Conclusion: The Politics Of Rural Urbanization

Freedom at the lowest levels of rural society has expanded as both state and collective cadres have withdrawn from the daily management of

village life. But at the middle reaches of the rural hierarchy, the relationship between the county government and expanding rural settlements demonstrates the continuing role of bureaucratic authority as a determinant of resource allocations. Although one might assume that increased rural urbanization would weaken the county's control over the local political economy, I suggest that the distribution of authority has not changed as dramatically as one might have expected. County officials, through their bureaucratic positions, still control resources that either flow into these towns or are created within them. No doubt, modernization's demands for bureaucratic specialization has fragmented power within the county leadership. But findings here appear to confirm the control image offered by Lieberthal and Oksenberg and the argument that "vertical" (tiao-tiao ) authority remains more powerful than "horizontal" (kuai-kuai ) ties even under the reforms (Lieberthal and Oksenberg 1988).

Two factors affect the relationship between hierarchy and power. First, disparities in resource bases can increase or decrease the impact of hierarchy. If resource distribution is highly asymmetrical, relations between bureaucratic superiors and inferiors are even more likely to be based on a command model, leaving the inferior actor in the interaction with only obedient or supplicant behavior as his major options (unless he threatens bankruptcy, which his superior cannot accept). In the current policy environment, where expanding a town's social and economic infrastructure becomes a town official's major responsibility, officials in poorer towns could become more dependent on county officials for development assistance. And although counties also have political obligations to help towns grow, making county officials reliant on cooperation from town managers, planning, labeling, and investments have kept the county firmly in control of the development process. Even efforts to strengthen county-town and township financial bases may increase county-town officials' dependence on the county, particularly for poor towns. Under the "finance responsibility system," counties can lend funds to strengthen county-town and township governments, which the recipients must repay through judicious tax collection. While surpluses will benefit the county-town —especially wealthy county-towns with strong tax bases—shortages will be cumulative, making tax-poor county-towns, like state-owned firms, highly dependent on county government support. And even for wealthier county-towns, the county's control over the planning process allows them to set the county-town's development agenda. By financing only a part of the projects and pressuring the county-town to fund the remainder, the county may determine how the county-town invests its own funds. Such "conditional grants" are a powerful mechanism by which administrators can indirectly control lower-level governments.

The nesting process compounds the impact of hierarchy on the distribution of authority by giving county governments a core of allies who have directly penetrated these towns and who participate in county-town and township-seat government and Party meetings. County-affiliated firms and bureaus make profits and collect taxes and fees in the towns, which revert to the county government, all the while contributing little directly to the town's growth. And while new policies try to expand a town's control over county-level factories and offices within its physical domain, these units' county-level status may keep them beyond the town's political reach. As we have seen with the county seat, the new impetus for rural urbanization ensures even tighter control by the county government and undermines any devolution of authority over these nested units to the county-seat governments.

On the other hand, towns with strong industrial bases can undo some of the power disparity inherent in hierarchy. County-town and township governments that can draw on the profits of their own rural enterprises to strengthen their economic base are better able to negotiate with county officials. As in Wujiang county, unifying county-towns with neighboring townships, particularly if the latter have strong industrial bases, should weaken the county's influence. How different relations must be between county and town officials in poor counties—such as Shangrao county, Jiangxi province, where the county finances all township-level administration—and wealthy counties, such as Wuxi, where county-towns fund themselves and have a surplus that the county can tax. Though county-towns or townships in Wuxi are hierarchically subordinate to the county government, their wealth should make them stronger adversaries in the negotiations process.

Power relations among peasants and bureaucrats are affected in a similar way. Farmers who plant their land and market only small surpluses remain relatively free of state intrusions. Unlike lower-level bureaucrats who have no "exit" option, these peasants can withdraw in the face of abusive or unjust cadre demands. Clearly, independence is relative, since many resources needed for farming—such as seeds, fertilizer, pesticides, and land—remain locally controlled, making farmers dependent on local cadres (Oi 1987). But the asymmetry of power expands dramatically as common peasants, seeking access to new sources of wealth developing in and around the town, become subject to bureaucratic authority vested in town officials. As gatekeepers to the boundaries of income-enhancing opportunities—such as small shops, factories, or factory jobs—cadres are extremely powerful vis-à-vis China's common man. They can take peasant land to build their own homes, and there is little peasants can do. No doubt, wealthier peasants or those with strong family alliances possess resources to confront cadre authority. But atom-

ized individuals, stripped of their collective protection, remain in a highly vulnerable and inferior status in their confrontation with formidable bureaucratic forces.^[43]

As of 1988, central control over local investment and development had decreased. Yet this devolution of central authority has not weakened bureaucratic control at the local level; in some ways it may have increased it. While forces unleashed by the commercialization of the rural economy—particularly the production and marketing of agricultural produce—no longer are monopolized by local officials, the county's control over development assistance and investment for expanding urban infrastructure at the county-town and township levels has ensured a continuing—in some locations an expanding—role for the local bureaucracy.

No doubt, rural urbanization is in its incipient stage, and the final distribution of authority derived from this process remains unclear. Efforts to reform both the financial relations between the county and the county-towns or townships and the authority relations between county-level nested units and the towns where they reside may weaken the county's authority. New resources, developing at all levels of rural society, create opportunities for redistributing authority. The prudent scholar must recognize that leaders in the emerging county-towns and townships, like their forebears in the communes, will use their political and economic authority over the countryside and their towns' critical point at the nexus between the rural and the urban economy to expand their financial and political resources. Yet a careful reading of past and current trends—tightening local finances in 1989 under the current retrenchment probably increased the county's influence—suggests that county officials through a multiplicity of channels will significantly influence the pattern of growth in the county-towns and townships and will remain the dominant force in the rural political economy in much of rural China.