Pub Date : 2021-08-13DOI: 10.1163/22136746-12341277
Zhi-xue Guo
An analysis of the Class Background Registers of Yanshan county, Hebei, shows that households of landlord and rich peasant status accounted for less than 10 percent of the local population and possessed less than 15 percent of the land, while households of poor and lower-middle peasant standing owned about half of the land. Overall, land distribution was relatively balanced, as seen in the Gini coefficient of 0.3–0.4 in the distribution of land rights and the fact that about half of the households owned 2–5 mu of land per capita. But the economic condition of the rural population was not determined by the factor of land distribution alone; in places where the natural endowment was poor, off-farm income-making activities mattered a great deal to local residents. Such activities took various forms, which could improve as well as worsen people’s livelihood. An analysis of social mobility in this area further shows the perpetuation of the existing class structure. Those whose grandparents had lived in poverty found it difficult to move up socially. On the whole, the rural area under study shows a prolonged trend of deterioration, which is meaningful for understanding the land reform.
{"title":"The Living Conditions and Social Mobility of Rural Households in Yanshan County, Hebei, 1900–1950","authors":"Zhi-xue Guo","doi":"10.1163/22136746-12341277","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22136746-12341277","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000An analysis of the Class Background Registers of Yanshan county, Hebei, shows that households of landlord and rich peasant status accounted for less than 10 percent of the local population and possessed less than 15 percent of the land, while households of poor and lower-middle peasant standing owned about half of the land. Overall, land distribution was relatively balanced, as seen in the Gini coefficient of 0.3–0.4 in the distribution of land rights and the fact that about half of the households owned 2–5 mu of land per capita. But the economic condition of the rural population was not determined by the factor of land distribution alone; in places where the natural endowment was poor, off-farm income-making activities mattered a great deal to local residents. Such activities took various forms, which could improve as well as worsen people’s livelihood. An analysis of social mobility in this area further shows the perpetuation of the existing class structure. Those whose grandparents had lived in poverty found it difficult to move up socially. On the whole, the rural area under study shows a prolonged trend of deterioration, which is meaningful for understanding the land reform.","PeriodicalId":37171,"journal":{"name":"Rural China","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47884758","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-08-13DOI: 10.1163/22136746-12341274
Haixia Wang, Luyi Yuan
Following the rural tax-for-fee reform and the abolition of agricultural taxes in the early 2000s, the overall supply of rural public goods has improved, but its performance is still deficient. During a field study of ecological migrants in rural Ningxia, the authors witnessed the problems encountered in the implementation of a public housing project. This episode demonstrates how the provision of rural public goods depends on rural governance that responds to the tension between modern development and the values of rural society. The failure of the project stems from the clash between the logic of peasant actions and the performance indicators of cadres, producing an internal rupture between rural society and rural governance. In the process of modernization and urbanization, grassroots government is becoming more bureaucratic and technical, with the prevalence of e-government and especially with village committees turning increasingly administrativized and beholden to superior levels of government, and thus is failing to fully embed itself in rural society.
