Research on Community Construction in Rural China

The following sections are included:

• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• About the Translator
• Preface
• Contents

Zygmunt Bauman holds that a community is a “warm” place or a cozy and comfortable venue like the roof of a family, under which we can shelter ourselves. He argues that in the community, we can depend upon each other, so if we fall to the ground, other people would help us to stand up. However, it is a shame that the community always refers to something in the past or in the future. It is not a world which we can acquire and share in our life, but one we are eager to live in and own one day. In the rapid privatization, individualization and globalization of our modern society, interpersonal trust, recognition and faithfulness are weakening, thus leading to the disintegration of the community. Once disintegrated, the community cannot be reunited into an entity like Phoenix Nirvana. More endeavors to reopen the identical and peaceful door to the community full of innocence and primitivity are fruitless…

China has a long history of farming civilization. The village communities in China, as a kind of rural community of social life, also have a long history. Nevertheless, in different historical periods and different areas, the existing forms and bases of Chinese rural communities might be quite different. In terms of the organizational basis, operation mechanisms and existential environments of communities, we can divide the development of village communities of the traditional imperial ages and the rural communities prior or subsequent to the reform into different periods. From the development and changes of rural communities in different historical periods, we can have a clearer understanding of the internal logic of the formation, evolution and development of Chinese rural communities, which can allow us to grasp the orientation of the construction and future development of Chinese rural communities from a historical point of view.

After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Central Government implemented a series of political, economic and social reforms in the countryside. In particular, they reconstructed the new rural grassroots political power, completed the reform of the rural land system, implemented the socialist transformation of agriculture and vigorously promoted the agricultural cooperation. These series of measures have caused a fundamental transformation of the organization and governance of the rural society and village communities in China. The organizational foundation and the way of their activities have also changed radically, and the rural communities and rural governance have also entered a new historical period.

Since 2001, governments in some regions in China have been trying to build rural communities, and thus the construction of rural communities has entered a locally spontaneous pilot stage. In October 2006, “The CPC Central Committee’s Decision on the Major Issues of the Construction of a Harmonious Socialist Society” was made to have comprehensive development of urban communities, actively promote the construction of rural communities, improve the new community management and service system, and build communities into orderly, perfect, civilized and peaceful communities of social life. In order to carry out the Central Committee’s decision on promoting the rural community construction, we explore the ideas of rural community construction and form the management system and operation mechanism of rural community construction suitable for the Chinese conditions. In March 2007, the Ministry of Civil Affairs of China decided to have a batch of national rural community construction pilot counties (cities and districts) which would spend one or two year to carry out the experimental activities of rural community construction. At this time, China entered the experimental stage of rural community construction. The Twelfth Five-Year Program, which was adopted in 2010, emphasized the intensification of urban and rural community autonomy and service functions, the overall development of urban communities, the construction of rural communities, the improvement of new community management and service system, and the communities were designed to be built into the ones of social life characterized by orderly management, good service and civilized harmony, which marked a new stage of rural community construction in China.

A rural community is a community of social life with a strong sense of identity based on common interests and needs and close interaction in a certain geographical area. However, in real life, it is not easy to identify a community of social life or a community. Especially in rural community construction, how to determine the scope and boundary of a community? How to set the reasonable scale of a rural community? How to set up a scientific layout for rural communities? These questions have always been very difficult to answer in practice everywhere. Therefore, this chapter will deal with the types of rural communities in China, the reasonable scale of community construction, the principles of division and the organizational basis.

A rural community is a community of social life within a certain geographical area. As a community of social life, it is a form of social organization. At the same time, there are usually different forms and types of other organizations within the geographical area of a community. The relationship between these organizations and the community, together with the organizational structures and governance structures within the community organizations, has a direct or even decisive impact on the organization and operation of the community. In the construction of rural communities in China, how to construct the community governance structure and straighten out the relationship between the community and other organizations is not only difficult in practice but also one of the key points in the innovation of social management in the new period.

The intensification and innovation of social management are major problems concerning the everlasting security and peace of the country and the happy life of the people. A community is a cell of society and the basis of social management. It is the basic content and an important task of rural community construction to improve the new system of community management and realize the well-ordered management of communities. In the construction of rural communities, people residing in different regions incessantly explore and improve the management of rural society and have accumulated quite a few experiences. Nevertheless, some problems, related to the system or mechanism in the management of rural society, have not been completely solved; so, there are lots of difficulties and limitations existing in social management. The social problems are still quite serious, so we should base ourselves on the realities of rural China, carefully make our innovation and construct the community management system adaptive to the actual conditions of China and its rural areas to realize the well-ordered management of rural communities and rural society.

