Chinese Rural Relations

China is a large agricultural country, and the rural society has been regarded as the base of stability of the country’s political domination. The stability and development of the rural society, depends on the equilibrium of the state governance ability and the self-governance ability of the society. The strengthening of the state governance ability does not only mean the improvement of the state governance ability of the rural society, but also indicates the construction of the mutual-interaction of the institutionalization, procedurization and standardization during the practice of state governance ability on the rural society. Therefore, five indicators, namely, the absorbing ability of available resources, economic development ability, social governance ability, ability of public service provision and regulation-making ability, can be employed to measure the state governance ability.In order to achieve effective governance on the rural society, the state chooses to extract resources from the rural society, actively develop the rural economy, and conduct social management and provide public services, during which the state and the rural society inevitably contact with each other, leading to the formation of the complex relations between state power and the self-governance ability of rural society referred to as rural relations. Rural relations present different forms in different historical periods, due to the shift of state power and self-governance of rural communities.With the state governance ability as the analytical framework, history and reality of the rural relations the object of study, and the shift and cooperation of state power and the self-governance ability of rural communities the main thread, this paper cross-sectionally studies the reality of rural relations based on the five indicators mentioned above. This paper argues that, since1949, especially after the reform and opening up, under the influence of the turbulent trend of modernization, marketization, and industrialization, the relatively traditional closed mono-rural society becomes more diverse, open. Revolving around the goal of national construction and rural integration, on the one hand, the state put great efforts to strengthen the building of rural governance ability, vigorously develop the rural economy, promote social management innovations, increase the supply of public services, and implemented a series of policies of strengthening agriculture and benefiting peasants, so the state governance ability is continuously enhanced, and the rural governance becomes increasingly institutionalized and standardized. On the other hand, the decentralization of state power and the implementation of the autonomy of the villagers provide much more room and broader base for the enhancement of rural self-governance ability. The past three decades has witnessed the great change of the peasants from the awareness of democratic thoughts to the autonomy of rights-protection, from daily struggle to protest in accordance with the laws, and the rural society has formed strong checks and back-warding mechanism to the state governance. However, the rural politics shows some distinctive characteristics of non-equilibrium as a whole:within the state, the state governance ability and the institutionalized relationship of state and society is non-equilibrium, while between the state and society, the state governance ability and the self-governance ability of rural communities is non-equilibrium. Therefore, the state governance ability is still very weak. The future direction of development of the rural relations is during the strengthening of the state governance ability and furthering empowerment of rural society, we should strengthen the institutionalization aiming at multifaceted cooperative cohabitation, and enable the township governments, rural communities, and all types of organizations to become more institutionalized and standardized.This paper mainly includes introduction, body and conclusions. The introduction is devoted to the origin and significance of the topic, research progress, research ideas and structure. Chapter one to chapter seven are the main body. Chapter one puts forward an analytical framework for the study of rural relations based on the discussion of the concept, components, building path selection of the state governance ability. Chapter two deals with the history and evolution logic building path selection of rural relations. From Chapter three to Chapter seven, the reality of rural relations is revealed from the perspectives of the absorbing ability of available resources, economic development ability, social governance ability, ability of public service provision and regulation-making ability respectively. The part of conclusions and outlooks serves as the summary of the paper, suggesting an ideal model and realization path of strong government and strong society for the development of rural relations.Chapter one proposes that the state governance ability can be used as an analytical framework for the study of rural relations. The components of state governance ability are the absorbing ability of available resources, economic development ability, social governance ability, ability of public service provision and regulation-making ability. The state governance ability does not only mean the improving of the five abilities, but also indicates the construction of the mutual-interaction of the institutionalization, procedurization and standardization between the state and the society. Since China is a large agricultural country, the governance ability of the state to the rural communities plays an important role in the stability of state power. In essence, the governance of the state to the rural communities is the gaming and interaction of the state power and the self-governance of the rural communities. Chapter two reveals the evolution logic of the rural relations using the analytical framework of the state governance ability, and holds that the rural relations show a different picture in various historical periods. The historical evolution of rural relations shows some features of non-equilibrium between the state governance ability and the institutionalized relationship of state and society. On the one hand, the state governance ability is increasingly strengthening. On the other hand, imbalanced configuration and interaction exist between the township governments and self-governance organizations in rural communities, not necessarily with distinctive features of institutionalization, standardization and procedurazation, so the institutionalization of the state and the society is relatively weak.Chapter two analyzes the rural relations from the perspective of the regulation-making ability. Based on the exploration of the origin, contents, duties, and operating rules of the power of the township governments and village committees, the paper points out that the nature