China Rural Protests Decline: It's The Economy Stupid
Recent article in the People's Daily saying rural protests are declining in China. According to Chen Xiwen, "the top advisor to the government on rural policy," "rural mass incidents" in 2006 decreased 20 percent from 2005. There were 23,000 such incidents in 2006, "with less than half in the countryside." According to Chen, Illegal land seizures or expropriation caused nearly half of the rural mass protests, with the rest "sparked by farmers' discontent over village finances and pollution."
Chinese government statistics are always suspect, even more so when dealing with something as politically sensitive as protests. Nonetheless, in light of all the government efforts to improve the plight of China's rural populace, I find it quite plausible that the number of rural protests would have declined. The China Daily attributes the decline to improving relations "between farmers and local officials . . . following the phasing out of the centuries-old agricultural tax and the building of a market system for grain distribution" and predicts the number of such protests "will continue to drop if government officials work in real earnest to redress farmers' complaints."
Comments (30)
Read through and enter the discussion by using the form at the endnanheyangrouchuan - February 1, 2007 10:32 AM
In addition to any economic improvements, the very heavy hand of local and provincial officials is finally bearing fruit. Stability and harmoniousness for everyone.
China Law Blog - February 1, 2007 10:46 AM
nanheyangrouchuan --
I would expect you to say something exactly like that, but do you have any evidence (even adectotal) to indicate government control of the provinces was any tougher in 2006 than in 2005? My "sense" is that it was the opposite.
Jeremiah - February 1, 2007 5:18 PM
Given that so many protests in rural China over the years (centuries?) have been over taxation, the abolition of agricultural taxes might mean fewer incidents of collective action. Though this would not alleviate the other major concerns of farmers, namely the above noted seizure of land for development and the environmental effects of nearby large industry.
That said, I tend to be skeptical of statistics from the Chinese government. First, because of political pressures to make the numbers look good. Second, given the complexity of rural society and the decreasing control that Beijing seems to have over local officials in rural areas, accurate data collection of such statistics would seem to be like herding gerbils.
Romain Guerel (French working in Beijing) - February 1, 2007 8:17 PM
China never has had credibility on national or local statistics. Provincial governors or mayors always give good figures to please the central government
China Law Blog - February 1, 2007 8:39 PM
Jeremiah --
I remember reading a few months ago how a town or a province in China had been ordered to reduce its crime rate by 20% and, not unsurprisingly, it did. It did this by simply not recording about 20% of the reported crimes. I have no doubt there is a bit of this going on here, but it does seem that reducing taxes is a pretty damn good way to opiate the masses.
nanheyangrouchuan - February 1, 2007 11:23 PM
Well, CLB, you've figured me out. And you and some of the other posters have already answered your question about "evidence". The provinces and the counties beneath them will put on a happy face for Beijing at any price, no matter how many villagers, farmers and retirees have to be beaten, jailed or executed. Take your pick of protests, they all had local officials in common, you can go through the ESWN blog and similar blogs for any "direct" evidence. Land grabs for development, unchecked pollution, family members of high ranking local officials abusing locals and illegal tax collection are the catalysts. Locals do have the written right to take their grievances to provincial and national courts (whoever is above the accused), but they rarely make it out of Dodge. Even if they can submit their greivance, they have to return home.
"The mountains are high and the emporer is far away".
halfpat_rant - February 2, 2007 1:31 AM
great post to bring out the masses.
CLB. It is not just the economy, but a host of things. The fact is that many of the farmers who are the ones protesting are those who are sustenance farmers, not the huge coops that are delivering to market. Many of these farmers have yet to really realize any benefit from the economic boom of the last ten years, and a simple bus ride to the border villages of Jiangsu and Anhui will give you more than enough evidence of this.
They protest over unfair taxes, land grabs, and contamination, and there has been reduction lately for a number of reasons:
1)Elimination of taxes for farmers
2)Crackdown on government corruption (particularly in real estate sector)
3) Recent real estate laws have curbed new development
4) Glut of industrial land has curbed need to grab more land
Sure, all of these have some correlation to the economy, but not in the sense you have portrayed. Many of these farmers are not happier from the rise in the stock market, but are simply living off what they grow.
