Working for the peasants? Strategic interactions and unintended consequences in the Chinese rural tax reform

China Journal

Volumn , Issue 57, 2007, Pages 89-106

  Li, Linda Chelan ^a  

^a CITY UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG   (Hong Kong)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

AGRARIAN REFORM; POLICY DEVELOPMENT; RURAL POLICY; TAX REFORM;

EID: 33846911471     PISSN: 13249347     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/tcj.57.20066242     Document Type: Article

References (91)

1. The "building the socialist new village" (jianshe shehui zhuyi xin nongcui) campaign was first endorsed by the CCP central plenum in November 2005, and by the National People's Congress in March 2006 (http://news.qq.com/a/20060310/001383.htm, accessed on 14 March 2006).
2. Borrowing the idea from a similarly-named campaign in South Korea (in Chinese, xin cun [New Village] yundong) in the 1970s and 1980s, this initiative aims at enhancing rural development and improving rural welfare in the Chinese countryside. Ten provinces and municipalities started piloting the "green GDP" notion in their development in 2005 (see http://finance.sina.com.cn/g/20050301/04291391079.shtml, accessed on 6 April 2006),
3. and three (Guangdong, Zhejiang and Guizhou) had "green GDP" formally written in provincial 5-year plans in 2006 (See http://www.gdepb.gov.cn/hjgl/lsgd/zxdt/t2005110118812.htm, http://www.gov.cn/test/2006-02/07/content_181020.htm, http://www.gov.cn/ test/2006-02/08/content_181813.htm, accessed on 6 April 2006).
4. Two good examples of such rhetoric are in "Chen Xiwen Elaborating on New Village Initiatives - 5 Reasons Why the Center Embarks on the Initiative", retrieved at http://finance.people.com.cn/GB/1037/ 4131151.html, 20 August 2006,
5. and the 11th 5-year plan, especially Part 1, retrieved at http://news.xinhuanet.com/misc/2006-03/16/content_43095171.htm on 1 September 2006.
6. For more on this specific development, see Linda Chelan Li, "Differentiated Actors: Central and Local Politics in China's Rural Tax Reforms", Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 40, No. 1 (2006), p. 156.
7. This was part of a speech Wen gave during a work conference on rural tax reform in July 2004. See http://www/ccrs/org/en, accessed on 20 August 2004.
8. See Linda Chelan Li, "Differentiated Actors", pp. 154-63, for an extended analysis of the 2000 reform design.
9. See http://news.xinhuanet.com/zhengfu/2004-02/09/content_1304169.htm for the 2004 Document. Central outlay on the direct subsidy (the policy is 10 yuan per acre of crop-growing field) reached 11.6 billion yuan (2004) and 13.2 billion yuan (2005) (budget speeches, 2004-05).
10. The Chinese economy grew on average 9.7 per cent per year during the 1990s, while OECD and ASEAN countries grew by 2.6 per cent and 6.1 per cent respectively. National fiscal revenue has nearly doubled between 2000 (1,340 billion yuan) and 2004 (2,640 billion yuan), see OECD Factbook 2006: Economic, Environmental and Social Statistics, http://www.worldbank.org/data and http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/ndsj/2005/ indexch.htm.
11. In the 2006 budget, a total of 340 billion yuan was pledged to rural sector expenses, a rise of 42 billion from 2005 (see http://news.xinhuanet.com/misc/2006-03/17/content_4313792.htm, accessed on 28 March 2006).
