On the same issue of rural associations, China analyst David Cowhig introduced another China scholar’s work. Here is the email from David:

Yu Jianrong of CASS also says that peasants organizing themselves to represent their own interests is the only way they will be able to solve their problems. Yu suggests that China should let the township level be self governing and make the county the lowest level of the PRC government system.

Yu’s article “Why I Propose Recreating the Rural Associations” is in Chinese.

The rural associations were important in village societies until the PRC abolished them in 1950. Yu traces the history of these associations from the late Qing through the Republican era. Yu discusses one peasant association organized by some peasants in Henyang, Hunan in 2003. They aim to organize the peasants to defend their rights and pledge they are loyal to the Communist Party. Yu says that some of the petition representatives he has surveyed in Hunan want to organize these peasant associations. Yu said that none of them want to usurp state power.

I copied an excerpt below from another of Yu’s articles on peasant associations. The full article, entitled “China’s Rural Political Crisis: Symptoms, Root Causes and How to Resolve It” (‰∏≠ÂõΩÂÜúÊùëÁöÑÊîøÊ≤ªÂç±Êú∫ÔºöË°®Áé∞„ÄÅʆπÊ∫êÂíåÂØπÁ≠ñ)

Yu has done field work and written extensively about the peasant rights movement in Hunan Province, peasant conflicts over illegal taxes and fees and over land (see the URL above — that article has been referred to frequently in the PRC media). In the study that Yu did on behalf of the central government, Yu surveyed many people who visited Beijing to present petitions. In the Peking University speech, he refers to some field work in Hebei. Judging by the half dozen or so article by Yu that I have read online (including the transcript of his speech at Harvard in late 2003) and in press interviews that he has given, these notes are consistent with what Yu has been saying.

The Yannan website referred to in the text has a collection of Yu Jianrong’s writings at here.

The chinese text of Yu Jianrong’s December 2003 talk at Harvard “Organized Peasant Resistance in Contemporary China: Implications for Rural Stability” is at here.

Below I translated the titles of some of these articles:

土地问题已成为农民维权抗争的焦点

Land Disputes have Already Become the Central Issue for the Peasant Rights Movement

农民维权重心出现重大变化

There has been a great change in the focus of the peasant rights movement

当代中国农民的以法抗争

Today’s Chinese Peasants Use the Law in their Resistance

农村黑恶势力和基层政权退化

Criminal Forces in China’s Villages and the Decline of Grassroots Government

农民有组织抗争及其政治风险一 二 三

Organized Peasant Resistance and Its Accompanying Political Risks

要重新认识农民和解放农民

Reacquainting Ourselves with the Chinese Peasants and Liberating the Chinese Peasants

农民是如何失去土地所有权？

How did the Peasants Lose their Ownership of their Land?



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What’s Behind Peasant Resistance — Survey and Analysis of Incidents in Rural Villages in Hunan

民主制度与中国乡土社会

Democratic System and Chinese Rural Society

乡村建设运动对农村政治结构的影响

乡村自治：皇权、族权和绅权的联结

人民公社的权力结构和乡村秩序

近代中国地方权力结构的变迁

Changes in the Structure of Local Power in Modern China

中国农村政治的现状和发展趋势

黑恶势力是如何侵入农村基层政权的？

How did Criminal Forces Insinuate Themselves into Rural Grassroots Govenment?



失范的契约：形式民主下的枷锁

乡村选举：利益结构和习惯演进

Village elections: the evolution of interest structures and custom

20世纪中国农会制度的变迁及启迪

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清代与民国保甲体制的比较

三农问题的关键何在？

乡村建设运动对农村政治结构的影响

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Yu’s work shows clearly that great change in the thinking of Chinese peasants — they are becoming more aware of their rights and are become more organized as they demand their rights. Organization is now at the village and subcounty level in many areas. There are many parallel movements that use the same rhetoric of rights and send representatives to confront local officials and to send petitions to higher levels. This emerging civil rights movement is one of the most important things going on in China today. Many Chinese dynasties have fallen to peasant rebellions so some leaders might well see the present situation as reform or die.