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Revitalizing the State's Urban “Nerve Tips”*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

Benjamin L. Read
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While observers of China have always paid attention to the “base-level” administrative institutions and mass organizations created by the Communist party-state, urban Residents' Committees (RCs; jumin weiyuanhui) have received relatively little study in recent years. Though the RCs remain pervasive in most areas of most cities and engage the energies of millions of activists and volunteers, this neglect is understandable. During the Mao era, Western writing on neighbourhood organizations emphasized their role in helping to police and administer the harsh political order that gripped the cities. In the 1980s and 1990s, the authorities have yielded much greater space to a private sphere in which law-abiding individuals are relatively free from intrusion. Instruments of state penetration such as the RCs have seemed less worthy of analysis. They also lack the requisite autonomy to qualify as part of an emergent civil society, and moreover their limited progress in serving as a focus for democratic participation earns them much less international attention than their rural equivalents, the Villagers' Committees. They may even seem worthy of derision rather than study; merely mentioning the term juweihui often brings an amused smile to people's faces, as it connotes ageing, officious busy bodies poking into people's personal matters.

Type
Research Notes
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 163 , September 2000 , pp. 806 - 820
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 2000

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References

1. The juweihui are sometimes referred to in English as “neighbourhood committees” or “street committees”; the latter term, however, renders them easily confused with street offices. I employ a literal translation in this article.

2. An important exception is Choate, Allen C., “Local governance in China, part II: an assessment of urban Residents Committees and municipal community development,”Google Scholar Asia Foundation Working Paper, No. 10, November 1998. See also Clark, John P., “Conflict management outside the courtrooms of China,” in Troyer, Ronald J., Clark, John P. and Rojek, Dean G. (eds.) Social Control in the People's Republic of China (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1989)Google Scholar; White, Gordon and Benewick, Bob, Local Government and Basic-Level Democracy in China: Towards Reform?Google Scholar transcript of a research trip, March–April 1986, China Research Report, IDS (Brighton: University of Sussex, 1986); Dutton, Michael R., Policing and Punishment in China: From Patriarchy to “the People” (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 335–340Google Scholar; Benewick, Robert, “Political institutionalization in government,” and Gordon White, “Basic-level local government and economic reform in urban China,” in White, Gordon (ed.), The Chinese State in the Era of Economic Reform: The Road to Crisis (London: Macmillan, 1991)Google Scholar; and Jankowiak, William R., Sex, Death and Hierarchy in a Chinese City: An Anthropological Account (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993)Google Scholar, as well as items cited below.

3. The journal's current title in Chinese is Chengshi jie ju tongxun (CSJJTX). Its first three volumes (1991–93) were published as Zhongguo jiedao gongzuo (China Street Work).

4. As of the end of 1998, there were 119,042 RCs comprising 508,363 members nation-wide, according to figures collected by the MoCA.

5. Beijing Statistical Yearbook 1998 (Beijing: Zhongguo tongji chubanshe, 1998), p. 39.Google Scholar These figures exclude the smaller cities within the eight counties that lie inside the greater Beijing administrative region.

6. The RCs' official duties are as follows: “1) to publicize the Constitution, laws, statutes and state policies; to uphold the lawful rights of residents; to teach residents to fulfil their lawful obligations and protect public property; to carry out many forms of activities in promoting socialist spiritual civilization; 2) to manage public affairs and projects of public benefit for residents of the neighbourhood; 3) to mediate civil disputes; 4) to assist in maintaining social order; 5) to assist the People's Government and its agencies in conducting work pertaining to residents' interest in public sanitation, birth control, welfare, youth education, and so forth; 6) to express residents' opinions, requests and suggestions to the People's Government and its agencies.” Zhonghua renmin gongheguo fagui huibian 1989 nian 1 yue-12 yue (Compiled Statutes of the People's Republic of China, January–December 1989) (Beijing: Zhongguo fazhi chubanshe, 1990), p. 140.Google Scholar

7. See the discussion in Whyte, Martin King and Parish, William L., Urban Life in Contemporary China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), pp. 239–246.Google Scholar On work units, see Lü, Xiaobo and Perry, Elizabeth J. (eds.), Danwei: The Changing Chinese Workplace in Historical and Comparative Perspective (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1997).Google Scholar Work units that own large housing blocks often have their own residence-based organizations. Known as “family members committees” (jiashu weiyuanhui) these constitute about one-sixth of all RCs. See also Davin, Delia, Woman-Work: Women and the Party in Revolutionary China (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), pp. 59–61.Google Scholar

8. “Chengshi ying jianli jiedao banshichu he jumin weiyuanhui” (“Cities should create street offices and Residents' Committees”), Peng Then wenxuan (1941–1990) (Selected Works of Peng Zhen) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1991), p. 241.Google Scholar

