A ‘small-town size’ Chinese village of Wukan hit the headlines in international media last month over its protest actions. Wukan is based in country’s wealthiest southern province of Guangdong and is near the Hong Kong. Wukan is a village only in legal terminology, but is relatively bigger than many other villages in China. Western media has reported its population at 13,000; but China’s People’s Daily described it as village of 11,000 people, while news reports in The Hindu, an Indian English newspaper, tallied the protesting village population at around 20,000. Wukan hosts a natural harbor on Pacific Ocean that makes it an attractive destination for industry and real estate developers.
Background
The fishing village had been boiling since September, 2011 on the issue of corrupt land transfer deals wherein their elected representatives along with local functionaries of Communist Party of China (CPC) handed over the collective village land to ‘developers’ without adequately compensating the villagers. In addition to it, handing over of nearby fishing area in the sea to a large fishing company worked as a last straw in the coffin. Protesting villagers alleged that the Village Committee has been systematically selling off or granting long term leases of the collective land since 1993.
A Hong-Kong listed company, called Country Garden, is involved in the allegedly corrupt land deal at Wukan. Its chairperson, Yang Huiyuan, is rated as one of the richest persons in China. This is not for the first time that Country Garden has courted a controversy in its deal. Quoting Xinhua, China’s government news agency, International Herald Tribune (IHT) reported, “This year (2011) the company has purchased Anhui Province land to build a Golf Course in a deal that smacked of the typical collision of real estate business and local government.” The same edition also reported, quoting from Southern Weekly’s report, that in the year 2007 irregularities were alleged in a hotel construction contract awarded to Country Garden by a District administration in Hunan Province. [IHT, Dec 17-18, 2011, p. 7]
In last 18 years, 60% of the collective land has been taken off from the villagers. According to the investigative Chinese journal Caixin, as quoted by Elizabeth C Economy, the Village Committee in Wukan had earned over 700 million yuan (about $110 million) from selling collectively-owned village land, but it disbursed only 550 yuan (roughly US$86) to each villager. (Economy, Elizabeth C, Occupy Wukan: China’s 99 Percent, 15h Dec. 2011, www.blogs.cfr.org/asia/2011/12/15/occupy-wukan-china’s-99-percent/) There has been allegedly no accounting of the entire money earned and disbursed through land sale deals. Villagers tried to address the problem through Grievance Redress Mechanism. Between July 2009 to March 2011, villagers have petitioned 5 times to Lufeng County government and 7 times to Guangdong Provincial government, but of no avail.
Protest Actions
In September, 2011, villagers gave up the hope of justice through the grievance redress mechanism and, for the first time, hit the streets. The protest went on for 2 days, which also turned violent as police vehicles were burnt and government offices were ransacked. Shanwei authorities, which supervise administrative work at Wukan, immediately moved in the riot control police that, according to villagers, indulged in large scale brutality. The local authorities promised to enquire into allegations of corrupt land deals. Authorities also sacked 2 party officials in the village, along with an offer to the villagers to form their own committee to negotiate with it. In turn, villagers chose 12 people as their representatives that included 42 year old Xue Jinbo. What transpired during negotiations, including how many rounds of talks were held, is still unclear. In December, spokesman of the Lufeng County government condemned the earlier protests and termed them as illegal. Zheng Yanxiong, party secretary for Shanwei city, perfectly summed up local authorities position, “If we meet all the villagers’ demands then it will raise all of society’s expectations too high.” [Financial Times, Dec. 20, 2011]
It has once again deteriorated the situation and villagers staged a sit-in to protest high-handed attitude of local authorities. In response to the protest, the authorities abducted 5 villagers by sending in police in plain-clothes. 2 days later, on 11th December, one of these 5 villagers – Xue Jinbo - died in police custody. The villagers claimed that he succumbed to the injuries inflicted upon him by the police, while authorities maintained that he died of the heart attack. Authorities refused to hand over body of the deceased to the villagers. This led to angry protests by Wukan residents, who chased away all government and CPC functionaries from the village, and cordoned off the village to prevent police from entering into it. The self-siege went on for 10 days, when Wukan had no presence of and contacts with government and CPC authorities. The residents also threatened to march into Lufeng county city if their demands remained unmet.
