(May 3, 2009)

On October 28, 1984, the head of Shanyang township, Yang Yongquan, was riding his bike over the bridge leading to the Dahe station when his way was suddenly blocked by a man in his 60s. Wang Yongxu began begging Yang to hand over the money earmarked for resettlement to the intended beneficiaries, such as himself. Yang became annoyed and tried to get away from the peasant, who persisted in blocking his path. Yang got off his bike and pushed Wang in the effort to get past him. Wang was frail, lost his balance and fell to the ground. Many villagers witnessed the encounter and rushed to the elderly man’s assistance. They surrounded Yang, berating him. Yang, the township leader, ended up abandoning his bike and fleeing the scene on foot.

This spontaneous incident occurred against the backdrop of heightened tensions in Shanyang. To strengthen their case, petition organizers cited in an appeal document this “physical assault” on Wang as an example of local cadres’ lack of respect for the elderly and their abuse of the people whose lives had been harmed by the dam. The township government, meanwhile, said the incident was the result of the deliberate manipulation of local people by the elite of the affected people, that they were attempting to stir up trouble between local officials and the masses. So officials also mentioned the incident in their own documents submitted to higher levels.

By early 1985, the county government, which had tried to distance itself from the resettlement problems, began to come into direct conflict with the petition organizers. On April 15 of that year, a work team headed by Wang Jintang, the vice-governor of Yunyang, returned to Shanyang to look into the diversion of funds by local cadres, and to work out how to get the calcium-carbide factory up and running again.

During the investigation, which continued for more than 40 days, a heated dispute arose over the factory’s financial affairs and whether it should resume production. At a meeting attended by more than 300 local people, Vice-Governor Wang criticized the leaders of the former Shanyang commune for diverting resettlement funds to other uses. After announcing additional relief of 9,000 yuan for the affected zone in Shanyang, Wang stressed that the government could help resolve the problems and that resuming production at the factory was part of the solution.

But his words did not have the desired effect, and villagers continued to insist that the first priority had to be a thorough inspection of factory accounts – and that the audit should be supervised by local people. They also wanted a 70,600-yuan bank loan that had been taken out to build the factory to be forgiven before production resumed. The work team could not accept these demands, so Vice-Governor Wang and his team left Shanyang having made little headway on the factory issue.

The county government was becoming frustrated and worried about the deadlock over the factory issue. The affected groups wanted to assume ownership of the factory but to leave its debts in the hands of the township government. If this was allowed to happen, the township government would become unworkable. In fact, while the work team was in Shanyang, the township government threatened to resign if something was not done about Teacher Xu. And now that the elite of the affected people were standing their ground and refusing to continue negotiations, the county government decided to punish certain “bad elements” who were seen to be driving a wedge between the masses and the government.

One of those bad elements was Teacher Xu. In May of 1985, the county education bureau decided to transfer him to a primary school in Shatu district, a remote area 100 kilometres from Shanyang. Officials from the education bureau and the party committee’s propaganda department told him the move would be good for him. “It will get you out of a predicament. You’ll be so far away that nobody will bother you any more.” Teacher Xu ignored the order to move, and was suspended without pay soon afterward.

One evening, Teacher Xu and Tailor Wang heard a rumour that they were about to be detained for “inciting the masses to make trouble” the previous year. They set out immediately for the provincial capital to seek protection from higher authorities, and although they were unable to arrange a meeting with officials there, they did manage to avoid arrest. In the meantime, provincial authorities sent a letter to prefecture officials, urging them to expedite the handling of the resettlement problems, and not to retaliate against petitioners who submitted appeals to higher authorities.

The villagers of Shanyang no longer expected anything from the county government, but did hold out hope that high-ranking officials in far-off places, especially those in Beijing, would take care of them. They truly believed that their beloved top leaders were deeply concerned about their plight. Those leaders had not shown up yet in person to help them only because they were so busy with all the affairs of state, but they would come one day to rescue them from their misery. The villagers felt certain that the top leaders’ hearts and theirs beat as one, and that local officials were the problem as they tried to come between them.

Dong Guoguang arrives on the scene

One day, the deputy commissioner of the prefecture and his work team arrived in Shanyang to investigate the situation. Local people liked what they saw: Here was a man who acted very much like the beloved leaders of their dreams. Unlike most officials, who avoided contact with ordinary people and seemed only interested in listening to the reports of local cadres, Dong Guoguang was an amiable, approachable man who talked with ordinary people in a straightforward manner. He conducted his own on-the-spot investigations and also asked his team members to visit petitioners’ homes to get a sense of their living conditions. The villagers liked his style, and regarded him as honest and upright.

