Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T06:40:55.220Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

China's Vision for Developing Sichuan's Post-Earthquake Countryside: Turning Unruly Peasants into Grateful Urban Citizens

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2014

Christian Sorace
Christian Sorace*
Affiliation:
Government department, University of Texas. Email: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In the aftermath of the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, government officials, scholars and outside observers eagerly hoped that the emergency relief and reconstruction process would bring about the emergence of civil society and increase grassroots democratic participation. Contrary to this optimistic assessment, this article contends that the local state used the opportunity of the disaster as an experimental laboratory to implement an array of already existing national development plans. The urgency with which the reconstruction was to be completed and the opportunities to meet national development targets as well as access reconstruction funds were too tempting to resist. However, the ham-fisted Leninist implementation style met with local resistance and has contributed to a significant deterioration in local state–society relations. The fact that many local residents continue to question why, despite the huge resources invested by the state in the reconstruction project, they have yet to see any improvement in their economic and overall living conditions points to a deficit of local participation and a breakdown in political communication and trust. By focusing on the different political economies of disaster reconstruction, this article attempts to illuminate the regime's vision for developing the countryside, rural politics, and state–society relations in China more broadly. Unless the state is able to incorporate local needs into its development plans, it will not win the trust and support of local residents, regardless of the amount of money it invests or the benevolence of its intentions.