Role of Media
During the 10 days siege, neither telephone-mobile connections nor internet services of the village were snapped. The villagers could smuggle in essential commodities from nearby villages that helped them to sustain the self-siege for 10 long days. Chinese officials mostly censored the news related to Wukan in government controlled media, but Guangdong has many freewheeling publications that covered the developments in Wukan. International media got attracted to it only in the last phase, i.e. when angry villagers drove out the government authorities, which was made public by The Telegraph on 13th December. Hong Kong based Apple Daily, which is always at loggerheads with CPC, sent 7 people to cover the incident. Wukan’s proximity to Hong Kong also helped international journalists to approach it and many of them succeeded in breaching police cordon to enter the village. Similarly, some of the enthusiast Chinese bloggers reached Wukan to witness the ‘autonomous zone’.
Sensing opportunity to make their voices heard in Beijing, villagers converted an empty 2-story building in the village as media centre. Owner of the building, a Christian family, had moved to Hong Kong sometime back. Presence of powerful media had boosted villagers’ confidence. “We were very scared a day or two ago, but now, with the whole world watching, we don’t think they will dare do anything to us,” said a young villager, who was half-jokingly conferred the title of Wukan’s Foreign Minister by others [Financial Times, December 16, 2011]. Villagers consciously undertook efforts not to send any wrong signals to Beijing. Villagers imposed on the journalists not to report the incident as ‘uprising’. They also raised the banners reading ‘We are not Revolt’, ‘We Love the country’, and ‘We support the CPC’. In their interactions in the village; journalists, as reported by almost all present there, could understand that the villagers have had high expectations from leaders in Beijing. Villagers also impressed upon the journalists, as reported by many, that the Beijing has not yet intervened because the local functionaries must have misled the central leadership. As one villager said, “They [local authorities] have lied to us so many times, we just can’t trust them. Only the top government leaders and party central [committee] can save us and give us back our land.” Few villagers also talked about need of a ‘real democracy’, but qualified that they are not in fight with the Communist Party. One village leader, as reported by the Financial Times, said, “We want open, transparent democratic elections not just for our village or the county or city but also for the whole country, including the top leaders; I’m not an expert but I don’t think there’s a big contradiction between loving and supporting the Communist Party and asking for real democracy in China.” [Financial Times, December 18, 2011]
Resolution of the Siege
The ice was finally broken when the provincial level officials began talking to the villagers. Zhu Mingguo, deputy Party chief of Guangdong, held direct talks with the villagers and promised them fair and open investigations. Lin Zuluan, Wukan’s 65 year old chief negotiator, said that ‘unlike the local and County-level authorities, the Provincial representatives were sympathetic to villagers and did not condemn or term the protests illegal.’ In return of freeing of all the detained villagers, it was decided to lift the siege and proposed protest march to Lufeng was cancelled. Provincial authorities cancelled the results of village elections and village secretary of the CPC as well as elected head of the Village Committee remained removed from their posts. Main issue of the land was not resolved immediately but the authorities agreed to enquire into issues of financial irregularities and compensation. The initial response to Wukan, as promised by deputy Provincial chief, was swift and in favor of the villagers. It is best summed up by China Daily, a government controlled newspaper, on 31st December 2011 in its news report titled ‘Initial Probe Supports Villagers’ Request’:
“The main requests of the residents of a southern village in county level city of Lufeng, Guangdong province, regarding financing, land use and violation of law and discipline by village heads are reasonable, a preliminary investigation has found. The investigation, conducted by a special provincial work group since Dec 19 and released on Friday, indicated that some local officials violated the law and ethics of office while selling farmlands in Wukan village for commercial use…….. “The issue of land use, including collecting the land from villagers and selling to developers, has not been publicly and fairly disclosed to the residents since the 1990s,” said Yang Junbo, deputy director of the provincial department of land and resources, who is in charge of investigating the land issue under the provincial workgroup.
Since 1993, the former Wukan village committee sold about 42 hectares of farmland for commercial use. Only 3.6 hectares of that were approved or officially registered for use by local authorities, the preliminary investigation showed.
The village of 11,000 people has a total area of 638 hectares, of which 88 hectares arearable land. In one case, residents requested the return of 30 hectares of farmland that was developed jointly in by the village committee and a Hong kong company. The sale of the land, which was actually 4 hectares larger than the approved area was not disclosed to residents. In response to the villagers’ request, the Lufeng government has annulled the land transaction and is planning to compensate the developer and return the land to villagers for farming, said local government sources.