Coming from a peasant background himself, Dong was saddened by the fact that so many households were suffering a shortage of grain and that a great many problems with the Dahe resettlement operation remained unresolved. He genuinely tried to sort things out. One of the proposals he put forward was to give additional compensation to three downstream groups for their losses in the 1982 floods, if they would agree to give up their claims to part-ownership of the factory. He explained his decision to me:

[quote] “I felt it was important to make a clear distinction between the zone affected by the Dahe dam and the area affected by natural floods alone. The provincial water conservancy institute had calculated that the force of the water discharged from the Dahe reservoir would dissipate at about 1,200 metres downstream of the dam. In other words, the river valley below that point was not affected by the water discharges, and so I felt it was wrong to blame the Dahe station for the scouring problem in that section.”[/quote]

In theory, this made some sense. But in reality it was very difficult to arrive at an accurate calculation of the impacts of the discharged water. Moreover, the conflict between electricity generation and flood control made things much more complicated. If the hydropower station was most concerned about minimizing the scouring below the dam, it would undertake controlled releases of water to make room for floodwater in the reservoir. Then, the controlled release of the floodwater itself would minimize erosion below the dam, even in the event of floods the size of the 1982 inundation.

However, if the station sought to take advantage of the increased energy in floodwater, it would operate in a different way in order to generate as much hydropower as possible. The zone affected by the water discharged from the dam in that case would be much bigger. In most circumstances, the Dahe hydropower station would prefer to operate the reservoir along those lines. After all, the station was one of the prefecture’s main sources of revenue, and the dam had more difficulty generating electricity in the dry season than in the flood season.

Local people knew little about the science behind the erosion-zone calculations, but they did sense from experience that flooding below the dam had become worse, both in degree and frequency, since the dam was built. But for prefecture officials, the concept of a defined zone affected by the scouring did help them to categorize the affected people into upstream and downstream groups, which from then on were completely divided as a result. The prefecture was pleased with the work of Commissioner Dong and his team, and decided to station them in the Dahe dam area to try to come to grips with all of the resettlement operation’s leftover problems.

A second family-planning incident

Prefecture officials, meanwhile, adopted an ambivalent attitude toward the county’s attempt to punish Teacher Xu by transferring him to a remote area. When Xu refused to move, the county, lacking the prefecture’s strong support, had to back down and rescind the order. Xu was allowed to resume his teaching duties. But he was also aware that local officials were unlikely to let him escape punishment altogether, and henceforth could be expected to make life difficult for him.

In November 1985, the Shanyang district government organized work teams to tour the townships to check that birth-control policies and family-planning quotas were being followed, and to collect fines from people who broke the rules. The campaign revived painful memories for Teacher Xu and his wife, and he refused to participate in it in any way. District and township officials decided to reinforce the family-planning work team when it came time for it to visit Xu’s village of Liuping. When the 12-member team entered the village on November 21, unrest was already brewing. The team found Xu’s house tightly locked and nobody home. When they asked neighbours where Xu and his wife had gone, two women retorted: “Let’s ask you the questions!” Dozens of villagers began to gather, and soon the work team was surrounded by a noisy, scolding crowd. Some people turned up carrying hammers and screwdrivers. Amid the hubbub, the work team attempted to ask questions about birth-control matters, but the villagers paid no attention and continued to hurl abuse.

Teacher Xu’s wife, Du Huixun, appeared and, seeing the crowd, quietly suggested to several people that they should go to other villages, such as Baiyang and Mingyue, to round up reinforcements. Half an hour later, more than 300 people were streaming in to Liuping from four other villages. The work team was encircled, with women and children spitting at them and throwing clumps of earth. The crowd prevented the work team from leaving, and insisted it produce a written guarantee that the government would never again go after Teacher Xu. After almost three hours, Wu Qixian, the chief organizer of the ruckus, told the work team: “Why did you come here? We’ll let you go if you make that perfectly clear. We’re here to protect Xu Shaorong. He speaks up for us, and writes petitions and appeals on our behalf. We won’t let you hit back at him.” And then, Wu yelled to the crowd, “Let them go!” Wu and his people drove the work team away.