12. These observations were matched in discussions in the Chinese literature. See He Kaiyin, "Nongmin jianfu: luzai hefang" (Looking for a Way to Reduce Peasants' Burden: Thoughts on Township Administrative Reform in Association with Rural Tax-for-fee Reforms), Diaoyan shijie (Explorations), Vol. 2 (2000), pp. 12-14;
13. Fu Guangming, "Chexiao xiangzhen: gaige xianxing xiangzhen zuzhi he caizheng tizhi yunxing moshi de tantao" (Abolish the Township Level: Exploring the Reform of the Mode of Operation of Township Administration and Fiscal System), Juece yu zixun (Decision-making and Consulting) (Anhui), No. 10 (2001), pp. 35-37;
14. Chen Xiwen, Zhongguo xianxiang caizheng yu nongmin zhansuo wenti yanjiu (A Study of County and Township Finance and Issues Around Increasing Peasants' Income) (Taiyuan: Shanxi Jingji Chubanshe, 2002);
15. Chen Xiwen, "Nongcun shuifei gaige buzhishi nongmin jianfu wenti" (The Rural Tax Reforms Are Not About Reducing Peasant Burden Only), Caijing (Finance and Business Review) (Beijing), Vol. 8, No. 65 (5 August 2002), accessed at http://caijing.hexun.com/text.aspx?ID= 1137888 on 20 October 2005;
16. He Zhenyi, "Shenhua nongcun shuifei gaige xinfanglui di tansuo" (Exploring New Strategies of Deepening the Rural "Tax-for-fee" Reform), Shuiwu Yanjiu (Taxation Affairs Research), Vol. 204, No. 5 (2002), pp. 2-5;
17. Zhang Jun, "Xiangzhen caizheng zhidu quexian yu nongmin fudan" (Institutional Defects of the Township Public Finance and Peasants' Burden), China Rural Survey, Vol. 4 (2002), pp. 2-13;
18. Xiang Jingquan, "Introduction: The Rural Tax-for-fee Reform - A Yet-to-complete Revolution", in Xiang Jingquan, Zouchu "Huang Zhongxi dinglune" di guaiquan: Zhongguo nongcun shuifei gaige di diaocha yu yanjiu (Investigation and Research on China's Fee-for-tax Reform) (Xian: Northwest University Press, 2004), pp. 1-62;
19. Liu Wenjuan and Zhao Peng, "Nongmin fudan fantan dongyin fenxi ji huajic celue" (Why Peasant Burden Rebounds: Causes and Resolving Strategies), Journal of Guangxi Financial College, Vol. 17, No. 2 (April 2004), pp. 49-52.
20. Thomas Bernstein and Xiaobo Lu, Taxation Without Representation in Contemporary Rural China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003);
21. Jonathan Unger, The Transformation of Rural China (Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 2002);
22. Ran Tao and Mingxing Liu, "Government Regulations and Rural Taxation in China", Perspectives, Vol. 5, No. 2 (30 June 2004), accessed at http://www.oycf.org/Perspectives/25_0603004/6.pdf;
23. Ray Yep, "Can 'Tax-for-fee' Reform Reduce Rural Tension in China? The Process, Progress and Limitations", The China Quarterly, No. 177 (March 2004), pp. 43-70;
24. Lorraine West, "Provision of Public Services in Rural PRC", in Christine P. W. Wong (ed.), Financing Local Government (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1997).
25. In another paper, "Path Creation: Processes and Networks: How the Chinese Rural Tax Reform Began", Policy and Society, Vol. 25, No. 1 (July 2006), pp. 61-84,
26. I tell the story of how the reform started in Anhui and made its way to Beijing. Hubei was the background of the widely circulated book on the plight of peasants and the rural crisis by former Party Secretary of Qipan Township, Li Changping, Wo dui zongli shuo shihua (Telling the Truth to the Premier) (Beijing: Guangming Publishing, 2002), which for a time had a substantial influence on official discourse on rural policy.
27. Linda Chelan Li, "Understanding institutional Change: Fiscal Management in Local China", Journal of Contemporary Asia, Vol. 35, No. 1 (January 2005), pp. 87-108. Yining District was formerly Yichang County until July 2001.
28. Linda Chelan Li, "Embedded Institutionalization: Sustaining the Rural Tax Reform in China", Pacific Review, Vol. 19, No. 1 (2006), pp. 63-84.
29. Linda Chelan Li, "Differentiated Actors", p. 157.
30. These include: "stop all local fund-raising activities, ban all expenditures geared to raising 'standards' or reaching 'benchmarks', establish transparent tax-fee collection and monitoring mechanisms, adjust and improve fiscal relations between county and township levels, and promulgate laws to protect better the rights of peasants". See Ren Bo, "Nongcun shuifei zhi bian" (How the [Reform on] Rural Taxes and Fees Has Evolved), Caijing (Beijing), No. 8 (6 August 2002), pp. 49-64.
31. The supplementary reform measures did include one item ("adjust and improve fiscal relations between county and township levels") that addressed the broader fiscal institutional context, but was limited to the county-township interface only.
