Direct elections of town and township heads in china: The Dapeng and Buyun Experiments

China Information

Volumn 15, Issue 1, 2001, Pages 104-137

  Cheng, Joseph Y S ^a  

^a CITY UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG   (Hong Kong)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84992785701     PISSN: 0920203X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0920203X0101500103     Document Type: Article

References (30)

1. Jiang Zemin, “Hold High the Great Banner of Deng Xiaoping Theory for an All-Round Advancement of the Cause of Building Socialism with Chinese Characteristics into the 21st Century-Report Delivered at the 15th National Congress of the Communist Party of China on September 12, 1997,” Beijing Review 40, no. 40, 6-12 October 1997, 23-24.
2. See John P. Bums, “The People's Republic of China at 50: National Political Reform,” The China Quarterly, no. 159 (September 1999): 580-94.
3. The laws and regulations on elections in China promulgated before 1990 referred to in this article can be found in the Research Office of the Office of the NPC Standing Committee, ed., Zhonghua remin gongheguo renmin daibiao dahui wenxian ziliao huibian (1949-1990) (A compendium of documentary materials on the people's congresses of the People's Republic of China (1949-1990)) (Beijing: Zhongguo minzhu fazhi chubanshe, 1990).
4. See Sylvia Chan, “Village Self-Government and Civil Society,” in China Review 1998, ed. Joseph Y. S. Cheng (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1998), 235-58.
5. Susan V. Lawrence, “Village Representatives Assemblies, Democracy, Chinese Style,” The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, no. 32 (July 1994): 61-68.
6. Thomas Heberer, “Hebei-The View from Below, Consequences of Economic Development: The Bottom-Up Process of Change,” paper presented at the China Provinces in Reform Second Workshop, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 20-24 October 1996, 9; and Kevin J. O'Brien, “Implementing Political Reform in China's Villages,” The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, no. 32 (July 1994): 33-59.
7. Jiang 1997, 24-26.
8. Barrington Moore, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World (London: Allen Lane, 1967).
9. Keith Crawford, East Central European Politics Today (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1996), 83-84.
10. Zou Shubin, “Cong cunmin zizhi dao jiceng zhengquan jianshe” (From village selfgovernment to the construction of grassroots-level governance), Zhongguo shehui kexue jikan (Chinese social sciences quarterly), No. 26 (Summer 1996), 15.
11. See He Baogang, The Democratic Implications of Civil Society in China (Basingstoke and London: Macmillan, 1997), 123-46.
12. See, for example, John Keane, ed., Civil Society and the State, New European Perspectives (London: Verso, 1988), 1-5 and 263-398; Vladimir Tismaneanu, ed., In Search of Civil Society: Independent Peace Movement in the Soviet Bloc (New York: Routledge, 1991); and Zbigniew Rau, ed., The Reemergence of Civil Society in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union (Boulder: Westview Press, 1991).
13. Chan 1998, 248-49.
14. See Jean C. Oi, “Two Decades of Rural Reform in China: An Overview and Assessment,” The China Quarterly, no. 159 (September 1999): 616-28.
15. See Zhang Tiesen et al., Zhongguo nongcun gaige de zhexue sikao (Philosophical reflections on China's rural reform) (Beijing: Zhongguo nongye chubanshe, 1995), 188.
16. See Marie-Claire Bergère, “Tiananmen 1989: Background and Consequences,” unpublished paper, 1990, 1-18; and Richard Baum, Burying Mao: Chinese Politics in the Age of Deng Xiaoping (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994).
17. See Elizabeth J. Perry, “Casting a Chinese ‘Democracy’ Movement: The Roles of Students, Workers and Entrepreneurs,” in Popular Protest and Political Culture in Modern China, ed. Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom and Elizabeth J. Perry (Boulder: Westview Press, 1992), 146-64; and David Wank, “Private Business, Bureaucracy, and Political Alliance in a Chinese City,” The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, no. 33 (January 1995): 55-71.
18. Wu Guoguang and Wang Shaojun, Deng Xiaoping zhi hou de Zhongguo (China after Deng Xiaoping) (Taipei: Shijie shuju, 1994), 148-65.
19. Kevin O'Brien and Lianjiang Li, “The Politics of Lodging Complaints in Rural China,” The China Quarterly, no. 143 (September 1995): 756-83.
20. Deng Zhenglai and Jing Yuejin, “Jiangou Zhongguo de shimin shehui (Constructing China's civil society), Zhongguo shehui kexue jikan (Chinese social sciences quarterly), no. 1 (November 1992): 58-68.
21. This case study is based on documents obtained by the author from the Guangdong People's Congress, the Longgang District Government and the Dapeng Town Government during his visit to Dapeng in late April 1999; the written and oral reports on the Dapeng election of its town head in early 1999, presented by cadres from the Guangdong People's Congress at the conference on elections at the town and township level in Beijing on 26-28 December 1999 organized by the Institute of Political Science (CASS); and interviews conducted by the author during his visit to Dapeng and said conference.
22. These are generally known as the “four guidelines concerning cadre requirements” g(anbu s)ihua f.angzhen
23. The village is located in Lishu township, Lishu county, Siping city. For a detailed account of the Beilaohao village election, see Shi Weimin and Lei Jingxuan, Zhiqie xuanju: zhidu yu guocheng (Direct elections: systems and processes) (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1999), 201-34.
24. The Representatives’ Work Committee is a unit of the Standing Committee; the members are cadres, not deputies of the people's congress. It liaises with its counterparts in the upper levels of people's congresses.
25. This case study is based on the written and oral reports on the direct election of the Buyun township head in December 1998, presented by the leading cadres of the Shizhong District Party Committee at the conference on elections at the town and township level in Beijing on 26-28 December 1999 organized by the Institute of Political Science (CASS); interviews conducted by the author during this conference; and the documents and videotapes on the election obtained by the author from the leading cadres of the Shizhong District Party Committee.
26. This usually meant that each voter was given ten yuan or more to achieve the guaranteed voter turnout rate.
27. See Joseph Y. S. Cheng, “Xuanju zhidu de gaige” (Reforms of the electoral system), Zhongguo guoqing guoli (China national conditions and strength) (a Beijing monthly), no. 74, 7 February 1999, 4.
28. For summaries of Premier Zhu Rongji's Government Work Report to the National People's Congress delivered on 5 March 2000 as well as commentaries on the report, see all major newspapers in Hong Kong on the following day.
29. See also Ming pao, 30 April 1999.
30. Yangcheng wanbao (a Guangzhou Chinese evening newspaper), 28-29 April 1999.