After reviewing the documents on this incident, I found no evidence that the district government had deliberately set out to punish Teacher Xu in this instance, but that the villagers on whose behalf he was fighting had every reason to link the two issues. In contrast with Xu’s first run-in with family-planning officials, which culminated in the forced sterilization of his wife, local people were now sympathetic to him because by now he had done so much for them. At the end of the day, one thing was certain: This second family planning-related incident served to further widen the gulf between the affected groups and local governments.

How had the problems become so serious?

In December 1985, the county party committee convened a meeting to discuss how the problems related to the Dahe dam had become so serious, and how best to resolve them. Among those who spoke at the meeting was the chairman of the county people’s congress. According to a written summary of the conference, he said:

[quote] “There are indeed many leftover problems related to the Dahe dam resettlement, and I don’t feel confident that we will be able to completely resolve them all. The project went ahead in great haste, even before some of the engineering design work was finished. Moreover, the project has never to this day been inspected and approved by the province. At the very start, we took into account the submersion issue in the upstream area behind the dam but ignored the scouring problem in the region below the dam. We also failed to consider the higher water levels caused by the backwater effect in the upstream area, in particular, in Bailong county’s Kaixi township. Thus, we have to own up to these ‘problems left over from history.’

“As for the compensation issue, the Dahe hydropower station distributed the resettlement funds to the townships (or, more precisely, to the communes) rather than to the villages, let alone to individual households. The townships diverted some of the funds to other uses, and then distributed the remainder to villages rather than to households. The villages, in turn, did as the townships had done, and diverted some of the money. It’s true that villagers received only a fraction of the compensation money they were due.

“We have to strengthen the leadership at the district and township level. We have to arrive at a unified understanding of the issues, and then back up the lower levels of government so they can do a better job of tackling these problems. Finally, we need to send a work team down to the grassroots level to gain the trust of the masses and obtain more accurate and reliable information from them. We have to address the actual, existing problems. For example, we should distribute the money to the affected people in a more direct way. I disagree with the approach that favours rounding up the ‘ringleaders’ first and resolving the problems that have arisen second. We need to win over and guide the masses, including a recalcitrant minority, and only then to punish a few individuals according to the law.” [/quote]

The consensus reached at the meeting was in line with the above remarks. It was recognized that one of the main ways to win over the masses was to ensure that the problems of the dam-affected people were finally addressed. It was also agreed that lower levels of government, the district and the township, had to be given more support, and that the higher level – the prefecture – should be asked to shoulder more of the responsibility for dealing with the resettlement problems. There was some debate about whether the “ringleaders” should be punished as a first step, and Teacher Xu was identified as one of the black sheep. While some participants thought a quick crackdown was in order, the majority felt the people’s problems should be addressed first – but nobody voiced any opposition to the idea of gathering more evidence against the bad elements for future reference.

‘Throw his car into the river!’

Commissioner Dong arrived in Yunyang county later that same day. Two days later, accompanied by Governor Guo Taihua, he and his new work team went to Shanyang. Several district and township cadres were invited to take part so it became a real joint work team consisting of the four levels of local government: prefecture, county, district and township.

At a mass assembly on December 9, Governor Guo said: “For a long time, a small number of people have incited a section of the masses to appeal to higher authorities in Shanyang, accusing local cadres of embezzling the funds earmarked for the resettlement scheme. But there is no evidence of this, and it is terribly wrong for some individuals to accuse local cadres of corruption in the absence of any evidence.” Governor Guo also made the point that while the joint work team would focus on resolving the resettlement problems, it would also gather material on anyone who tried to disrupt the team’s work. Commissioner Dong also made a brief speech, focusing on the factory issue. If production restarted at the factory, he said, it would bring many benefits to the affected people, who had suffered so much hardship.

One of the most troublesome issues the work team had to grapple with was that of the factory accounts. Zhu Yundun, the worried engineer, raised questions about some dubious receipts in which the financial record was incomplete or the expense was unclear – for instance, a 3,000-yuan “entertainment allowance.” But Commissioner Dong said: “Old Zhu, you don’t understand, and I think you’d better go home.” Thus, Zhu was asked to return to the prefecture and stay out of further involvement in the resettlement mess.