{"title":"Why Good Governance Goes Wrong: Government and Village in the Supply of Public Goods in Rural China","authors":"Haixia Wang, Luyi Yuan","doi":"10.1163/22136746-12341274","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22136746-12341274","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Following the rural tax-for-fee reform and the abolition of agricultural taxes in the early 2000s, the overall supply of rural public goods has improved, but its performance is still deficient. During a field study of ecological migrants in rural Ningxia, the authors witnessed the problems encountered in the implementation of a public housing project. This episode demonstrates how the provision of rural public goods depends on rural governance that responds to the tension between modern development and the values of rural society. The failure of the project stems from the clash between the logic of peasant actions and the performance indicators of cadres, producing an internal rupture between rural society and rural governance. In the process of modernization and urbanization, grassroots government is becoming more bureaucratic and technical, with the prevalence of e-government and especially with village committees turning increasingly administrativized and beholden to superior levels of government, and thus is failing to fully embed itself in rural society.","PeriodicalId":37171,"journal":{"name":"Rural China","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44023158","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-05-07DOI: 10.1163/22136746-12341272
Hongxi Zhang
{"title":"To Be Free of Poverty: The Lessons and Prospects of Poverty Alleviation in Rural China from the Perspective of Societal Governance","authors":"Hongxi Zhang","doi":"10.1163/22136746-12341272","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22136746-12341272","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":37171,"journal":{"name":"Rural China","volume":"18 1","pages":"114-168"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48184018","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-05-07DOI: 10.1163/22136746-12341267
Guiping Qu
{"title":"Matters Not That Trivial: Damage to the “Safety-Valve” Mechanism in Civil Justice and the Rise of the Boxer Movement in the Late Qing Period","authors":"Guiping Qu","doi":"10.1163/22136746-12341267","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22136746-12341267","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":37171,"journal":{"name":"Rural China","volume":"18 1","pages":"1-47"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42455525","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-05-07DOI: 10.1163/22136746-12341268
Yaoyao Cheng, Peikun Han
{"title":"Resource Endowment, Rural Governance, and the Development of the “New Agriculture” in China","authors":"Yaoyao Cheng, Peikun Han","doi":"10.1163/22136746-12341268","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22136746-12341268","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":37171,"journal":{"name":"Rural China","volume":"18 1","pages":"48-68"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42254461","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-05-07DOI: 10.1163/22136746-12341269
Xinhui Dong
{"title":"Reform of Residential Plot Rights and the Current Omission and Future Development of the “Separation of Three Rights” in the Civil Code","authors":"Xinhui Dong","doi":"10.1163/22136746-12341269","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22136746-12341269","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":37171,"journal":{"name":"Rural China","volume":"18 1","pages":"69-90"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43005353","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-05-07DOI: 10.1163/22136746-12341271
Jianyu Zhou
{"title":"Corruption among Rural Grassroots Cadres: A Study of Its Origins and Development, with Policy Recommendations","authors":"Jianyu Zhou","doi":"10.1163/22136746-12341271","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22136746-12341271","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":37171,"journal":{"name":"Rural China","volume":"18 1","pages":"91-113"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47494857","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-09-21DOI: 10.1163/22136746-01702002
Xiao-ying Pei
This article presents a dynamic land property rights theory based on the law of the limit to land productivity, and then uses this theory and a large amount of data to compare the history of the agricultural and industrial revolutions in England and China. The article finds that, in England, the arable land-especially sown land-per capita of the agricultural population trended downward before the Black Death, but after the Black Death, experienced a long-term upward trend. In China, however, over the same period, the sown area per capita of the rural population shrank. It is these opposing trends that account for the historical divergence between the economies of England and China. This article concludes that the agricultural and industrial revolutions in England, as well as England's capitalist market and private property rights regime, are the result of the expansion of the sown area per capita of the agricultural population. The article also concludes that the claim that England's capitalist system of markets and private property rights gave birth to its agricultural and industrial revolutions cannot be sustained.
{"title":"The Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions in England and China: A View through the Lens of Dynamic Property Rights Theory","authors":"Xiao-ying Pei","doi":"10.1163/22136746-01702002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22136746-01702002","url":null,"abstract":"This article presents a dynamic land property rights theory based on the law of the limit to land productivity, and then uses this theory and a large amount of data to compare the history of the agricultural and industrial revolutions in England and China. The article finds that, in England, the arable land-especially sown land-per capita of the agricultural population trended downward before the Black Death, but after the Black Death, experienced a long-term upward trend. In China, however, over the same period, the sown area per capita of the rural population shrank. It is these opposing trends that account for the historical divergence between the economies of England and China. This article concludes that the agricultural and industrial revolutions in England, as well as England's capitalist market and private property rights regime, are the result of the expansion of the sown area per capita of the agricultural population. The article also concludes that the claim that England's capitalist system of markets and private property rights gave birth to its agricultural and industrial revolutions cannot be sustained.","PeriodicalId":37171,"journal":{"name":"Rural China","volume":"17 1","pages":"194-261"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22136746-01702002","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45302581","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-09-21DOI: 10.1163/22136746-01702004
Jianlei Zhang, Wansheng Xiong
The rise of the informal economy has profoundly changed the social structure of rural society in Shanghai’s suburbs, leading to the phenomenon of the “defamiliarization” of the “society of the familiar.” As a result, local governments have lost the conventional resources and means to govern the risks posed by migrants working in the informal economy and, what is more, the model of minimalist governance itself has failed. In order to deal effectively with the risks to governance posed by the informal economy, local governments have tried persistently to strengthen their control over rural society through the expansion of administrative power and village organizations under their high-pressure system of governance. The goal of governance has been to compress and transform the production space of the informal economy, and integrate the large number of informal workers into the formal administrative management system. However, informal workers, who cannot be formalized because of the inherently informal nature of their work, face the prospect of eventually losing their livelihood space. Their lives have become more precarious and unstable since informal economic activity has continued to shrink.
