China Information

This article has three objectives: 1) to assess the contribution of villager self-government to the development of community councils in urban China; 2) to discuss whether there are lessons to be learned from the experiments in urban community councils relevant to the building of rural communities; and 3) most importantly, to raise theoretical issues common to both villager self-government and urban community councils. In fulfilling these three aims, this article will further understanding of the expansion of grassroots democracy and increasing citizens’ participation in China.

The article’s comparative approach will incorporate an analysis of the institutionalization of the ‘Four Democracies’ at the village level and the extent to which they are also being implemented in the different and varying circumstances of the urban experiments and environments. We are interested in whether the villagers’ committees and residents’ committees, especially the latter in their restyled community status, are training grounds for citizenship. The different human landscapes of village and community, however, will have a profound effect on the nature and exercise of citizenship.

This article discusses two aspects of government reform in Shunde County in Guangdong during the 1990s, ahead of national developments. One was the restructuring of the government, including: marketization; delinking of enterprises and government bureaus; rationalization of organizational boundaries; and streamlining of the top city leadership structures. The other involved the divestment of public assets and a substantial redefinition of the role of the government in the economy. The role of local agency is highlighted in the processes of change, and the national impact of Shunde’s early reforms is noted.

This article aims to explore the contributions of Chinese Catholic sisters in the Deng-Jiang era by examining their way of life and the problems they face within and outside the church structure. In the course of this discussion, we look at the history of Chinese Catholic sisters and the harassment they experienced in Maoist China. In discussing the sisters’ way of life, we discover that they face important problems: difficulties with recruitment stemming from the sociopolitical situation in China, and inadequate training, both religiously and professionally, which hamper the sisters’ development. We therefore conclude that leadership and institutional norm-building within the sister congregations are matters calling for immediate attention.

Based on a survey of 3000 households in 22 villages in industrialized and agricultural areas in China, this article discusses private egalitarian attitudes towards income distribution, support for the elderly, poverty relief and land distribution. The effects of employment, age, political affiliation and income differ substantially between the two regions. Data on contracted landholdings are used to demonstrate inter-village differentials in implementation of land distribution policies. Egalitarian distribution of farmland does not necessarily produce greater equality of total income.