Rural Roots of Reform Before China's Conservative Change by Lynn T White Iii

Author:Lynn T White Iii [White, Lynn T Iii]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780815371052
Google: W3NHtAEACAAJ
Goodreads: 39219000
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2018-01-15T13:36:28+00:00

Three types of “ownership,” but one type of politics at many sizes

China officially has three ownership systems – by the state (theoretically representing “all the people,” called the chuanmin suoyou zhi), by collectives (jiti suoyou zhi), and by private persons (geti suoyou zhi). These can also be used, in any combination, to create a diverse fourth “joint” (lianhe) category. But dissenters joke that in fact China has just one major ownership system: by supervising “departments” (one reformer called this the bumen suoyou zhi, using a very unofficial name for it).

The Chinese state slowly had to accept, in the course of reforms until the 1990s, that it could not fully control many low-level units of its administrative hierarchy. Many “state” cadres were not solely beholden to the state. Official definitions of ownership categories nearly acknowledged this situation. Government offices reported statistics from four types of owners, of which three require little explanation here. The issue of “state cadres” acting outside the official apparatus arises most often in the large and important third category, the collectives.

1) State-owned enterprises are fully “nationalized,” though often managed by provincial or other jurisdictions.22

2) Private enterprises are fully owned and operated by individuals.

3) Collective enterprises are diverse. They are first officially subdivided into two types, urban or rural. Each of these contains three subtypes: Within the urban category, some collectives are controlled as satellites by state enterprises; these are often locally designed to minimize remittance imposts and hire more staff than the personnel rosters of state enterprises allow. A second type of urban collective is supposed to be controlled by local governments at the city, district, or street levels (shi, qu, or jiedao). But ownership is not vested in the state, since these are collectives. It is socialist at the local level, monitored by local leaders who can have concurrent official posts but somehow should avoid using government powers unduly to help their firms corruptly. A third type covers “true” collectives, formed by individuals cooperating with each other who find they can succeed best by not formally designating their businesses “private.” Rural collectives also come in three types. First are firms authorized by local governments that are not state enterprises; companies in this category created the “Sunan model” that provided dynamism for reform near Shanghai and is the most important category on this list. A second type is founded by local community organizations that are not technically part of the state but have official status, such as “united front” groups. A third sort comprises rural collectives run by groups of ordinary citizens.23

4) A residual “other” category includes all kinds of firms that are joint (state-with-collective, collective-with-private, state-with-foreign, collective-with-foreign, and so forth). Among such firms, the degree of coordination by high state bureaucrats varies greatly, from considerable planning to very occasional visits.

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