{"title":"Informal Economy in Shanghai’s Suburban Villages: Local Society and the Dilemma of Governance","authors":"Jianlei Zhang, Wansheng Xiong","doi":"10.1163/22136746-01702004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22136746-01702004","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The rise of the informal economy has profoundly changed the social structure of rural society in Shanghai’s suburbs, leading to the phenomenon of the “defamiliarization” of the “society of the familiar.” As a result, local governments have lost the conventional resources and means to govern the risks posed by migrants working in the informal economy and, what is more, the model of minimalist governance itself has failed. In order to deal effectively with the risks to governance posed by the informal economy, local governments have tried persistently to strengthen their control over rural society through the expansion of administrative power and village organizations under their high-pressure system of governance. The goal of governance has been to compress and transform the production space of the informal economy, and integrate the large number of informal workers into the formal administrative management system. However, informal workers, who cannot be formalized because of the inherently informal nature of their work, face the prospect of eventually losing their livelihood space. Their lives have become more precarious and unstable since informal economic activity has continued to shrink.","PeriodicalId":37171,"journal":{"name":"Rural China","volume":"17 1","pages":"291-318"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41495418","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-09-21DOI: 10.1163/22136746-01702006
Xiao Wang, Y. Tong
Centering on an analysis of the role of diqi, or the degree of commitment underlying one’s self-confidence and actions, this study investigates villagers’ differential responses to the same project of demolition of local residences in three neighboring communities in order to understand the psychological mechanism through which peasant resistance came to be differentiated. It is found that what sustained peasant actions was their shared moral commitment to a way of life rather than self-interest or rational reasoning. Different also from James Scott’s “subsistence ethic” or Ying Xing’s ethical power “qi,” however, what the villagers stressed was an “everyday ethic” that sought to preserve their current way of life. Their resistance took different forms because of the different levels of commitment (diqi) that influenced their choice of actions despite the same kind of impact on their ethic of everyday life. To protect the rights and interests of rural residents and alleviate their resistance, it is necessary to give weight to the ethic of the everyday way of life of villagers instead of the logic of capital and to pay attention to the fundamental concerns of the silent majority in rural China.
{"title":"Degree of Commitment (diqi) and Differential Peasant Resistance in Three Village Communities","authors":"Xiao Wang, Y. Tong","doi":"10.1163/22136746-01702006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22136746-01702006","url":null,"abstract":"Centering on an analysis of the role of diqi, or the degree of commitment underlying one’s self-confidence and actions, this study investigates villagers’ differential responses to the same project of demolition of local residences in three neighboring communities in order to understand the psychological mechanism through which peasant resistance came to be differentiated. It is found that what sustained peasant actions was their shared moral commitment to a way of life rather than self-interest or rational reasoning. Different also from James Scott’s “subsistence ethic” or Ying Xing’s ethical power “qi,” however, what the villagers stressed was an “everyday ethic” that sought to preserve their current way of life. Their resistance took different forms because of the different levels of commitment (diqi) that influenced their choice of actions despite the same kind of impact on their ethic of everyday life. To protect the rights and interests of rural residents and alleviate their resistance, it is necessary to give weight to the ethic of the everyday way of life of villagers instead of the logic of capital and to pay attention to the fundamental concerns of the silent majority in rural China.","PeriodicalId":37171,"journal":{"name":"Rural China","volume":"17 1","pages":"349-383"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46415434","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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