32. Also of relevance to the simplification process discussed here is James Scott's notion of "state legibility project", in his Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), pp. 2-3, which refers to attempts by the state, through measures such as the imposition of permanent surnames on communities, artificially to simplify social diversities and thus enhance its control capacity.
33. See, for instance, papers in Xiang Jingquan (ed.), Zouchu "Huang Zhongxi dinglune" di guaiquan;
34. Linda Chelan Li and Wu Licai, "Daobi haishi fandaobi: Nongcun shuifei gaige qianhou zhongyang yu difang zijian di hudong" (Pressure for Changes: Central-Local Interactions in Rural Tax-for-fee Reform), Sociological Research (Beijing), No. 4 (July 2005), pp. 44-63.
35. Linda Chelan Li, "Embedded Institutionalization".
36. John James Kennedy, "Death of a Township: Impact of the 2002 Tax-For-Fee Reform in Northwest China", presented at the Association of Chinese Political Science 18th Annual Conference in San Francisco, California, 30-31 July 2005;
37. Tian Xiujuan, Zhao Feidan and Zhao Yang, "Cong nongcun shuifei gaige kan xiangzhen caizheng de kuanjing he chulu" (Difficulties and Opportunities in Township Finance: An Analysis of the Impact of the Rural Tax-for-fee Reform), Hongguan jingii yanjiu (Macro-economic Analysis), Vol. 9 (2003), pp. 33-36;
38. Zhu Gang, "Nongcun shuifei gaige yu xiangzhen caizheng kuikong" (Rural Tax-for-fee Reform and Township Budget Deficits), China Rural Survey, Vol. 2 (2002), pp. 13-20.
39. The status of the township as an independent level of government was the subject of a high-profile conference, "Conference on the Reform of the Township/Town Level of Government", in Wuhan in February 2004.
40. Some scholars argue against portraying townships as to blame for excessive burdens, pointing out that, despite some waste and misuse, fee incomes have supported important public goods provision including education and village roads. One example is Wu Licai, "Nongcun shuifei gaige dui xiangzhen caizheng de yingxiang ji qi houguo: yi Anhui weili" (Impacts and Consequences of the Rural Tax Reforms on Township Fiscal Finance: the Case of Anhui Province), in Xiang Jingquan (ed.), Zouchu "Huang Zhongxi dinglun" de guaiquan, pp. 271-72.
41. For a collection of major views in the Chinese debate, see Li Changping and Liu-ming Dong, Shuifei gaige beijingxia de xiangzhen tizhi yanjiu (Studies on the Township Government System in the Context of Rural Tax-for-fee Reforms) (Wuhan: Hubei Renmin Chubanshe, 2004).
42. For an analytical review of the literature, see Wu Licai, "Shuifei gaigezhong 'xiangzhen' gaige di lujing xuanche" (Options for Township Government System Reforms in the Context of Rural Tax-for-fee Reform), in Xiang Jingquan (ed.), Zouchu "Huang Zhongxi dinglune" di guaiquan, pp. 307-23.
43. In the English-language literature, John James Kennedy's "Death of a Township" offers a brief account of two strands of opinions, featuring Xu Yong, Director of Center for Chinese Rural Studies (CCRS) at Central Normal University, Wuhan, in favor of making townships a branch of county government, and Wu Licai, also of CCRS, advocating a form of democratic governance. For their views, see Xu Yong, "Xianzheng, xiangbai, cunzhi: xiangcun zhilide jiegouxing zhuanhuan" (County Government, Township Branch and Village Self-rule: The Structural Transformation of Rural Governance), Zhongguo Shiji (China Century), No. 771 (2004), retrieved from http://www.cc.org.cn/newcc/browwenzhang.php?articleid=1470 on 27 September 2005,
44. and Wu Licai, "Guanmin hejou tizhi: xiangzhen zhizi" (State-Society Cooperative Governance: Towards an Autonomous Township?), in Li Changping and Liu-ming Dong, Shuifei gaige beijingxia de xiangzhen tizhi yanjiu, pp. 33-65.
