, outside Suzhou, the wealth generated by township enterprises gave county-towns more autonomy (Wujiang 1987). However, in Jiangpu county, where the county-towns' weak industrial bases strengthen the county's role in the local political economy, labeling and planning were effective forces for county control, especially over county-towns needing development assistance. So long as towns depend on state budgets for construction funds and do not develop their own resources by promoting rural industries, they remain hostage to the decisions of the county government.

Nesting and Bureaucratic Authority

A widespread network of offices and enterprises owned and operated by the county government, but "nested" within the county-towns or township seats, increases the county's influence. These subbureaus or enterprises—

[25] Restrictions on Tongli town, Wujiang county, Suzhou district, "one of the best preserved old water county-towns in existence," may limit the town's development, but according to Fei Xiaotong it is necessary to ensure that the concept of "destruction for construction does not destroy the town" (Fei 1986, 340).

[26] The following discussion is based on conversations with local officials in Tangquan in summer 1986. Because the criticism is aimed at the county, I protect my sources.

such as mines, forests, factories, or shops—support county-government interests when they conflict with those of the town. County-owned enterprises resist the county-towns' request for "contributions" to development funds in ways factories owned by county-towns cannot. In the cases to follow, local development efforts were undermined by the nested county bureaucracy.

In Tongli town, a county-town in Wujiang county, the county grain bureau wanted to construct two residential buildings for its staff in an area not designated as residential in the town's plan. After several months of wrangling, the town had to concede to county administrators, and the housing construction was allowed (Fei 1986, 338). Similarly, a running-water and drainage pipeline, built by Dongliu town, Dongzhi county, Anhui province, "crossed the doorway of the dormitory for the county's transportation station workers; the workers did not agree, so there was no choice but to halt the project" (Bai, Song, and Tang 1987, 57). We do not know the content of the negotiations process, but in both cases the issue was not one of political equality or negotiations among equals; rather, decisions were made in favor of the more powerful county administration.

County domination harmed development in the pre-1984 county-towns, which have been the clearest losers in the hierarchy of towns. Factories in those towns were often owned by the county government; yet, while they used local facilities and resources, the county invested little in the towns. Jobs in them were allocated by the County Labor Bureau, so county-town youths did not necessarily receive first access. County businesses such as supply and marketing co-ops in these towns were nominally led by both the county-government departments and the county-town administrators, but "they accept only the leadership of departments and ignore town leadership"; thus in 1986 county-towns that are not county seats experience the sharpest conflicts within the current administrative system (Fei 1986, 85). As county employees these nested county administrators respond to the hierarchical system (tiao-tiao ) rather than local (kuai-kuai ) leaders.

In Jiangpu county these county-towns developed poorly before 1979 (Jiangpu 1982, 139). Of the proportion of people living in all towns in the county, the proportion living in the county-towns, compared with the county seat and commune or market towns, decreased from 24.9 to 10.5 percent from 1953 to 1979, while the increase in these towns' actual population over twenty-six years was almost minimal (table 12.1). Unlike commune towns, which became the sites for commune or township enterprises, as well as of centers of political administration, these county-towns developed little industry and few administrative jobs, hence their limited population growth. Data from other parts of Jiangsu from 1984

show why these towns declined. Within the older county-towns, the indigenous government owns the smallest percentage of enterprises (in output value terms) at 12.91 percent, almost 8 percent less than governments from surrounding townships and 33 percent less than the county government (see table 12.2). With little outside investment, such county-town governments have a weak tax base and little income for investment, making the county's authority dominant.

To resolve the nesting problem, county-run factories outside the county seat are expected to shift to the control of county-town governments (Zhao and Zhang 1986, 324). And nested officials in some towns and townships are to come under greater horizontal administrative (kuaikuai ) control, as county-town governments are empowered to hire, fire, transfer, reward, and penalize them (ZGNCJJ 1987a). But the nesting problem will persist. First, directors of these nested organizations will remain outside county-town and township control. Second, not only are county factories in some locations not shifting to county-town control, but some county officials are taking over lucrative former township factories after these newly designated towns come under their control.^[27] Finally, because county seats have many county-government offices within them, county-government control over town development is imperative. County-level organizations in the county seat will not obey the county-seat government, which has no authority over them. Only a development committee of the county government has the authority to compel these county organizations to contribute to development projects in the county seat.

County officials have long been the most powerful institutional actors directing local development. And although market forces are decreasing the county's control over some aspects of the rural political economy,

[27] Personal communication, Yok-shiu Lee, 21 March 1988. In Zhujiang town, Jiangpu county, county officials in 1986 took over a lucrative factory owned by the county seat, but Jiangpu officials say this type of expropriation, common in the 1960s, is rare today. Recent press reports suggest that this remains a problem.

patterns of authority established through forty years of economic planning continue to play a major role. In fact, as townships become county-towns, the county's formal right to dictate their development pattern increases. No doubt wealthy towns are more independent, and their ability to invest in their own future may expand under the "finance responsibility system." But for county-towns seeking to improve their urban infrastructure, county controls embodied in the labeling, nesting, and planning processes remain significant factors in their day-to-day existence.