PEASANT protest and violence were a major reason why the Party-state sought to solve the burden problems. Ever since the mid-1980s, central leaders have taken measures to curb excessive taxes and fees. Nonetheless, despite years of effort, the state was unable to solve the problem as of the year 2002. This chapter examines three state strategies adopted by the government to address the problem. First, the war on burdens was waged by means of exhortation, promulgation of rules and regulations, and campaigns. These were efforts to pressure and constrain local officials to reduce burdens. This approach was important. It served to call widespread attention to the problem and to indicate to lower-level officials that the issue was a core concern of the central leaders and that therefore it had to become part of their agendas. And it served to inform the peasants that the Center was on their side.

A second strategy was to allow peasants themselves to seek redress using these tactics: by the “letters and visits” system, which enabled peasants to lodge complaints with the local and higher authorities in the hope of enlisting their aid in curbing burdens; by making the legal system more accessible to villagers in the hope that legal intervention, including lawsuits, would remedy particular grievances; and by promoting village democracy to enhance the accountability of cadres (see Chapter 7).

A third strategy consisted of attempts to address some of the institutional roots of the burden problem in the financial and bureaucratic systems.