45. In a symposium at the City University of Hong Kong, October 2004, Anhui reform activist He Kaiyin explicitly advocated a 3-tiered government structure, without townships and prefectures. See He Kaiyin and Zhang Deyuan, "Zhongguo nongcun wenti ji zhengfu zhengce fazhan de huigu" (A Review of Chinese Rural Issues and the Development of Related Government Policies), Hong Kong Journal of Social Sciences, forthcoming (Spring/Summer 2007).
46. See John James Kennedy, "Death of a Township".
47. Linda Chelan Li, "Understanding Institutional Change", pp. 87-108.
48. Like other tax reform measures, the practice of xiangcai xianguan (county governments managing township budgets) started in Anhui Province in 2003. The major objective was to tighten up oversight and improve efficiency in fiscal management. See Anhui Provincial Government Directive No. 13 (2004), "On fully implementing the Township Fiscal Management System", 12 July 2004.
49. Earlier on, accounting at the subtownship agencies had been centralized at the township fiscal bureau in a pioneering reform in Yichang County, Hubei Province, in 1998. A crucial control measure was prohibiting agencies from holding independent bank accounts, hence giving the name of the reform, "zero-bank-account initiative". On this last point, see my "Understanding Institutional Change".
50. Fu Guangming, "Chexiao xiangzhen", argues that tax extraction was always the main activity undertaken in sub-county administrative units throughout Chinese history. To contain their growth and save costs, these units had been kept from developing into full-fledged administration units until 1984.
51. See Akhil Gupta, "Blurred Boundaries: The Discourse of Corruption, the Culture of Politics, and the Imagined State", American Ethnologist, Vol. 22, No. 2 (1995), pp. 375-402.
52. Lianjiang Li, "Political Trust in Rural China", Modern China, Vol. 30, No. 2 (April 2004), pp. 228-58. At the same time, one should also say that while malpractice can be common at each level of government, local officials' malpractice is easier to spot. So this "perception" is not entirely the result of "active" scapegoating.
53. This respondent is a provincial-level official in Anhui and has played a critical role in the gestation stage of the reform leading to its adoption as national policy. For the story of this stage of the reform process, and the role of the network of actors, see my "Path Creation? Processes and Networks: How the Chinese Rural Tax Reform Got Started", Policy and Society, Vol. 25, No. 1 (July 2006), pp. 61-84.
54. See http://www.china.org.cn/chinese/2001/Feb/20993.htm,
55. and Chen Guidi and Chun Tao, Zhongguo nongmin diaocha (A Survey of Chinese Peasants) (Beijing: Renmin Wenxue Chubanshe, 2004), p. 395.
56. See http://www.lzagri.gov.cn/02/sfgg_004.htm for a news report on the meeting (accessed on 13 October 2005),
57. and Chen Guidi and Chun Tao, Zhongguo nongmin diaocha, p. 396.
58. http://www.people.com.cn/GB/shizheng/16/20010316/418508.html, accessed 14 October 2005. The "sloppiness" in Zhu's answer on the rural tax refom was also noticed by many respondents in field interviews.
59. State Council Document, "To further improve the work on the rural tax-for-fee pilot reforms", 24 March 2001.
60. Interviews with central fiscal officials, Beijing, 2002, 2004.
61. See also Ren Bo, "Nongcun shuifei zhi bian", which notes central policy-makers' intention to use the revenue "deficit" to force township governments to downsize.
62. Rural affairs, including those of a fiscal nature, fell under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Agriculture, whilst the Ministry of Civil Affairs was in charge of developing grassroots-level rural administration. Agricultural taxes and fees, until the onset of rural tax reforms, were collected by a township agency under the leadership of the Ministry of Agriculture. Township fiscal departments, which come under the Ministry of Finance, have remained underdeveloped despite townships nominally having their own budget.
63. The tension between Jiang and Zhu was well documented in a book reportedly by a former aide of Zhu (Zong Hairen, Zhu Rongji zai 1999 [Zhu Rongji in 1999] [Hong Kong: Mirror Books, 2001]).
64. Liangshi shougou tiaoli (Regulation on the State Purchase of Grains) passed in June 1998. The new law prohibited the deduction of tax and fees from the prices paid to peasants at the time of state procurement, which ran against the practice of tax collection in the tax-for-fee reform localities. All pilot localities, except those in Anhui, stopped the reform as a result. See Chen Guidi and Chun Tao, Zhongguo nongmin diaocha, pp. 340-47, 350-53.