9. The most important of these are found in Schurmann, Franz, Ideology and Organization in Communist China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968)Google Scholar; Townsend, James R., Political Participation in Communist China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967)Google Scholar; Vogel, Ezra F., “Preserving order in the cities,” in Lewis, John Wilson, (ed.) The City in Communist China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1971)Google Scholar; and Whyte, and Parish, , Urban Life.Google Scholar I have also drawn on references in Barnett, A. Doak, Communist China: The Early Years, 1949–1955 (New York: F. A. Praeger, 1964)Google Scholar; Gardner, John, “The wu-fan campaign in Shanghai,” in Barnett, A. Doak (ed.), Chinese Communist Politics in Action (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1969)Google Scholar; Lieberthal, Kenneth, Revolution and Tradition in Tientsin, 1949–1952 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1980)Google Scholar; Vogel, Ezra F., Canton Under Communism: Programs and Politics in a Provincial Capital, 1949–1968 (New York: Harper & Row, 1969)Google Scholar; and White, Lynn T., “Shanghai's polity in the Cultural Revolution,”Google Scholar in Lewis, , The City in Communist ChinaGoogle Scholar; as well as others cited in the text.

10. Townsend, , Political Participation, pp. 158–59.Google Scholar

11. Bianco, Lucien, Origins of the Chinese Revolution, 1915–1949 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1971), pp. 118–19Google Scholar; Schurmann, , Ideology and Organization, pp. 368–370.Google Scholar On the baojia, see Hsiao, Kung-chuan, Rural China: Imperial Control in the Nineteenth Century (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1967)Google Scholar

12. Schurmann, , Ideology and Organization, p. 376.Google Scholar

13. Ibid. pp. 376–380; Lubman, Stanley, “Mao and mediation: politics and dispute resolution in Communist China,” California Law Review, Vol. 55, No. 5 (11 1967), p. 1358.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14. Townsend, , Political Participation, p. 158.Google Scholar

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18. “My neighborhood,” in Frolic, B. Michael, Mao's People: Sixteen Portraits of Life in Revolutionary China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980), pp. 224–241Google Scholar; Butterfield, Fox, China: Alive in the Bitter Sea, revised edition (New York: Times Books, 1990), pp. 324–28.Google Scholar

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20. Ibid. p. 285; Schurmann, , Ideology and Organization, p. 377.Google Scholar

21. Peng Zhen saw the post-Cultural Revolution rebuilding of the RCs as crucial to improving security work in the cities. See his “Zai wu da chengshi zhian zuotan hui shang de jianghua” (“Speech at a conference on public security in five big cities”) and “Xin shiqi de zhengfa gongzuo” (“Political-legal work in the new era”), in Peng Zhen wenxuan, especially pp. 411–12 and 430–31.Google Scholar

22. Interview, Beijing Civil Affairs Bureau, 26 August 1998; “Beijing shi juweihui di-san ci huanjie xuanju de zuofa ji tedian” (“Methods and characteristics of the third Residents Committee election cycle in Beijing”), CSJJTX, Vol. 7, No. 9 (1997), p. 11.Google Scholar

23. Interview, Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau, 30 July 1998.

24. Ibid.

25. For examples of RCs interacting with private enterprise, see Wank, David L., “Bureaucratic patronage and private business: changing networks of power in urban China,”Google Scholar and Bruun, Ole, “Political hierarchy and private entrepreneurship in a Chinese neighbour hood,” in Walder, Andrew G. (ed.) The Waning of the Communist State: Economic Origins of Political Decline in China and Hungary (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995).Google Scholar

26. See, for example, the discussion in “Minzhengbu Ma Xueli chuzhang zai quanguo jiedao gongzuo weiyuanhui, 1994 nian changweihui bimushi shang de jianghua” (“Talk by Director Ma Xueli of the Ministry of Civil Affairs at the closing ceremony of the 1994 meeting of the Standing Committee of the National Committee on Street Work”), CSJJTX, Vol. 4, No. 8 (1994), pp. 2–4Google Scholar, and Hunan Province Civil Affairs Department, “Dali fazhan juban jingji quanmian tuijin juweihui jianshe” (“Strongly develop the neighbourhood economy; comprehensively build the Residents' Committees”) CSJJTX, Vol. 4, No. 10 ( 1994), pp. 6–11.Google Scholar

27. Interviews with Shanghai and Beijing Civil Affairs Bureaus, 30 July and 26 August 1998.

28. See n. 7.

29. See, for example, Zuowei, Qi, “Zai shichang jingji tiaojian xia gaige juweihui gongzuo guanli tizhi de sikao” (“Thoughts on reforming the administrative system for Residents Committee work within the conditions of the market economy”), CSJJTX, Vol. 7, No. 10 (1997), p. 3Google Scholar; Ministry of Civil Affairs and Sichuan Province Civil Affairs Department, “Guanyu Sichuan sheng juweihui jianshe zhuangkuang de diaocha baogao” (“Report on a survey of the condition of Residents Committees in Sichuan province”), CSJJTX, Vol. 5, No. 7 (1995), p. 1.Google Scholar

