Villagers' Autonomy And Chinese Political Development

Villagers' Autonomy and Chinese Political DevelopmentZhang JianAbstract: A village committee, a mass autonomous organization, founded by eighty-five peasants from 6 Production Teams of Guo Zuo, YiShan county, GuangXi Zhuang Autonomous Region, is the first self-managed, self-educated, self-served organization at the basic level in our country. It evoked nationwide repercussions after that. It was not only well received by the masses but also approved & supported by the central government. In 1987, a law concerning the organization of village committee was drawn up & issued, which brought the democratic election at the basic level into the legal track. On the 4th of November, 1998, a newly-revised law concerning the organization of the village committee was reviewed & passed by the ninth standing committee of National people's congress, which paved the way for the regular development of the villagers' autonomy. Nowaday, during the process of the political reform in the countryside, the villagers' autonomy is considered to be the best policy & systematic selection to relieve the social contradiction in the countryside and to direct the political development of rural community towards democratization.The practice of the villagers' autonomy in the past 20 years has changed the political structure of the village as well as the political life of the peasants, moreover, it has revealed the aim, characteristics, dilemma, prospect and significance of the autonomous system. Even though some minor changes will take place due to the political development and modernization of China, however, one aspect will be keptconstant-----the interaction between the villagers' autonomy and the politicaldevelopment of China. The purpose of the paper is to explore the influence of the growth of the villagers' autonomy on the development of Chinese politics on the one hand, and the promotion of Chinese political reform on the development of the villagers' autonomy on the other hand.The innovation of the paper is that it focuses on the viewpoint that the relationship between the villagers' autonomy and Chinese political development is that of interaction. It leads to two subtopics: (1) the influence of the villagers' autonomy on the Chinese political reform lies in the fact that it has changed the irrational distribution of powers, coordinated the benfits of different groups and inspire the peasants' consciousness of political participation. (2) The political development is not simply a selective system, and the systematic construction is the most important in the political development.