Rural Governance Structure In Modern China

The modern China was beset by domestic strife and foreign aggression and its road ofmodernized construction is full of ups and downs. Rural governance issue has always beenone of the most fundamental issues for revolutionary and modernized construction in China.With the progress of industrialization, abortion of agricultural taxation and enhancement ofbackup and controlling abilities on rural economy in China, rural governance structure isstepping towards the positive development stage supported by the government. In retrospect,revolution regulation in rural governance structure during the “feeding” progress ofagriculture and the100-year-long industrialization would prove to be more timely andnecessary that would lead one to accurately and objectively acknowledge the protractednature and arduous nature of reforming in rural governance structure as well as seriousness inemployment in the future.Vladimir Nabokov once said:“the structure of an object is far higher than the objectitself”. Structure usually refers to the external organizational form and internal logicrelationship as well as its objective regulations. This article adopts the concept of ruralgovernance structure from the historical perspective with its research scope not only limitingto the rural internal organizational structure and format but also including overall ruralauthority and analysis on historical background under the national vision.“Three RuralIssues” are born in the modern industrialization; its transitional regulations cannot be deeplyexplored by purely discussing rural governance structure departing from the background ofrapid militarization and industrialization. Studies in this article are analyzed and proved bymainly centering around mutual controlling, reforming and utilization of “policies” ofgovernmental authority or party and “self-governance” by citizens as well as objectivefoundation of small-scale peasant economy. The statement takes transition of authorities inrural governance structure as the clue that relates with two important backgrounds of changesin agriculture itself and industrialized countries to classify specific purpose and organizationalstructure and method in rural governance in different stages of the history and explores theinternal logic in structural transmission in rural governance.Primary task and purpose of rural governance is to ensure stable social order in the ruralarea; without the existence of a unified country, rural areas would surely fall into internalconsumption with crazy trifle and self-protection. Land in rural areas in the initial period of modern era was not fairly distributed while small-scaled agricultural families also find it hardto have adequate food and clothing; after the establishment of the new China, collectivizationhelps re-integrates scattered private small-scaled agriculture that contributes to industrialaccumulation and construction of the country. But the ratio of withdrawing agriculturalsurplus in the country maintains at a high level for long while invalidity in deprivation,incentive and management on assets of peasants formed out of long-term collectivizationgives rise to long-term poverty in rural areas. After the reform and open up, rural collectivevillage found it hard to complete with domestic and foreign capital in terms of capital, talentsand so on; gap between urban and rural areas composes the primary reason for endangeringrural fluidity while inexpensive labor force and crop cultivation industry with average rate ofprofit lower than the social average backs up each construction career of the industry and cityon a long-term basis. At present, emphasis of the country on rural work is to effectively“regurgitation-feed” the rural areas with most populations the country over.Through collection and classification on materials and based on conclusions of studiespreviously, this article further indicates that: the100-year-long rural governance structure haswalked through several important historical stages of traditional disintegration of ruralautonomy, collective re-structuring in the initial period of the New China, rural governmentalgovernance after the reform and open-up and multiple governance under the governmentalsupport. As China has been transferring to an industrial country in the modernized sense fromthe traditional agricultural country, safety has been ensured and the overall strength of thecountry has been reinforced. Overall speaking, main bodies of rural governance have thefollowing development trends: the government is going towards powerfulness from puniness;the patriarchal clan has been growing weaker and gradually integrated with traditional andmodernized institutionalization; small-scale agriculture has become an industry to besupported instead of to be derived in the industrial process; and elite organization in ruralareas has progressed into rural elites in various formats from the traditional and single system.In order to fully mobilize the relations of grass-root organization among county, towns andvillages, the relationship between two committees inside the village is the intersectionmutually impacting each other for governmental “polices” and rural “self-automation”. Onlyby setting up the awareness as public servants jointly serving the masses can variouscontradictions herein be solved. After abortion of agricultural tax, it is more urgent toparticularly plan the development route of local economy. On the basis of ensuring thatpeasants obtain reasonable compensations for land acquisition without adding financialburdens for the county in the future and steadily promote implementation of socialized workin rural areas, it is imperative that land acquisition would not become an excuse and pretence to meeting up financial shortage in revenues on the county and rural level on abortion ofagricultural tax in underdeveloped areas. Plantation of food is related with food safety of acountry that is a big political, social and historical issue. Under the premise that employmentcannot be fully guaranteed, interests of plantation peasants should always receive protectionand subsidy so that plantation peasants would obtain the average social profit rate under thegovernmental backup. Peasants who have lost territories and peasant-workers who “float”between cities and villages must be given enough governmental support and civil concerns,for the huge and potential unemployed population exists in rural areas that is hard to beabsorbed by urbanization, so social issues endangered by polarization between the rich andthe poor would gradually grow and rural governance in China still has large room to beimproved.The arrangement of the article follows the history that is categorized into several periodsof prior modern times, modern times, initial period after liberation and reform and open up.Its sub-arrangement mainly includes: small-scaled agriculture (industrialization against it andhistorical background of modernization revolution), government, local elites (includingcounty gentlemen, clansmen and village official etc) and performance evaluation.Small-scaled economy itself is the most important foundation and feature for rural area inChina in modern and modern times that is expounded in details in Part I of every Chapter inorder that narrates its background and emphasizes the historical background of industrialdevelopment in the country and seeks for transition of rural governance structure.Study on rural governance structure has always been the spotlight in the academic world,but systematic surveys based on modern and contemporary history are not sufficient. Theinnovative spots in this article are to scientifically analyze and conclude regulations onchanges in different historical stage under rural governance structure by use of the existingresearch results and masterpieces and through on-spot research, studies and interview thatwould reflect innovation in topic-choosing, structural framework and organizational contentsand it is expected to provide some references to follow-up researchers in comparativemacroscopic and historical vision.