And as long as the government continues to crack down on land grabs, there will be fewer threats for the farmers... and thus protests will go down.
China Law Blog - February 2, 2007 2:05 AM
nanheyangrouchuan --
I am going to "go lawyer" on you and note that your answer is non-responsive and I will ask it again. Nobody is disputing the existence of massive problems in the countryside, but that is not the question. The question is actually a very simple one. What evidence do you have that the number of protests did not decline in 2006 as compared to 2005?
Now go ahead and say the reason you have none is because the Chinese government does not keep accurate statistics and China lacks a free press, but at least answer the question.
China Law Blog - February 2, 2007 2:07 AM
halfpat_rant --
I don't think we disagree. I am not saying that the farmers are getting rich, nor am I saying that eliminating taxes has made everything honky-dory for them. All I am saying is that Beijing threw them a monetary bone in the form of reduced taxes and that has reduced the number of protests.
the Admiral - February 2, 2007 5:24 AM
@nanheyangrouchuang - Here's the beef or the sheep, as it were, that I have with your comments.
The "heavy hand" of officials you speak of has little or nothing to do with the issue of the post.
What we have here ( and feel free to ask Roland at ESWN for clarification) are two different issues.
The "riots" of the last 3 years fall into 2 categories.
Scenario A involves local authorities making land grabs in developed, URBAN, areas. Not from farmers. If you can show me ANY evidence of a case, wgere a farmer losing their tudi caused a riot. NEVER. In an urban area the resident is NOT a landowner. They contractually agreed to give up their tudi, in exchange for compensation. The most frequent riot is when the local gov't rezones an apartment building (urban) by declaring the building condemned. The occupants, as rentors, must vacate. This causes more than 80% of the riots. PERIOD.
The second scenario is one of two things involving rural residents. These can be triggered (as they have for 4000+ years) when the peasants are suffering bad crops, or when someone in their family is hurt/maimed/killed/disease stricken. As in ancient times, these people maintain that the leader/emporer has fallen out of favour with the gods. The other occasion that the rural people will riot is when the local government stops paying attention their compaints, and their very welfare.
The number of incidence (rural) is in my opinion, has declined considerably.
As far as the urbanites, they are wrong. They have a lease that is a legal binding document. If the gov't declares I.D. on the land, that's legal. Those rioters should be rounded up and arrested. (Interesting enough,to me, China passed a law last year stripping all local and provincial authorities powers to declare I.D. while at the same time the US Supreme Court declaring it legal for munincipalities to declare ID for economic reasons.)
If you want rule of law, both sides have to play by the same rules. The urbanites are wrong. Thoug I feel for anyone who is displaced when a government declares I.D., I would remind you that Just(ice) and Legal are not the same thing.
You can't have your rice cake and it it too.
nanheyangrouchuan - February 2, 2007 7:04 AM
The reason I have none is because the Chinese government does not keep accurate statistics and China lacks a free press.
As for the farmers' federal tax being lifted, officially yes, but traditionally the federal tax is increased slightly by local officials so they can skim the system, if the local officials actually obeyed Beijing, their "black income" is reduced. Do you think they are going to let that happend? And if the farmers protest, well, the local police are loyal to local officials. (again, no direct evidence, but sometimes a middle aged chinese person with surprisingly good english will tell you things).
Joseph Wang - February 2, 2007 1:12 PM
The numbers that rural protests were increasing also originally came from the Chinese government. One could argue that the statistics from the Chinese government that rural protests are decreasing are unreliable, but if that were the case, then the statistics that they were increasing (which also came from the Chinese government) should also be questioned.
Beijing is replacing local taxes and fees with funds from the national value added tax so the income available to rural officials is the same. The reason it has taken so long to abolish the rural fees was that it has taken so long to get a national tax system together that would replace rural fees and land sales.
PiPi - February 2, 2007 6:37 PM
"The reason I have none is because the Chinese government does not keep accurate statistics and China lacks a free press." - So upon what do you base your claims?
"...a middle aged chinese person with surprisingly good english..." - gossip from the disgruntled perhaps?
I was talking to an old man on the street the other day and he told me that Chairman Mao is alive and doing well. Him and Elvis are holed up in a Subterranean Forbidden Graceland controlling the world and the weather.