of the rural relations is the relationship between state power and self-governance ability of rural communities. The peasants’ autonomy is part of the governance shifting from the state to the grass-root society. The autonomy exercised by the village committees is authorized by the villagers, and the township governments and village committees have their respective power boundaries, that is, village committees exercise the autonomy within the field of villagers’ self-governance activities, and the township governments are entitled to provide right guidance within the limits of villagers’ autonomy.Chapter three studies the rural relations from the perspective of the absorbing ability of available resources. Since the reform and opening-up, China’s national financial system has experienced three major changes, mainly in the means and ways of exploiting resources from the rural communities in order to meet the needs of China’s macroeconomic development. Due to the fact that the national financial sources and financial capacity determine the characteristics of the governance structure and governance performance of rural communities, problems of benefits-distribution, struggling and balancing between the state and the rural communities, the government and the peasants, the cadres in the countryside and the peasants come into being revolving around the extraction and levering of the taxes during the resources exploiting from the rural communities. That is to say, the interaction of the rural organization of two levels is mainly about the township governments’ resources-exploiting from the rural communities and the tax-levering of the villages and towns from the rural communities. The key issue of rural relations is the benefits distribution of the main organization of two levels, and the township government cadres and village cadres operate on the principle of discipline and emotional relationship when the rural relations show the trend of administrationization. Chapter four studies the rural relations from the perspective of economic development ability. The history of30years’development of the rural economy shows that, the village and township governments, as the medium of the peasants and newly emerging markets, largely dominated the economic and social transformation. Driven by the incentives in the pressurized system and political achievements, the township governments control the main rural economical activities, such as the development and restructuring of town and township enterprises, the management circulation of land contracting rights, while the village committees develop the rural economy under the leading and guidance of the village and township governments, and the rural communities show strong dependence on the village and township governments. With the socialization and marketing of agricultural production and the supply of public services and the rise of economic organizations in rural communities, the rural relations will show more cooperation and negotiation in the economic activities.Chapter five analyzes the rural relations from the perspective of social governance ability. With China’s rural grass-root organizations and management system once again arriving at the critical juncture of another historic change, institutional reform and rural community development are carried out, and using the communities as a platform for the integration of resources and the service management the starting point, the township governments advocate management system innovation of social organizations and the transformation of their functions. In this process, the extension of the township management organizations enabled the state power to sink further into rural communities, and the extension of the village-level organizational structure further enhanced the autonomy of the society. The rural social management system formed in accordance with the open, mobile, differentiated and diversified rural communities, and the rural relations seemed more diversified, and cooperation and co-governance will be the future trends of rural relations.Chapter six analyzes the rural relations from the perspective of ability of public service provision. Since2000, governments of all levels have increased investment in agriculture and rural areas, expanded the scope of public finance in rural areas, and promoted the equalization of basic public services in urban and rural areas. The rural services are shifting from peasants’ self-service to social public services, and public service and public welfare shouldered by the peasants in the traditional villagers’ autonomy will be more undertaken by the central and local governments, and the township governments will assume the financial and operating costs of the villagers’ autonomy. At the same time, the content, focus and functions of the village committees experienced a major shift from the traditional collection of taxes, family planning to providing peasants with public services. Within the framework of the multi-center public service system, the township governments provide policy and financial support for the village committees who will in return assist the township governments to provide basic public services in rural areas. In the provision of public services in rural areas, the township governments, social and economical organizations in the rural communities form a kind of public-private partnerships.The last part is the conclusions and outlooks. The period of village governance of the rural politics welcomes the strengthening of state governance ability and the increase of rural autonomy. But overall, the enhancement of state governance ability is not synchronized with the development of the building of state institutional ability building. The strengthening of the state governance ability leads to more dispersion of administrative functions of the township governments to the rural communities, and the township governments control and monopolize the activities formerly conducted by the autonomous organizations in the rural communities. The autonomous organizations in the rural communities show great dependence on the township governments, and are subject to the control and restraint of the township governments to some extent, so the two are allocated and interacting in an imbalanced way. The interaction between the state power and the autonomy of the rural communities is not that institutionalized, standardized and procedurized. Finally, based on the theory of cooperative governance the paper proposes the ideal model of the future rural relations:strong government and strong society. That is to say, by a reasonable definition of the administrative management of the township governments and the powers, functions and behavioral boundaries of the autonomous organizations in the rural communities, a mutual-influencing relationship, that is legal, procedurized and institutionalized is formed in between to help the two coexist and co-strengthen.