65. On Jiang's speech in Hefei, see Ta Kung Pao (Impartial Daily) (Hong Kong), 5 October 1998, p. A6.
66. Contributing to Zhu's quick change of stance was the controversy which the circulation reform aroused soon after implementation. An influential CCTV public affairs program, "Jiaodian Fangtan" (Focus), featured a sensational report in November 1998 on county leaders fabricating evidence and lying to Zhu regarding the "success" of the reform during an inspection tour (see a CCTV report on the background of the program at http://www.cctv.com/news/special/C12572/ 20040706/101527.shtml, accessed 19 October 2005). Guangdong Provincial Fiscal Bureau's official journal, Guangdong Caizheng, ran a collection of papers in the October 2002 issue criticizing the reform design and, implicitly, Zhu.
67. The three members were Finance and Agriculture Ministers and the head of the central leading group on economics and finance.
68. Chen Guidi and Chun Tao, Zhongguo nongmin diaocha, p. 354.
69. Interviews in Anhui, 2004.
70. Whilst the Chinese securities market was relatively cushioned during the Asian Financial Crisis as a result of the non-convertibility of renminbi (yuan) internationally, the crisis indirectly triggered the collapse of major investment corporations such as Guangdong International Trust and Investment Corporation, exposing the huge fiscal risk that local governments across the country had taken when underwriting loans of state-owned banks and enterprises. The central government eventually lent Guangdong Provincial Government several hundreds of billions of yuan to help it through the crisis (interviews, Guangzhou, 2003; see also Wu Jiesi, Yuehai chongzu shilu (A Record of the Restructuring of Guangdong International Trust and Investment Corporation) (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Commercial Press, 2002).
71. State Council Document, "A notice on issues on the work on rural tax-for-fee reform pilots in 2001", 25 April 2001.
72. For international coverage on the "abortion" of the reform, see a report in Wall Street Journal, 19 July 2001, p. 3, entitled "China's Farmer-tax Overhaul Stalls", and reports in South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), 8 June 2001 ("Zhu Reveals Slowdown of Reforms"), and 23 July 2001 ("Premier's Rural Tax Reform Falters").
73. See also Ren Bo, "Nongcun shuifei zhi bian", which quotes a deputy bureau chief of State Council Rural Tax Reform Work Leading Group, Yang Shuizhou, citing these same two reasons for the suspension decision in April 2001: (1) inaccurate initial calculation of reform costs, and (2) the perceived need to conserve for the financial crisis.
74. See budget speeches by Finance Minister delivered to the National People's Congress during 2003-05.
75. Taxing of transfers by intermediate layers appears to be an endemic practice. In both Hubei counties (Yichang and Xian'an), for instance, county officials complained of "taxes" by superiors at the prefectural level when provincial and central funds earmarked for the localities passed through prefectural hands.
76. See "Executive Vice Provincial Governor and Deputy Party Secretary of Hubei Province Deng Daoquan Speaking to the Press, 28 June 2002", in http://ncxb.cnhubei.com, accessed on 6 January 2004. Hubei Province started to "trial-run" the reform in spring 2002 with a small number of townships in preparation for the formulation of reform plan for the entire province. I was at the site of such a trial run in a field trip during spring 2002 (interviews, 2002).
77. These were the themes raised in a Provincial Tele-conference on Rural Tax-for-Fee Reform Pilot-runs, as reported in Hubei Daily, 25 June 2002, accessed at http://ncxb.cnhubei.com on 6 January 2004.
78. Maria Heimer (Edin), "Taking an Aspirin: Implementing Tax and Fee Reform at the Grassroots", presented at the Grassroots Political Reform in Contemporary China Conference, 29-31 October 2004, Fairbank Center, Harvard University. The paper identifies three "must-not-happen" situations of social unrest rising from peasant burdens that township officials are subjected to: 1) tensions leading to major use of force, with serious injury or death of peasants; 2) clashes with peasants resulting in major roads/train lines being blocked or governments being attacked; 3) situations in which force is used to collect taxes, or where peasants commit suicide.
