Application to China

Without formal democratic institutions of some sort, the democratic rights farmers have only exist on paper. Farmers cannot, for instance, form horizontal groups to empower themselves. The pervasive corruption that exists not only transfers wealth from the poorer to the richer and exacerbates socioeconomic inequalities, but it also transforms many jurisdictions into local mafia states. As a consequence, farmers have resorted to the patron-client structure to find personal security. When impersonal social control is absent or not functioning, the relationship between the patron and client, although unequal, can provide mutual benefit.

This thesis argues that the power structure of the rural community, and the whole of soci- ety, makes small farmers feel like they are frequently in jeopardy. The village officers are not answerable to the villagers; instead officers and elite peasants control the village resources and exclude most of the peasants from the decisions that impact their lives. It is widely reported in

the Chinese media that village officials corrupted million of Chinese Yuan from land acquisition and other development programs and never hesitated to suppress farmer rebellions by resorting to violence.

Authoritarian governments often do not keep their promises and they generate an atmosphere of pervasive distrust and fear (Bandyopadhyay and Eschen [1993]). In societies where the state does not function by the rule of law and other democratic institutions, it is difficult for civil society to emerge, and in the cases it does exist its development is seriously hampered (Hyden [1997]). Self-help community-based organizations are not allowed to emerge under authoritarian rule, and/or they are blocked by the power holders.

The result is that most villagers expressed profound feelings of powerlessness, lack of control over village affairs, and hopelessness about the opportunity to change things even through their own collective efforts. For example, when election of village chief was held, many villagers sold their votes at very low price (e.g. less than C$1 for each vote); when some villagers wanted to elect their own leaders, the elites did not give them votes or results of election were not announced; some village chiefs which were elected by villagers were unable to take office because they were not favoured by the local government officials (Xinhua News Agency [2004]).

When power was abused in order to appropriate from others, distrust was generated not only between the mass of villagers and the elites, but also among the masses of villagers themselves. A natural reaction to exploitation is to defensively withdraw one’s personal relations to a tight network of people who can be trusted, namely kin. Given the atmosphere of exploitation even these kinds of associations are likely to take on a predatory character (Bandyopadhyay and Eschen [1993]). However, in comparison to the more powerful and demanding interest groups, the horizontal kinship unit was often ineffective at providing security and opportunities for advancement.

Farmers were often found to be the subject of arbitrary and sometimes capricious actions of local government officials and leaders, evidenced by the growing number of protests against land seizures, arbitrary taxation or the levy of fees (CIDA [2008]).The power relations are so uneven that open political conflict is made unnecessary. The elites are in a position to impose rules on farmers, and these rules increase the leaders’ capacities for political action while diminishing

Chapter 4. Political Economy of Chinese Agriculture those of farmers. The learning, coordination effects, and adaptive expectations mean that farmers are less interested in changing the larger structures of the state and law than they are in working the system to their minimum disadvantage.

For small farmers the rule of law, democracy, and civil liberties paled before abuses of power. To them it is much more cost-effective and realistic to sort out their own solutions and the vertical patron-client dyad is a personal security mechanism to which many people have resorted. In the villages of China the patrons are the village chiefs, the CPC party branch heads, private business owners, and local government officials.

In a Chinese village, the farmer is usually the client seeking a range of favours from their patrons. Typical patron services include the following:

1. Access to more and higher-quality farmland and/or the opportunity to retain land already contracted to his family.

2. The license for building a house.

3. Recommendations for a job in town or joining the army.

4. Assistance in accessing various government support programs and seed, credit, and new technologies.

5. Support when farmers have a dispute with a neighbour over land or other issues.

In exchange, clients offer their patrons various forms of support. These supports services may include:

1. Voting support when an election is held.

2. Provision of support when higher-level government officials visit the village.

3. Support when fellow villagers rebel and do not follow the patron’s orders, or another patron-client group is competing for resources. This support may even include a resort to violence on the patron’s behalf.

4. Acting as whistleblowers and keeping watch on dissidents in the village.

It should be noted that the patron-client structure permeates the China’s entire society, not just its rural society. A vast patronage system becomes the real glue that has held the CPC to- gether. The regime has used its financial resources to balance domestic interests, satisfy different constituencies, and purchase the contingent support of China’s social elites (Pei [2009]). The state has become China’s biggest patron. China’s non-ideological ruling elites have remained with the party because it continues to pay them.

The lack of recourse to the law has led even the leading social groups to enter unequal rela- tionships with those of superior status, wealth and influence. These groups include government officials and business owners who want to get promotions, win contracts, obtain a license or loan, or gain government support. As a consequence, their are invisible rules to the games that are pervasive in China. These invisible rules are known as Guanxi and Houmen, translated to mean ties and rear door, respectively.

The patron-client ties in China are evolving into more specific exchanges of goods and services. Cash has become the most ideal currency for facilitating the frequent exchange of services among various patrons and clients. Mai Guan, the buying and selling of appointees in government, and collusion among local ruling elites, have become common, evidenced by the proliferation of corruption cases involving groups of officials who co-operate and protect each other (Pei [2009]). Government officials are not the only group receiving bribes; school teachers, doctors and other professions also demand extra pay for their services. In Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (2009), China was ranked number 79 of the 180 countries, compared to the number 1 of New Zealand, the least corrupt country.