It’s fair to say that Zhu knew a lot about the practice – but very little about the politics – of auditing accounts. Commissioner Dong had worked at the grassroots level for long enough to be well aware that local cadres sometimes did questionable things with money, but he didn’t view such behaviour as entirely unforgivable. If financial impropriety were to be revealed, it could cause great harm to the initiative of local cadres and their ability to carry out their work in Shanyang.

At the same time, Dong wasn’t at all sure about the wisdom of cracking down hard on the elite of the affected people. His approach was to try to cut both sides some slack in order to reduce the tensions between them and ease the conflict. He wanted to patch up quarrels and reconcile the parties, and didn’t like to see any individuals, be they local cadres or ordinary residents, hurt because of the resettlement operation. For the elite of the affected people, however, their top priority was to press for the removal of corrupt officials, which was the best way to guarantee their own personal safety.

Feng Mingyue, an engineer at the prefecture’s hydropower bureau, related the following story, which illustrates Commissioner Dong’s softly-softly approach:

[quote] “At the end of 1985, a meeting was held in the Dahe station’s conference room, attended by the members of the joint work team, the station directors and leaders from the four levels of local government [prefecture, county, district and township]. Commissioner Dong and myself made it clear at the meeting that Mingyue village was not going to be considered part of the zone affected by the scouring problem, so the villagers there would not be eligible for the compensation package offered to the upstream groups.

“After the meeting, I saw Governor Wang talking to two cadres from Mingyue village outside the conference room. Most of the cars carrying officials who had attended the meeting headed straight for Shanyang, but Commissioner Dong’s car, in which I was also riding, went in another direction, toward Mingyue. As our car was arriving in Mingyue, several handcarts waiting by the roadside suddenly blocked the traffic. A large number of peasants soon surrounded Commissioner Dong, demanding that he resolve the erosion problem. The incident appeared to have been planned in advance. First, dozens of elderly men and women went down on their knees before the commissioner, crying out and holding onto his leg. Then somebody shouted, ‘Throw his car into the river!’ But Commissioner Dong remained calm, even joking with the crowd: ‘Look, it’s coming up to the [Chinese] New Year and you clearly don’t want me to leave. So I’d be happy to go to your homes to celebrate Spring Festival with you. I don’t think you’d boil me for dinner!” (Commissioner Dong confirmed this story when I spoke with him at a later date.) [/quote]

The road blocked with handcarts, old people throwing themselves at the commissioner’s feet, the shouts to throw his car into the river – popular feeling was running high, but it also appeared the event had been prearranged. It’s not at all clear who was behind it, but one thing is certain: Neither Teacher Xu nor Tailor Wang had anything to do with it.

Despite facing dozens of old peasants down on their knees before him, Commissioner Dong kept his cool, and managed to grit his teeth and not “bend the rules.” If he had made a concession at this point, a flood of demands would have followed. In other words, knocking a small hole in the side of the dyke to let a bit of water through (kai kou zi) could have led to a torrent that would cause its collapse. And so Commissioner Dong refused to comment on whether Mingyue village should be included in the erosion zone, and said nothing at all on the issue until local cadres – who were rather slow in arriving – helped extract him from the awkward situation. The rumour about “the people in Shanyang who threw the commissioner’s car into the river” raced around the county and then the prefecture as a whole. And although Teacher Xu and Tailor Wang had not been involved in the incident, its excesses provided officials with more ammunition to label the elite of the affected people as “bad elements.”

Three new principles

The work team wrapped up the Shanyang audit by the end of 1985, concluding in a formal document, “Evidence of corruption or embezzlement has not yet been discovered among district or township officials.”3 The team now shifted its focus to Xunlu township. In Shanyang, the heart of the matter had been whether local cadres embezzled funds earmarked for resettlement. In Xunlu, however, the big challenge facing the work team was how to deal with the hardship being suffered by a large number of people in 50 groups affected by the Dahe dam. On December 14, Commissioner Dong convened a meeting with the work-team leaders, along with Guo Taihua, governor of Yunyang, his deputy Wang Jintang, and Liu Liangji, vice-secretary of Yunyang. After intensive discussion, it was agreed that grain would be distributed to needy households in 31 of the 50 groups, so that everyone had at least 360 jin of grain a year.