79. In Hubei as of 2003, the main benchmarks were 1) burden per acre of farmland had to go below 100 yuan; 2) the level of burden for any household after reform must not exceed the level of burden before reform (interviews, Guangzhou and Wuhan, 2004). Anhui Province in a 2002 directive ("On penalizing administrative behavior contravening the rural tax-for-fee reform policy", 30 November 2002, accessed at http://www.ah.gov.cn on 10 March 2005) lists 12 circumstances which may lead to the firing of officials, and more for demotions.
80. Both Anhui and Hubei, where I conducted fieldwork, set up inspection teams. In Hubei, each team was headed by a senior official of deputy-bureau-chief level with members temporarily seconded from other provincial bureaus. A special inspection office was established inside the Provincial Fiscal Bureau to provide secretarial and logistical support (interviews, 2004). See "The Speech by Zhang Ping at the Provincial Tax-for-Fee Reform Inspection Work Meeting, 20 June 2002", accessed at http://www.ah.gov.cn on 5 March 2005, for announcement of inspection teams in Anhui.
81. I had interviews, during 2003 and 2004, with members in these inspection teams as well as county officials receiving the teams.
82. Interviews, 2003 and 2004.
83. The highest reduction rate in 2003 was achieved by Guangdong (74 per cent), whilst all provinces exceeded the 20 per cent required by the central government. See Linda Chelan Li, "Differentiated Actors", p. 158.
84. A provincial source once commented that the most difficult part in reform implementation was to know exactly how much had been taken from peasants pre-reform, since "illegal", or "extra-system", items were rarely carefully recorded. Nevertheless, he also agreed that, due to the stepped-up post-reform monitoring, by and large the peasant burden had been brought under control. This view was widely shared by our interviewees across provinces.
85. This town had an average annual rural income of 2,249 yuan (2002), slightly lower than the national average of 2,476 yuan (interviews, 2002; China Statistical Yearbook 2003). It has industries in bamboo handicraft, building and construction materials and food processing, and a robust wholesale market in bamboo products, generating a total profit and tax income of some 40 million yuan in 2004. The foreign joint venture, with a Hong Kong partner, is in the food-processing industry. The town was merged with another well-off town in the county in a consolidation exercise in late 2004.
86. Information from interviews with town officials, May 2004. This was less than half of the fiscal revenue in 2002 (3.9 million yuan), when the burden-reduction reforms had yet to have an impact. The basic social security payments refer to those paid to the most vulnerable groups of rural residents, for example, orphans, the elderly without children, and disabled people, in accordance with the "Regulation on providing for the 5-guarantees for the needy". Before the reform these payments were financed by a fee collected by the town government. The fee was abolished along with others as a result of the tax reform, and the payments had to come from the town budget coffers.
87. This town is in Qianshan County, southwest Anhui. It had an average annual rural income of 1,486 yuan in 2002, 40 per cent below the national average. Annual local fiscal income in 2001, a year after rural tax-for-fee reform was implemented, was around 1.3 million yuan, whilst expenditure was 2.7 million yuan, the balance financed by fiscal subsidies from above. The town was mostly dependent on agriculture and remittance income from outgoing migrant workers, though there was also some revenue from local trade, being in the middle of a "catchment" of neighboring towns (interviews, 2002). See also Wu Licai and Linda Chelan Li, "Xiangzhen caizheng ji qi gaige chutan" (A Preliminary Analysis of Township Public Finance and Reforms), China Rural Survey (Beijing: Rural Economy Journal Press), Vol. 4 (2003), pp. 15-24.
88. This town is in Feixi County, with annual rural per capita income of 2,950 yuan as of 2005, compared to a national average of 3,255 yuan (interviews, 2005; http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjfx/ztfx/tjgbjd/ t20060302_402308142.htm, accessed 10 August 2006).
89. Anhui piloted the management of township finance at the county level in 9 selected counties in 2003, ahead of most of the country, and extended the centralization province-wide in 2004.
90. The other two objectives are reducing peasants' burden (and sustaining the reduction), and maintaining the smooth functioning of rural schools and guaranteeing the pay of schoolteachers (Document No. 7, 2000).
91. Provincial governments, rather than counties, are made responsible for making sure that school education is properly funded under the newly amended Law on Compulsory Education. The amendments were put to the NPCSC in February 2006 and passed in late June 2006. See South China Morning Post, 26 February 2006, p. A6, and http://www.qgbzb.cee.edu.cn/ article_show.asp?articleid=259, retrieved 15 November 2006.