A number of local officials, including Xue Chang, former village Party Chief, and Chen Shunyi, head of the village committee, are alleged to have embezzled public assets and to have accepted bribes during the sale of farmland. Xue and Chen have been removed from their posts and the provincial work group said that an election of a new village committee will be held. “We will further investigate alleged violations of law and ethics of local officials involved in the village issue, regardless of how high their positions are, and we will inform residents of the results as soon as possible,” said Zeng Qingrong, deputy director of the Guangdong provincial department of supervision.
Regarding the financing issue, the work group found there is reason to suspect some former local officials of depositing public money into their personal bank accounts and using it without approval. Former village Party chief, Xue, allegedly purchased a car worth 20,000 yuan ($31,250) for personal use in July 2010. “Residents seldom benefitted from the land sales. We will instruct the local village committee to build a transparent and fair financing system in the near future,” said Gu Xingwei, deputy director of the Guangdong provincial department of agriculture, who is in charge of the village financing issue investigation.” [China Daily, Dec. 31, 2011]
Wang Yang: Rising Star of CPC
Decision against use of force at Wukan, it is understood, was taken by Polit Bureau member and secretary of Guangdong province Wang Yang. As a secretary of China’s wealthiest province since 2007, Yang implemented few reforms that immediately made him competitor for a seat on Standing Committee of the Polit Bureau. The elite party body is set for overhaul in late 2012 as 7 of its 9 members are facing compulsory retirement. Yang has been emphasizing on ‘thought emancipation’ and ‘protecting economic rights of some of the grass roots’. Although his plan for pilot political reforms in Shenzen, the commercial centre of Guangdong, did not materialize, Yang proceeded with protracted reforms that could have long term implications. He supervised restructuring of 41 separate government departments and their parallel party structures into 16 compact organs in the Shunde district. The new structure clearly outlines responsibilities of party functionaries and government officials. In a path-breaking move in October 2009, Yang decided to publish Guangzhou’s, Guangdong’s capital city, budget. This was ironically coincided with Shanghai authorities’ refusal for the same, terming the city budget as state secret. Guangdong also relaxed norms for registration of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The number of NGOs in Guangdong is already rising at triple the rate of national average. [IHT, Dec. 31, 2011, p.2] Last year, Wang Yang allowed the workers at various factories in the province to protest and restrained the police from arresting union leaders. Subsequently, workers’ wages were raised by about 20%, the first significant rise in many years. Yang is believed to be locked in a competition with Chongqing party secretary Bo Xilai for position in the top party body. Bo Xilai responds to organized crime as well as dissents in a similar fashion. Bo has earned his position as a conservative in the party by emphasizing on chanting of Maoist songs of Cultural Revolution era. At a time, when critics began to place Bo and Yang at the same level; pointing out that there is no difference between the two in the matter of suppression of dissents, Yang has demonstrated his will to resolve the grievances in favor of the ‘grass roots.’ At Wukan, Yang faced a choice between exerting repression to maintain ‘social stability’ and showing flexibility to avoid bloodbath. It is noteworthy that he immediately won praises in China’s semi-official newspaper People’s Daily for his courageous political act. The Hindu cited a Guangdong newspaper in which Wang Yang was quoted as follows: “There was something accidental about the Wukan incident but it was also inevitable. This is the outcome of conflicts that have accumulated over a long time in the course of economic and social development. It was the inevitable result of the government adopting an approach of having one hard hand and one soft hand when dealing with social and economic issues respectively.” [The Hindu, Dec. 21, 2011]
Rising Mass Incidents
‘Mass Incidents’ are officially defined as any kind of planned or impromptu gathering as a result of ‘internal contradictions’, which includes mass public speeches, physical conflicts, airing of grievances or any other forms of group behavior that may pose a threat to social stability. However, police and civic authorities apply different parameters to record the mass incidents. Police tend to include as many incidents as possible to prove their efficiency as well as to support their budget. On the other hand, civic authorities like to list minimal mass incidents under area of their supervision to indicate their popularity and acceptance.
In 1993, Ministry of Public Security recorded the number of mass incidents at 8,709. It reached the number of 87,000 for the year 2005. Government has stopped publishing National Statistics on mass incidents since 2005. Today, various reports claim the unprecedented rise in number of mass incidents in China, which are roughly estimated between 1,00,000 to 1,80,000 per year. However, this number refers to a very broad category of ‘public order disturbances’ including protests against government, ethnic riots, clashes among communities, activities of secret societies, organized crime, gambling and even hacking. However, there can be no denying the fact that social unrest in China is undoubtedly on rise and land issue and corruption are among the main reasons of increasing protests by the people all over the country.