[quote] “This year, the balance of the funds earmarked for resettlement will be used to buy the grain for the affected households. From next year on, the money to purchase the grain allowance will come out of the profits earned by the power supply station that Xunlu township constructed with funds intended for the resettlement schemes. The 19 other groups, which have suffered only minor losses caused by the Dahe dam, will not be eligible for compensation, thus teaching the people to make allowances for the state’s difficulties.”[/quote]

This new compensation policy was not simply a repeat of the countless previous instances of “rule bending,” but represented a real departure from past practice. Commissioner Dong had finally found an effective formula for tackling the resettlement problems that had evaded resolution for so long. Three principles lay at the heart of the new policy:

Principle 1: Affected people should receive compensation directly

All funds earmarked for the resettlement scheme must be distributed directly to the affected people, with none of the money spent in other ways in the name of regional development. When affected groups fail to benefit from a relocation program, or even become poorer after displacement, they will appeal for help from the unit that took over their land, or to higher authorities. And so in the case of Xunlu, it was decided that funds would no longer be disbursed according to the hierarchy of prefecture, county, township, village, group and, finally, affected households. Instead, in an effort to reduce and even eliminate the disappearance of funds as they moved down through the administrative hierarchy, the money was to go directly to households. When affected groups benefit directly from their resettlement, they feel better disposed toward the project that has forced their relocation. This is one of the chief ways to staunch the torrent of appeals to higher authorities.

Principle 2: Resettlement funds should not be disbursed in one lump sum, but little by little in a steady flow

Governments are inclined to try and solve leftover problems in one fell swoop with a one-time input of a large amount of money, but this is far from an effective approach. The affected people will tend to pursue their appeals once they manage to achieve one success. And so in Xunlu, the work team decided instead to disburse the funds directly to the masses, little by little, without letup, in a steady stream over many years. Grain is a lifeline for the peasants, and so the work team decided on a grain subsidy, to ensure that at least that basic need was met. Beyond that, if the affected people nurtured the dream of becoming rich, they would have to work toward that themselves through factory work or “sideline production.” Throwing “one lump sum” at a problem could not guarantee a long period of peace and stability, whereas disbursing funds in a constant trickle could curb the momentum of the appeals.

Principle 3: The various affected groups should be treated differently, and not as one undifferentiated mass

The disturbances related to the Dahe dam became a real headache for the governments and the dam project authority because of the large number of people involved. The previous approach had been to try and treat everyone as equally as possible, and to distribute resettlement funds as equitably as possible, based on average amounts of farmland or numbers of affected people. In most cases, the least affected groups got much more than they should have, while the most affected people received too little to solve their problems. As a result, the more money the government allocated, the more trouble was created.

In Xunlu, the work team put the areas affected by the Dahe reservoir into three categories – serious, moderate and light – according to the relative severity of the flooding caused by the reservoir. In the “serious” category, a grain allowance ranging from 30 jin to 240 jin per capita would be distributed according to the degree of inundation and property loss. However, no grain allowance was set aside for the two other categories, encouraging the peasants there to recover any losses through their own efforts and to “make allowance for the state’s difficulties.”

Disbursing the resettlement funds in a small, steady stream in this way ensures people’s basic survival, and allows the government to stop having to “bend the rules” again and again in response to people’s demands. However, implementation of this third principle, of treating the various affected groups in different ways, proved complex and problematic. In practice, it’s difficult to persuade people who suffered less loss than others to give up their own demands for compensation. In Xunlu township, the 19 groups that were not entitled to the grain allowance were unhappy with the policy and expressed their dissatisfaction vociferously. In these circumstances, the work team was forced to adjust the original plan and distribute a total grain allowance of 456,000 jin among all the 50 groups. Nevertheless, the new policy proved a success as a whole, and the principles have been developed and improved on in later resettlement practice.

In light of the experience in Xunlu, the Shanyang township government submitted a similar report to the county, focusing on the grain-ration issue. The township proposed a total grain allowance of 790,000, in which 340,000 jin would go to 11 groups in the erosion zone and 450,000 jin to 18 other groups deemed also to have been affected by the scouring problem. Township officials knew the prefecture would never approve the requested amount, but hoped it would not be reduced by too much, and would still be acceptable. By contrast, the joint work team recommended that a much smaller grain allowance, of 170,000 jin, should go only to the 11 groups most severely affected by the scouring problem.

