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The Paradigm Shift in the Disciplining of
Village Cadres in China: From Mao to Xi
Juan Wang
*
and Yu Mou
†
Abstract
Village cadres are important agents for the state yet disciplining them has
been difficult. There are few disciplinary tools that can easily hold them
to account. Prior to 2018, Party discipline did not apply to non-Party cadres.
Legislation was ambiguous in relation to these grassroots agents and had to
rely heavily on legal interpretation. The impact of the cadre evaluation sys-
tem on village cadres, who are not considered to be public servants on the
state payroll, was limited. This situation has changed since 2018. The
party-state has consolidated and institutionalized ways in which grassroots
cadres are checked and disciplined. Instead of relying on policy regulation,
which had been the dominant disciplinary method since 1949, village cadres
are now fully subject to Party rules and state laws. These changes have been
accomplished through the application of three measures. First, village Party
secretaries are to serve concurrently as village heads, and members of village
and Party committees are to overlap, thereby making them subject to Party
discipline. Second, village cadres are now considered to be “public agents”
and are on an equal legal footing with other state agents. Finally, a cam-
paign waged by the criminal justice apparatus cleaned up village administra-
tion and prepared it for upcoming village elections in a new era.
Keywords: village cadres; discipline; law; institutionalization; village
election; Xi Jinping
Village cadres are important agents for the state. They have been, and remain, at
the forefront of Party and government policy implementation, including the
implementation of highly unpopular policies such as unified grain purchase
and sale (tonggou tongxiao 统购统销) and collectivization during the Mao era,
and family planning in the reform period. They promote economic growth
1
and provide public goods.
2
At the same time, they are also the cause of societal
* Department of Political Science, McGill University, Montreal, Canada. Email: juan.wang2@mcgill.ca
(corresponding author).
†
School of Law, SOAS, University of London, London, UK. Email: ym19@soas.ac.uk.
1Oi1995.
2 Tsai 2007.
1
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of SOAS University of London. This is an Open Access article,
distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/),which permitsunrestricted
re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. doi:10.1017/S0305741021000953
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grievances. Charges of commandism and corruption have been commonplace.
3
Some village cadres have connections with violent gangs.
4
Some may even shift
identities from state agents to societal representatives and facilitate collective
resistance against higher-level state officials.
5
Disciplining grassroots cadres in villages, however, has proved to be a daunting
task. Despite a variety of disciplinary tools, such as Party disciplinary regula-
tions, state laws and cadre evaluation systems, it has been tricky to hold grass-
roots cadres in villages to account. Party disciplinary regulations do not apply
to cadres who are not Party members. Legal codes, especially anti-corruption
laws, had to rely on legal interpretations that apply to these grassroots agents
at the lowest level. The cadre evaluation system also had little impact because
punitive measures such as salary deductions or demotion did not apply to village
cadres as they were not considered to be public servants and were not on the state
payroll.
There is scant scholarly research that systematically surveys the ways in which
the party-state has disciplined these grassroots cadres. Relevant literature about
local state agents in rural China can be categorized into three types. The first
pays particular attention to the behavioural choices of Party officials at the
county and township levels.
6
The second examines village cadres and their inter-
actions with or embeddedness in rural society at a particular time or through a
case study.
7
The third discusses the impact on village cadres and village admin-
istration of such policies as village elections,
8
tax reforms,
9
performance evalu-
ation systems,
10
or a combination of these policies.
11
In this article, we compare and contrast the ways in which village grassroots
cadres have been disciplined since 1949 and highlight the major changes intro-
duced under the Xi Jinping 习近平administration. First, village cadres, and par-
ticularly village heads, have been incorporated into the Party system and now
formally serve concurrently as Party secretaries, making them subject to Party
discipline. Second, village cadres are now considered to be “public agents”
(gongzhi renyuan 公职人员)