Land Issue in China
According to Li Fan of Beijing-based World and China Institute, 50% to 60% of Chinese villages have been facing the similar problems, as experienced by Wukan, in terms of transparent governance and financial accountability. [IHT, Dec 27, 2011, p. 4] China has about 6,25,000 villages.
On paper, Chinese Law has empowered the villagers to decide about sale of their collectively owned land. However, matter has often been decided by elected representatives of the Village Committee. A common pretext for sale of the collective village land is to raise finances to provide civic services to the villagers. Collective land has also been used arbitrarily to build roads, power stations or any other infrastructure related development. Apart from this, the Village Committee sale or leases out the land to private developers to earn revenue for village’s development. With the introduction of local elections and constitution of elected Committees, Central and Provincial governments have transferred the responsibilities related to village level developments to the Village Committee. On the other hand, Village Committees do not have sufficient rights to levy adequate taxes to meet their expenses. New taxes are often subject to approval by the higher authorities, prompting the Village Committees to adopt easier way of sale of land to raise revenues. Similarly, land sale too requires permission from higher authorities that has created a chain of village to county to province level corrupt officials. The booming real estate industry in China is thriving on such corrupt deals. 8 out of China’s top 10 billionaires are involved in real estate developments, and in turn, in murky land deals. The kickbacks involved in such murky deals have converted the Village Elections into power games. Local CPC functionaries poured in lots of money to get elected to the offices. The CPC secretary of the Wukan village has remained the same since 1970, until last September, when angry villagers’ protests compelled the authorities to sack him. Similarly, 5 of the 9 members have been continuing in the Village Committee since introduction of the system in late 1980s.
According to China’s State Council, in 2011 alone, 1.1 million hectares of land has been transferred for non-agricultural use. Out of it, around 7,00,000 hectares were transferred illegally, resulting into many more joining the migratory army of unemployed and underemployed in China. In last 2 decades, approximately 75 million peasants in China have been driven out of agriculture, merging into 200 million rural residents who often migrate to urban areas in search of jobs. [Muldavin, Joshua, ‘China’s Shaky Economic Foundation, IHT, Dec. 31, 2011, p.6] This unstable and vulnerable population is one of the main cause of social instability in China. Immediately after the resolution of Wukan’s self-siege, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said, “China can no longer sacrifice farmers’ land rights for the sake of reducing the cost of urbanization and industrialization.” [ibid]
Conclusion
There are instances in the CPC’s recent history wherein the Party seized the moment and transformed its own policies according to the lessons learnt at the grass roots. CPC’s official history states that the de-collectivization of land and the Village Elections were initiated by the people at the micro level. The CPC, then, adopted them at the macro-level. Now, challenge before the 5th generation leadership, which will be at the helm of affairs in less than a year, is to learn appropriate lessons from the Wukan protests to ensure social stability in China. Wukan protests included two important elements: corrupt land deals and unethical behavior of local government officials. The central authorities tend to undermine such protests by terming them as complaints of petty-corruption against local government or businesspersons. At a deeper level, the protests, however, were more a result of systemic failure than the cyclical process in China. It indicate lack of rule of law, lack of transparent governance and lack of official accountability. Such protests underline the inefficiency of China’s grievance redress mechanism, which, in fact, has no relevance if fair judicial system is firmly established. The grass root protests also emphasize the need of bringing in more transparency and accountability in the Village elections and functioning of Village committees.
The Wukan protests also showed level of infiltration of internet and news media in China. It is becoming increasingly difficult for Chinese authorities to control and censor everything in the country. Chinese government also seems to realize that complete censorship will be counter-productive for it as Chinese youth is intensely engaging with the internet and the outside world. On the other hand, there are hints in the handling of Wukan protests that Chinese government is becoming conscious of its international image; hence, it has resolved the issue peacefully when it became the world-wide news.
The Wukan protests re-emphasized lack of connectivity between grass root protests and dissent of the intelligentsia in China. The grass root protests are emerging out of livelihood issues, whereas dissent of the intelligentsia aspires to change the one-party dominated state system. Unlike the dissenting intelligentsia, grass root protests still hold the CPC and its central leadership in high esteem and expectations. The dissenting intelligentsia, on the other hand, is unable to comprehend misery of the people involved in grass root protests. As a consequence, the CPC faces no imminent threat from the protests and dissents.