Three-township joint delegation to Beijing

By the end of March 1986, the people affected by the Dahe dam had still received no news about the grain allowance. At this time, two representatives of affected people living in the reservoir area upstream of the dam – Xie Mingquan from Xunlu and Pan Guiyu from Kaixi – went to Shanyang to seek advice. Teacher Xu was delighted to see them, saying, “There is strength in numbers. This affects us all, so we should all be doing something about it. In the Dahe valley, which is affected by the dam, Kaixi is like the head of a fish, Xunlu is its stomach and Shanyang its tail. The fleshiest part of a fish is in the main part of its body, so you, living there, have actually suffered the most from the corruption. Let’s get together and do something big. If we set our minds to it, we can win this battle against corrupt officials.”

They devised a plan at this meeting to form a delegation of representatives from the three townships to travel to Beijing and submit a joint petition to higher authorities. And so, on April 2, headed by Tailor Wang, five representatives set out on foot from Shanyang. To avoid detection, they travelled overnight, climbing over mountains to get to Bailong county. They were joined there the next day by the representatives from Kaixi and Xunlun, and together the 10 representatives from three townships declared the establishment of “the Dahe dam delegation, representing 10,000 people.” Tailor Wang was chosen as leader, and a white-cloth complaint was written. The 10 petitioners then joined in swearing an oath: “We representatives, selected by 10,000 people affected by the Dahe dam, are ready to travel to Beijing to find an honest and upright judge. If we fail to find such a judge, we’d rather die in Beijing than return home!”

The petitioners then set off for Beijing, going by way of the provincial capital, Chengdu. At that point, Huang Guangfu, one of the veteran representatives from Shanyang, suddenly regretted his involvement and told the others he wanted to return home. The representatives had hoped for a 10-person delegation, but now only nine were on their way to Beijing. Moreover, one of the nine had broken his arm during the climb from Shanyang to Bailong. All of this appeared to bode ill for the mission to Beijing.

Once the delegation arrived in the capital, they began making the rounds of the Ministry of Water Resources, the Ministry of Public Security, China Central Television and so forth. They were stonewalled at every turn. They were not even allowed to enter the front gates of these units, let alone meet with anyone in charge. Staff there refused even to receive the white-cloth complaint, calling it a practice from the feudal era. Finally, the delegation went to the State Council’s Letters and Visits Office, which has a special responsibility to receive grassroots petitioners. But once again, they were rebuffed, as Tailor Wang recalled:

[quote] “The clerk at the Letters and Visits Office detested people like us who came to pester him. He treated us like loathsome creatures, because we repeatedly asked for his help. He didn’t even bother to take a look at the letter we submitted. He just asked us our names and where we were from, and jotted all this down in a registration book without even looking at us. Then he closed the door, leaving us out in the cold. I can’t figure out why we were treated that way, since the government permits and even encourages people to appeal to higher authorities for help. We were all very disappointed and upset about the way we were treated. They hadn’t even bothered to listen to us, but just gave us the cold shoulder. We all had a terrible feeling about our experience in Beijing.”[/quote]

Everyone in the delegation felt down after this unfriendly reception. Back in their hostel, they sat drinking beer and wondering what to do next. They had vowed not to return home until they had found an honest judge – but where was such a judge? They decided that, the following day, they would display their white-cloth complaint on Tiananmen Square. But they were nervous when they got there, because they had been told this was a dangerous thing to do. Somebody suggested they go instead to Fuyoujie, the back door of Zhongnanhai, where top Chinese leaders live and work. And so they went to Fuyoujie, holding their white-cloth complaint high above their heads. A high-ranking official came out of Zhongnanhai and criticized them sharply for causing a traffic jam, but did agree to take their piece of white cloth. Then that leader called the Letters and Visits Office, which relayed the following instructions to the province:

[quote] “Please investigate this case and report back to the State Council. The prefecture should try to address the issue, but if this is not possible, the province must get involved. The prefecture and province are then invited to Beijing to report on the progress of this issue in early May.”[/quote]

The representatives were elated at having won this apparent victory. They had seen a beloved high-ranking leader – an honest judge who had attached great importance to their case. They felt sure their problems were finally going to be addressed. Feeling more confident than ever, the representatives declared to the prefecture’s Letters and Visits Office that “the prefecture must respond to us before April 25 or a group of 200 people will come to your office to appeal.” This time, the province and prefecture did in fact make a quick response – but it was not what anyone expected.