12
and thus are subject to the 2020 Law on
Administrative Discipline for Public Agents (Gongzhi renyuan zhengwu chufen
fa 公职人员政务处分法). This change has not only clarified the position of vil-
lage cadres as public agents according to state law but has also unequivocally
placed them under the scrutiny of administrative sanctions and the state
3 Wedeman 1997; Xu and Yao 2015.
4 Hurst et al. 2014.
5 Wang, Juan 2012.
6 Heberer and Schubert 2006; Smith 2010; Zhou 2010.
7 Chan, Madsen and Unger 1992; Hinton 1966; Unger 1998.
8 Guo, Zhenglin, and Bernstein 2004; Oi and Rozelle 2000.
9 Zhang, Linxiu, et al. 2005.
10 O’Brien and Li 1999.
11 Wang, Juan 2012.
12 Public agents are not to be confused with civil servants (gongwu yuan), who are on the state payroll. We
will discuss the legal concept of “public agents”below.
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supervisory apparatus. Third, as part of a campaign carried out by the criminal
justice apparatus between 2018 and 2021, there was a major crackdown on grass-
roots cadres who associate with “black or evil forces.”
In this article, we focus on disciplinary measures, by which we mean how the
party-state sanctions and punishes miscreant village cadres. We do not examine
the ways in which the party-state acquires information about the malfeasance of
village cadres, such as the petition system and its Mao-era precedents which
allowed the masses to report on government officials.
13
Neither do we consider
moral and ideological indoctrination, or punishment in the name of ideological
training, such as self-criticism and confessions.
14
Normative discipline is an
important instrument of control but requires fuller explication as a separate
project.
The remainder of this article analyses the disciplinary actions and reforms that
affected village cadres between 1949 and 2012, from the beginning of the People’s
Republic of China until Xi Jinping rose to power. It suggests that policy guide-
lines and mass participation were the principal tools used to discipline grassroots
cadres in the Mao era. During the reform period, numerous government regula-
tions and various institutional reforms, such as village elections, fiscal reforms
and petition systems, were enacted, but they largely focused on responding to pol-
icy grievances from farmers and potentially improving societal input instead of
rectifying village cadres as a group. Since 2012, and since 2018 in particular,
there has been an institutionalization and consolidation of the ways in which
the party-state checks and disciplines these grassroots cadres, who have been for-
mally incorporated into the Party and so are now subject to Party rules and state
laws. There has been a recasting of the emphasis in disciplinary oversight in
favour of three components, namely the “one shoulder pole”(yijiantiao 一肩
挑), the repositioning of village cadres as “public agents,”and campaign-style
justice. The article concludes that there has been a paradigm shift, from the
Mao era to the Xi era, in the ways in which the party-state disciplines village
cadres.
Overview, 1949–2012
Between 1949 and 2012, disciplinary measures aimed at grassroots cadres can be
divided into policy regulations and mass movements (qunzhong yundong 群众运
动).
15
During both the Mao and reform eras, policy regulations were used to
warn against and punish improper behaviour of village cadres. There was only
one mass movement that targeted grassroots cadres during this time, the Four
Cleans campaign (siqing 四清).
16
13 Li, Qiuxue 2009.
14 Thornton 2007; Wang, Juan 2018.
15 Some legislation was applied to village officials during this time period, but it was not specifically tar-
geted at grassroots cadres. We review this legislation below.
16 Mass movements against village cadres also took place in 1947; however, the scope of the current paper
is limited to the post-1949 period.
Paradigm Shift in the Discipling of Village Cadres 3
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Launched in 1963,
17
the Four Cleans campaign was the only mass movement
that targeted village cadres. During the Mao era, several policy campaigns were
initiated to address problems within the rural administration and among grass-
roots cadres.
18
But the Four Cleans differed from previous campaigns in that it
relied on mass movement tactics instead of policy regulations and administrative
penalties. As discussed in Elizabeth Perry’s contribution to this volume, millions
of work-team members spent months in rural areas leading the campaign.
19
The
masses were mobilized to reason with and educate grassroots cadres during ses-
sions which often turned into violent struggles.
20
Policy regulations have commonly been used by the party-state to manage the
illicit behaviour of village cadres. During the Mao era, many of the campaigns
targeting miscreant grassroots cadres were accompanied by numerous policy
directives.