China Law Blog - February 2, 2007 9:28 PM
THE Admiral --
I am certainly no expert on Chinese riots, but your dichtomy does seem correct to me. I am not aware of someone's farm being taken away through eminent domain. The rural riots of which I have read mostly involved something like pollution (affecting crops), high taxation (affecting profits from crops), bad healthcare, or corruption/bad local leadership. Taking away the tax should and appears to have reduced these.
As for emminent domain in the city, you are, unfortunately, right there too. When the appropriation is done within the law, the government has almost no choice but to arrest those who block it. The problem is that the people don't have faith in the fairness of the law or the fairness of the enforcement of the law or in the fairness of their ability to get redress through the legal system, so they feel they have to riot.
China Law Blog - February 2, 2007 9:32 PM
nanheyangrouchuan --
You are really faltering here. Let's just assume China is evil. That still does not mean that one can attribute every sort of evil to it and have it be true.
We all know countless local officials are corrupt and we all know the police are right in it with them. .
So even if all of the above is true, that does not just mean we can say that the farm taxes are still being collected.
China Law Blog - February 2, 2007 9:40 PM
Mr. Wang --
I agree.
China Law Blog - February 2, 2007 9:46 PM
PiPi --
Please don't joke about the King as everyone knows he was last spotted at a Burger King right outside MY HOMETOWN of Kalamazoo, MI:
I cannot resist this Elvis story, sad though it is. When I was in 6th and 7th grade, the prettiest girl by far had the initials JW. No debate on this. She lived with just her mother and both were big Elvis fans. One of my best friends ran into JW's mom when we all would have been maybe 30 and he inquired of JW to her mom. Her mom looked heavenward and replied, "she's with Elvis now." TRUE STORY.
Hui Mao - February 3, 2007 1:22 AM
Just want to put in my two cents about Chinese statistics. Statistics generated by anyone who has a stake in how the numbers look is highly suspect. Statistics generated by Chinese local governments for their superiors are notoriously unreliable because local officials want to look good in front of their superiors. On the other hand, the numbers from the central statistic bureau are usually pretty good in the sense that they are not deliberately trying to distort the numbers because their jobs and future promotions don't depend on coming up with good looking numbers like their provincial counterparts.
The central leadership very much wants to have accurate numbers in order to get an accurate picture of what's going on in the country. They don't need numbers to look good for their superiors or the next election. The big problem for the central statisticians is the availability of good information which often depends on the provinces. They are well aware that numbers from the provinces are often far from accurate and will try their best to correct for any distortions. A good example of this is the annual GDP growth numbers where every single province reports much higher growth than the national average reported by the central government. I'm not sure how the numbers of protests given in the article is generated, but I would guess that a big part of that is based on information collected by the security forces such as the PAP which are centrally controlled and have little incentive to cover up protests for local officials.
China Law Blog - February 3, 2007 8:17 AM
Hui Mao --
Thanks for checking in. What you say makes complete sense.
nanheyangrouchuan - February 3, 2007 5:28 PM
I could've sworn I posted a number of weblinks that answered David's challenge regaring country side riots NOT being linked to illegal land seizures, like the ones in Guangdong over construction of power plants.
As for Hui Mao, the original release of high incidents of rural riots can be seen as attempts to liberate the chinese press. One official's comment is more of a backpeddle to "blue skies and green grass".
chriswaugh_bj - February 3, 2007 9:37 PM
My two fen worth: I'm sitting in the Chinese countryside right now and I'm not seeing terribly much in the way of oppression of any kind going on around me. What I see is a bunch of people watching a DVD of errenzhuan. I could step outside, and then I'd see fields stripped bare, because it's winter northwest of Beijing and nothing grows here this time of year; mountains to the north; a highway to the south. No illegally expropriated land, no illegally built, heavily-polluting factories (the air and water here are much cleaner than in Beijing, believe me) no gangs of thugs beating the locals into submission Oh sure, I could easily tell you a bunch of stories about things that have happened to the in-laws and their friends, and some [insert expletive] beat my dog up a few days ago, but what I'm seeing here suggests quite strongly that nanheyangrouchuan is strongly overstating the case.
I'm not denying the bad things that do happen in any part of China. I'm just saying we need to approach this with our reason intact and our prejudices left at the door.