Keywords

Wenchuan earthquakeChinacrisis managementpost-disaster reconstructionrural developmentgrassroots participationbiopolitics
Type
Articles
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 218 , June 2014 , pp. 404 - 427
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abramson, Daniel, and Qi, Yu. 2011. “Urban–rural integration in the earthquake zone: Sichuan's post-disaster reconstruction and the expansion of the Chengdu metropole.” Pacific Affairs 84(3), 495–523.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brecht, Bertolt. 1976. “Die Lösung” (The Solution). In Willet, John and Mannheim, Ralph (eds.), Poems: 1913–1956. London: Eyre Metheun.Google Scholar
Cai, Yongshun. 2004. “Irresponsible state: local cadres and image-building in China.” The Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics 20(4), 20–41.Google Scholar
CCTV. 2011. Dujiangyan: minyi de chongjian (Dujiangyan: Reconstruction According to the Will of the People), May, http://news.cntv.cn/china/20110521/105513.shtml. Accessed 10 November 2012.Google Scholar
Chen, Guaming. 2010. Wenchuan dizhenhou huifu chongjian zhuyao falü wenti (Research on the Main Legal Issues in Post-Wenchuan Earthquake Rehabilitation and Reconstruction). Beijing: Falü chubanshe.Google Scholar
Chengdu meiti jituan. 2007. Cheng-xiang yitihua: Chengdu de kexue fazhan zhi lu (Urban–Rural Integration as the Road to Chengdu's Scientific Development). Chengdu: Chengdu shidai chubanshe.Google Scholar
Dujiangyanshi dangxiao (eds.). 2009. Huifu, fazhan, chuangxin: 2009 nian zaihou chongjian youxiu yanjiu wenji xuanbian (Reconstruction, Development, Innovation: Selected Works of Excellent Research Reports Regarding the 2009 Post-Disaster Reconstruction Situation). Internal publication.Google Scholar
Dujiangyanshi dangxiao (eds.). 2011. Gongchandang, haowubian: houchongjian shidai dangyuan ganbu dangxing jiaoyu wenji xuanbian (The Party's Heroism and Shared Responsibility: Selected Works on Post-Reconstruction Era Party Member and Cadre Education). Internal publication.Google Scholar
Edin, Marie. 2003. “Remaking the Communist Party-state: the cadre responsibility system at the local level in China.” China: An International Journal 1(1), 1–15.Google Scholar
Gu, Songqing. 2011. Fazhanxing chongjian zaihou jueqi de Sichuan moshi (Development Model Reconstruction: The Emergence of the Post-Disaster Sichuan Method). Sichuan: Renmin chubanshe.Google Scholar
Guldin, Gregory. 2001. What's a Peasant to Do? Village Becoming Town in Southern China. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
He, Ying. 2011. “Nongfang tonggui chongjian moshi de nonghu manyidu ji yingxiang yinsu fenxi” (Analysis of farmers' satisfaction with the farmhouse unified planning reconstruction pattern and its influencing factors). Anhui nongye kexue 39(35), 22028–031.Google Scholar
Heilmann, Sebastian, and Perry, Elizabeth. 2011. “Embracing uncertainty: guerilla policy style and adaptive governance in China.” In Heilmann, Sebastian and Perry, Elizabeth (eds.), Mao's Invisible Hand: The Political Foundations of Adaptive Governance in China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hou, Junjie. 2011. “Gansu Wenxian zaihou chongjian zijin bei nuoyong, Wenxian xuanchuan buzhang bei tingzhi” (Gansu Wen county post-disaster reconstruction funds embezzled, propaganda department head forced to resign), Xinhua News Agency, 19 January, http://news.sohu.com/20110119/n278974465.shtml. Accessed 22 February 2013.Google Scholar
Hurst, William. 2009. The Chinese Worker after Socialism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lee, Ching Kwan. 2007. Against the Law: Labor Protests in China's Rustbelt and Sunbelt. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Li, Bo. 2012. “Dujiangyan linpanshi nongcun jujidian” (Dujiangyan “Lin Pan style” rural aggregation). Chengshi jianshi lilun yanjiu 4.Google Scholar
Liang, Jun, and Ma, Xi. 2012. “Demolition of HK-donated school ‘totally wrong’–official,” People's Daily Online, 28 May, http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90882/7827906.html#. Accessed 22 February 2013.Google Scholar
McNally, Christopher. 2004. “Sichuan: driving capitalist development westward.” The China Quarterly 178, 426–447.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mertha, Andy. 2008. China's Water Warriors: Citizen Action and Policy Change. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Naughton, Barry. 2009. “Understanding the Chinese stimulus package.” China Leadership Monitor 28, 1–12.Google Scholar
Ngai, Pun, and Lu, Huilin. 2010. “Unfinished proletarianization: self, anger, and class action among the second generation of peasant-workers in present day China.” Modern China 36(5), 493–519.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Brien, Kevin, and Li, Lianjiang. 2006. Rightful Resistance in Rural China. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perry, Elizabeth. 2011. “From mass campaigns to managed campaigns: ‘constructing a new socialist countryside’.” In Heilmann, Sebastian and Perry, Elizabeth (eds.), Mao's Invisible Hand: The Political Foundations of Adaptive Governance in China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 30–61.Google Scholar
Scott, James. 1999. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Shieh, Shawn, and Deng, Guosheng. 2011. “An emerging civil society: the impact of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake on grass-roots associations in China.” The China Journal 65, 181–194.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sichuansheng renmin zhengfu xinwen bangongshi (Sichuan Provincial People's Government Information Office). 2011. “Guanyu 5/12 Wenchuan teda dizhen zaihou huifu chongjian qingkuang de tongbao” (Bulletin regarding the 5/12 Wenchuan earthquake post-disaster reconstruction), 11 October, http://www.512ngo.org.cn/news_detail.asp?id=2914. Accessed 10 November 2012.Google Scholar
Sorace, Christian, and Hurst, William. n.d. “Urban pathologies: China's ghost cities.” Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
State Planning Group of Post-Wenchuan Earthquake Restoration and Reconstruction, National Development and Reform Committee, and People's Government of Sichuan Ministry of Housing and Urban–Rural Development. 2008. Wenchuan dizhen zaihou huifu chongjian zongti guihua (The Overall Plan for the Post-Wenchuan Earthquake Restoration and Reconstruction), http://www.china.com.cn/policy/txt/2008-09/24/content_16524422.htm. Accessed 24 February 2013.Google Scholar
Su, Dongbo. 2008. “Zhan zai guojia yu shehui chongjian de gaodushang yong gaige kaifang siwei zhidao zaihou chongjian” (A birds-eye perspective on state and society reconstruction: using reform and opening thinking to guide post-disaster reconstruction). Gaige neican jueceban 19, 23–27.Google Scholar
Teets, Jesica. 2009. “Post-earthquake relief and reconstruction efforts: the emergence of civil society in China?” The China Quarterly 198, 330–347.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thornton, Patricia. 2009. “Crisis and governance: SARS and the resilience of the Chinese body politics.” The China Journal 61, 23–48.Google Scholar
Yang, Dali. 1998. Calamity and Reform in China: State, Rural Society, and Institutional Change since the Great Leap Famine. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Yang, Dali. 2003. “State capacity on the rebound.” Journal of Democracy 14(1), 43–50.Google Scholar
Yang, Guobin. 2008. “A civil society emerges from the earthquake rubble,” Yale Global Online, 5 June, http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/print/4739. Accessed 22 February 2013.Google Scholar
Whiting, Susan. 2006. Power and Wealth in Rural China: The Political Economy of Institutional Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wu, Jingshi. 2008. “Sichuan dizhen hou chongjian zhanlüe de jianyi” (Post-Sichuan earthquake reconstruction strategy and suggestions). Gaige neican jueceban 19, 27–29.Google Scholar
Žižek, Slavoj. 2004. “An interview,” The Believer Magazine, http://www.believermag.com/issues/200407/?read=interview_zizek. Accessed 22 February 2013.Google Scholar
Zhang, Guolong. 2008. “Wen Jiabao: zhengqu liangnian shijian wancheng huifu chongjian” (Wen Jiabao: striving to complete reconstruction in two years), 23 June, http://stock.hexun.com/2008-06-23/106889791.html. Accessed 24 February 2013.Google Scholar
Zheng, Shuncai. 2012. “Wenchuan zaihou chongjian xian haohua bangongshilou” (The reconstruction of luxurious offices after the Wenchuan disaster), 21 April, Beijing News, http://news.cn.yahoo.com/ypen/20120421/1001054.html. Accessed 24 February 2013.Google Scholar
Zhu, Jiangang, and Ming, Hu. 2011. “Duoyuan gongzhi: dui zaihou shequ chongjian zhong canyushi fazhan lilun de fanying” (Pluralized public governance: theoretical reflections on participatory development in disaster reconstruction), Open Times 10, http://www.opentimes.cn/bencandy.php?fid=323&aid=1530. Accessed 24 February 2013.Google Scholar