The prefecture issues Document No. 39

The prefecture did not meet the representatives’ deadline, but it did release an official “report on handling the leftover problems pertaining to the 11 groups in Baiyang and other villages affected by the Dahe dam.” The report was a collective effort, with proposals put forward by the joint work team revised many times by the prefecture and county governments. The report redefined the erosion zone, reducing the total area affected by the problem from the original 270 mu to 200 mu. The Dahe station was to be responsible for compensating those within this zone, but bore no responsibility toward those whose fields lay beyond it. The report included a detailed analysis of the state resettlement funds, and how and why they had been diverted to other uses. It concluded that all of the diversions were “production-related,” short-term, with no serious consequences, and that no evidence was found of corruption or embezzlement by local officials.

The report proposed transferring the operation of the calcium-carbide factory to the Dahe hydropower station, and away from the peasants who had failed to make a success of it. A precondition for the transfer was that the station should provide the five “upstream groups” below the dam with a fixed grain allowance. And after the factory was put into operation, the station should be responsible for repaying the bank loans taken out to build the factory, with those debts to be cleared within four years.

The document contained a significant policy shift, in that the grain allowance was now to go only to the five “upstream groups” below the dam, while the six other groups were deemed to be outside of the erosion zone and not eligible for compensation. In addition, the grain allowance was no longer to be calculated based on population, but on the amount of farmland affected by the scouring. A grain allowance of 81,000 jin was to be distributed among the five groups in the erosion zone every year. In the document, the prefecture also stressed that a small number of people needed “more ideological education,” to teach them to be disciplined, obey the law and work hard to become rich.

The affected people, especially the peasants in the five groups in the erosion zone who had played the most active role in the collective actions, were disappointed at this “solution” to their problems. Before the representatives from the three townships travelled to Beijing, the joint work team had recommended to the county that 130,000 jin of grain should be provided to the five upstream groups. But now, after their petition had been hand-delivered to Beijing, and a “beloved leader” there had personally taken up their case, a grain allowance of only 81,000 jin was being offered. Moreover, the elite of the affected people were most disillusioned about the fact that Document No. 39 contained not one word about corrupt local officials, but instead referred to villagers requiring ideological education. All that trouble of travelling to Beijing and finding an honest judge close to the “emperor” had turned out to be worth nothing after all. Now the villagers had to face the big question of what to do next.

Notes:

¹ Most of China’s peasants have the following mental image of the state: majestic and mysterious top leaders in Beijing plus a large number of corrupt local cadres plus a small number of upright officials (qing guan). When they have to deal with a government official, they tend to mentally place that individual into one of the above categories. They respect the upright officials, but feel they are too far away to reach. Although the elite of the affected people were not much more familiar with “upright officials” than were the ordinary peasants, they tended to group them into two sub-categories: those who were approachable and those who were reluctant to deal with strangers (as suggested by Z. Bauman, “Making and Unmaking of Strangers,” Thesis Eleven, 1995). The peasants attributed their problems to corrupt local officials not because they had so much contact with those officials, but because all the latter seemed to do was take away from them money (various fees), grain (the agricultural tax) and life (in abortions related to the birth-control program).

² It’s worth comparing the first and second incidents related to the family-planning regulations. In the first case, local people stood by with the folded arms when Xu Teacher’s wife was forcibly sterilized. At that point, Teacher Xu and the other protest leaders had not yet won the trust of the majority of the affected people, and so the villagers did not at that time draw a link between their own interests and Teacher Xu’s personal tragedy. By the time of the second case, however, the elite group of the affected people had taken shape, and those leaders realized the importance of framing their goals so that the interests of the peasants and the safety of the elite group were all part of the same package (see E. Goffman, Frame Analysis, 1974; D. Snow, “Frame Alignment Processes, Micromobilization and Movement Participation,” American Sociology Review, 1986). As a result, the peasants now believed it was in their interests to protect Teacher Xu, and that if he suffered reprisals, it was a setback for their own cause.

³ The prefecture government chose its words carefully. “Evidence of corruption or embezzlement has not yet been discovered” gave it some wiggle room: While protecting local cadres from the accusations for the moment, it left the prefecture plenty of room for manoeuvre in the future.

Chinese units of measurement:

Translation edited by Three Gorges Probe (English) editor Kelly Haggart. The on-line publication (in Chinese and English) and translation of this book have been made possible by the Open Society Institute.