And what I'm seeing here, when you take the differences in geography, climate, and local culture into account, matches my experience of the countryside in other parts of China. The only places I've seen that match the vision of rural China the China-bashers would have us believe in are the villages I saw from the bus window as I crossed the Taihangshan on my way between Taiyuan and Beijing back when I lived in Taiyuan.
To sum up: I agree with CLB and the others trying to take a measured, balanced approach to this issue.
nanheyangrouchuan - February 4, 2007 1:43 PM
"Let's just assume China is evil. That still does not mean that one can attribute every sort of evil to it and have it be true."
It's not China itself that is inherently evil, it is the gov't. this is the same gov't that up until the nuke test wholeheartedly supported the Kim regime and all of its evils, as well as the spate of "anti-rabis" movements that have seen dogs beaten to death or given lethal injection in front of owners, families and any passers-by.
China Law Blog - February 4, 2007 3:00 PM
chriswaugh_bj --
Thanks for checking in. Unfortunately, when I go to China, I am there for business and I mostly go where the American companies are. Co-blogger, Steve Dickinson, on the other hand, does occassionally make it into the countryside and he reports the same sorts of things you are seeing.
We really do need to keep things in their proper perspective.
China Law Blog - February 4, 2007 3:07 PM
nanheyangrouchuan --
Okay, go back and change "China" in my comment to "the Chinese government." Does the Chinese government do evil? Of course. Is there a government out there that does not? Of course not. Is China a democracy and thus more likely to do evil than a democracy? Yes.
But nanheyangrouchuan, answer this, where would you rather live as a citizen, China, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Syria, Egypt, Yemen, Myanmar, Zimbabwe, Saudi Arabia . . . .? I am not saying we should not criticize China, we should. But I am saying we should criticize it on the way things are there.
nanheyangrouchuan - February 4, 2007 10:46 PM
"North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Syria, Egypt, Yemen, Myanmar, Zimbabwe, Saudi Arabia"
yes, we should level more criticism at these countries and most of them do get quite a bit of criticism, but they are not as "big" on the radar. In the early 2000s, all we heard in the US was about how "everything is wonderful", "everything is changing", "get on your knees and bow to the new superpower", etc. from the media (aka fortune 500 MNCs), now the gloss has worn off and we can see more of what is really going on there. We also see that this 800 lb gorilla we've been feeding with FDI, technology transfers and looking the other way regarding IP violations, product flooding and espionage is actually a real threat. The nationalist fever being stoked by the CCP is enough of a threat, not even mentioning the censorship.
China Law Blog - February 5, 2007 1:06 AM
nanheyangrouchuan --
Nobody ever said China is not a threat, certainly not me. I tend to view almost every country as a threat or a potential threat. having said this though, the real question is what to do next. Countries like NK we should probably isolate. Countries like China we should engage.
Duncan - February 5, 2007 6:03 AM
I sympathise with nhyrc's original point, which is that there are no reliable stats on this. Roland (ESWN) does a great job pointing out that the government's figures on "mass incidents" are a complete mishmash and the figures quoted both in the Chinese press and in the foreign press are often not truly comparable year on year. So, if statistics are unreliable we can only rely on anecdotal evidence (and frankly if there's anyone who can reliably give an anecdotal impression on rural unrest over the whole country I would like to meet them), theory (more emphasis on the countryside/rural stability should lead to fewer protests) or high level government sources (who one presumes would know, but probably wouldn't be telling).
China Law Blog - February 5, 2007 11:14 PM
Duncan --
You may be right. I like your comment about anecdotal evidence. You are probably right that China is too big for that. So are we then just left with guessing, or is it fair to assume that as the government does more for the rural populace, protests will decline? I just saw today that free schooling will be increasing in the countryside. That ought to help, right?
Duncan - February 6, 2007 4:11 AM
(Informed) guessing's the root of all good forecasting! The free schooling policy's definitely a step in the right direction. I've read some very good things about it on the China development sites (it's already been rolled out in pilot schemes in a number of provinces), which suggest that-for a change-it's actually provided new money that's reaching those intended.
China Law Blog - February 6, 2007 10:36 AM
Duncan --
Free schooling is a good thing. It placates the people now and it will lead to a better educated workforce later.