One of the focuses of the current rural community construction is to establish and improve the community service systems and promote equalization of basic public services so as to ensure the farmers enjoy rich and convenient market-oriented and socialized services. In 2011, the General Office of the State Council of China printed and issued the “Notice of Community Service System Construction Plan (2011–2015),” which put forward specific requirements for the construction of community service systems and emphasized that the urban and rural economy must be coordinated, the focus of the development of national infrastructure and social undertakings should be put on rural areas, and the equalization of basic public services in urban and rural areas should be promoted so as to achieve coordinated development in urban and rural areas. This is how the majority of farmers can participate in the modernization process on an equal basis and share the fruits of reform and development. There are still many problems in rural community construction that desperately need to be solved, such as how to reform the investment in rural community’s public service, how to establish a new type of community public service platform that meets the demands of rural market economy development and comprehensive rural community development, how to strengthen rural community services, and how to promote the standardized development of rural community public services.

Culture is the glue of society and the foundation of community identification. Culture not only endows individual survival and life with certain value and significance, guiding people’s thinking and action, but also provides the community with a common cognitive and spiritual bond, giving the community a unique connotation, character and taste. It is the spiritual basis for the existence, continuity and development of a neighborhood community. In the process of rapid industrialization, marketization, urbanization, information development and globalization, China’s rural culture is undergoing profound changes. In the construction of rural communities, how to protect, inherit and develop rural culture, how to build and innovate community culture, and how to cultivate and strengthen public culture, are the urgent problems to be studied and solved.

Since the policy of rural community construction was advanced by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), there have been various views on the purpose, goal or direction of the construction of rural communities. Some divergence results from the different apprehensions of both the Central Committee’s policy on rural community construction and the essential characteristics of a “community.” Actually, it is due to the particularity of community construction in a specific social, political and economic background of China. The different understandings of a community and its construction exerts an immediate influence upon the ways and prospects of community construction in the rural areas of China. In the current construction of rural communities, what is most important is to start a reform in village management and make clear the goal and direction of rural community construction in our country.

A community is both the cell and organization unit of a society. In different countries, regions and periods, a community has different organizational forms and forms of existence, but as a community organization, it bears certain functions of social organization and management. In some countries and regions, a community is only a social organization mainly responsible for the function of social management, but in other countries and regions, the community itself is a local and grassroots autonomous organization, taking the function of administrative management. In the current rural community construction in China, whether a rural community is a pure social organization or a grassroots self-governing organization, people still cherish quite different opinions, and the community organizations have different orientations and institutional arrangements. In our view, in the context of China’s specific environment and system, a rural community is a “rural grassroots mass self-government organization,” and the construction of rural communities is also aimed at building new rural grassroots organizations, management and service systems. With the development of rural community construction, rural grassroots governance has been transformed from unit governance to community-based governance, from villager autonomy to community autonomy. This is also a major change in the rural grassroots governance system in contemporary China.

In the modern society, equal access to basic public services is the basic right of citizens. It is also the responsibility of the government to provide all citizens with equal public services. A rural community is a community of rural social life, and it is also the platform of grassroots rural organization, management and service. As an autocratic organization of community service, the community is responsible for the organization, assistance, distribution and supervision of the state’s basic public services. For a long time, there are differences in basic public services between urban and rural areas in China. There is also a significant difference between urban and rural communities in terms of household-registered population and migrant residents. The equalization of services would not only eliminate the duality and non-equalization of the country’s basic public services but also eliminate the closeness and exclusion of community services in communities and realize the equalization of community services.

The rural community construction in China that started in 2006 is booming in all rural areas within this short period of time. Community construction has become another major social, organizational and political construction project in China’s rural areas. It will have a significant impact not only on China’s present but also on the future rural area and the whole country’s economic and social development. As a major social construction and transformation project, the motive force, path and trend of rural community construction deserve our attention and study. In a certain sense, China’s road to rural community construction is also the manifestation of its social construction and development. The power structure, action, logic and strategic choice of rural community construction determine the direction and future of rural community construction to a great extent.

The development of history often has some striking similarities. The period of great concern for and in-depth research on community research is often a period of rapid social upheaval and transformation. Ferdinand Tönnies’s initial research on community explains the impact of rapid industrialization, urbanization and modernization on the rural society and its reflection on the industrial society; in the 1930s, a large number of Chinese sociologists paid close attention to and studied the communities, which are also the comprehension, reaction and reflection on the rapid change of Chinese society and the decline of urban and rural society. The rise of urban community research in China in the 1990s was also the period of the disintegration of urban unit system, urban social restructuring and reconstruction. Since the beginning of the 21st century, people’s attention to the study of rural communities, in fact, has been due to the deepening of China’s rural reform and rapid changes in rural society, the disintegration of traditional rural governance system and village communities, and people are looking for a way to rebuild their society and communities…

The following sections are included:

• Bibliography
• Index