30. “Minzhengbu fubuzhang Yan Mingfu zai Jilin shi juweihui gongzuo huiyi shang de jianghua” (“Talk by Ministry of Civil Affairs Vice-Minister Yan Mingfu at a meeting on Residents Committee work in Jilin”) CSJJTX, Vol. 5, No. 9 (1995), p. 4.Google Scholar

31. Jinhua, Wang and Aijiao, Dai, “Guanyu Suzhou, Wuxi, Shanghai juban jingji fazhan zhuangkuang de diaocha” (“A survey of the condition of neighbourhood economic development in Suzhou, Wuxi and Shanghai”), CSJJTX, Vol. 4, No. 3 (1994), pp. 16–17Google Scholar; Ministry of Civil Affairs and Fujian Province Civil Affairs Department, “Fujian sheng chengshi juweihui jianshe qingkuang diaocha” (“A survey of the condition of urban Residents Committees in Fujian province”), CSJJTX, Vol. 5, No. 8 (1995), p. 22.Google Scholar

32. Lijia, Ji and Guicheng, Liu, “Liaoning sheng juweihui jianshe cunzai de wenti ji gaijin de cuoshi” (“Existing problems in the building of Residents Committees in Liaoning province, and measures for improvement”), CSJJTX, Vol. 4, No. 2 (1994), p. 8.Google Scholar

33. For instance, Muqing, Wang, “Hangzhou shi jumin weiyuanhui jianshe diaocha baogao” (“Report on a survey of the development of Residents Committees in Hangzhou”), CSJJTX, Vol. 7, No. 8 (1997), p. 27.Google Scholar

34. In the summer of 1998 I spoke to 54 ordinary citizens one-on-one in private to try to get a candid sense of their impressions of the RCs, in addition to interviewing government officials, academics and some RC members themselves.

35. People sometimes teasingly call them the “small-footed detective squads” (xiaojiao zhenji dui) – a reference to the bound feet of elderly women raised before the revolution.

36. Some 90% of RC staff nation-wide are women, according to MoCA estimates. Most are residents of the neighbourhoods they work in, although Street Offices sometimes recruit staff from outside the immediate area.

37. The relatively privileged permanent residents of the cities generally applaud the RCs' efforts to keep a handle on the activities of migrants, whom they tend to distrust. This, however, is complicated by the fact that RCs are sometimes criticized for bringing more migrants into the neighbourhood to work in businesses under the committees' sponsorship.

38. See Woolcock, Michael, “Social capital and economic development: toward a theoretical synthesis and policy framework,” Theory and Society, No. 27 (208), pp. 151–208Google Scholar; Evans, Peter, “Government action, social capital and development: reviewing the evidence on synergy,” World Development, Vol. 24, No. 6 (06 1996), pp. 1119–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Putnam, Robert D. with Leonardi, Robert and Nanetti, Raffaella Y., Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993).Google Scholar

39. For an earlier account, see Clark, , “Conflict management.”Google Scholar

40. Choate, , “Local governance in China, part II,”Google Scholar elaborates on the RCs' significance in the provision of social services.

41. See, for instance, Shanghai Luwan District Government, “Guanyu wo qu dangqian juweihui gongzuo de qingkuang diaocha” (“A survey of current Residents' Committee work in our district”), CSJJTX, Vol. 5, No. 12 (1995), pp. 17.Google Scholar

42. See Hang, Shao and Jianfen, Peng, “Ying yifa queli juweihui zai xin jian zhuzhai xiaoqu guanli shang de zhongxin diwei” (“It is necessary to establish the central position of the Residents' Committee in the management of newly built residential neighbourhoods in accordance with the law”), CSJJTX, Vol. 8, No. 7 (1998), pp. 2–4.Google Scholar

43. In private housing these are sometimes called “owners committees,” yezhu weiyuanhui.Google Scholar

44. Compiled Statutes of the PRC, p. 141.Google Scholar

45. On differences between Villagers' Committees and Residents' Committees, see the MoCA-edited volume Shijian yu sikao (Practice and Reflection) (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui chubanshe, 1992), pp. 325–345.Google Scholar

46. O'Brien, Kevin J., “Rightful resistance,” World Politics, Vol. 49, No. 1 (10 1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Minxin, Pei, “Citizens v. mandarins: administrative litigation in China,” The China Quarterly, No. 152 (12 1997).Google Scholar

47. Following an anonymous reviewer of this article, one could also hypothesize that institutions like the RCs inherently work at cross-purposes towards increased legalism, as they are designed to handle residents' affairs through personalized contacts outside bureaucratic channels.