21
Between 1982 and 1986, the annual Central No. 1 Document on
Rural Matters (Zhongyang nongcun gongzuo yihao wenjian 中央农村工作一号
文件), issued by the Central Party Committee and aimed at reforming the
rural economy, abolished unified grain purchase and sale. Rural administration
was expanded with the implementation of accompanying rural economic reforms
and the establishment of township and village enterprises that were not always
profitable. Such developments were financed by the excessive taxation of farm-
ers.
22
The widespread “three arbitraries”(sanluan 三乱)–arbitrary fees, fines
and apportionments in rural areas –continued into the 1990s, exacting an
increasingly heavy financial toll on farmers.
23
Peasant complaints skyrocketed,
24
17 We choose 1963 as the beginning of the Four Cleans campaign, as this was the year the Central Party
Committee held its work meeting in February to discuss the Five Anti movement in urban areas and
Four Cleans in rural areas. For an informative review, see Zhan and Chen 2009.
18 These campaigns were a response to charges of bureaucratism and commandism that initially appeared
during grain collection and work assignment in rural areas (the Three Anti’s, 1953), and a later stage of
top-down inspection efforts targeting cadres (cadre inspection movement at the sub-county level, 1957),
as well as in response to wide-spread suffering following the Great Leap Forward and famine (rectifi-
cation movement, 1960).
19 Perry 2021.
20 Lin 2005; Baum and Teiwes 1968; Li, Ruojian 2005.
21 These include “Decisions regarding the rectification of Party grassroots organizations,”promulgated
during the First National Organizational Work Meeting (Guanyu zhengdun dangde jiceng zuzhi de
jueyi) in April 1951; “Some regulations regarding the handling of violation of Party discipline by
rural Party members,”issued by the Central Party Committee Inspection Commission in 1956
(Guanyu chuli nongcun zhong gongchandangyuan weifan dang de jilü wenti de jixiang guiding);
“Instructions regarding the beginning of the Three Anti movement in the rural areas,”issued by the
Central Party Committee in 1960 (Guanyu zai nongcun zhong kaizhan “sanfan”yundong de zhishi);
“Opinions regarding a few policy issues related to the Three Anti movement in rural areas, by the
Central Party Inspection Commission in 1960 (Guanyu nongcun “sanfang”yundong zhong jige juti
zhengce wenti de yijian); “Decisions regarding some issues in current rural work (draft)”by the
Central Party Committee in May 1963 (Guanyu muqian nongcun gongzuo zhong ruogan wenti de jueding
(cao’an); and “Notice regarding some issues during the current socialist education movement in rural
areas”by the Central Party Committee in December 1964 (Nongcun shehuizhuyi jiaoyu yundong zhong
muqian tichu de yixie wenti de tongzhi).
22 Wang, Juan 2005.
23 Chen and Duan 2010.
24 Bianco 2001;O’Brien 2002; Bernstein and Lü 2003; Yu, Jianrong 2004; Yep 2002.
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and were consequentially followed by numerous regulations forbidding these
arbitrary impositions by grassroots cadres.
25
The party-state did not simply issue policies constraining the behaviour of
grassroots cadres; it also engaged in various policy changes and institutional
reforms to tackle the origins of farmers’grievances. The 1993 Law on
Agriculture, for example, set limits on the arbitrary fees levied on peasants by
capping the combined payment of formal township and village levies (often
referred to as santi wutong 三提五统,ortongchou tiliu 统筹提留) at 5 per cent
of the average net per capita income of residents for the preceding year. In prac-
tice, however, local cadres falsified statistics to continue levying excessive fees.
26
The “Open governance and open finance in villages”initiative was another policy
change, introduced by the General Office of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
Central Committee together with the General Office of the State Council in April
1998.
27
During the Hu–Wen administration (2002–2012), farmers’protests con-
tinued, with grievances related to land expropriation, village financial disputes,
peasant salary disputes and environmental issues.
28
The administration
responded by introducing fiscal reforms (the “tax-for-fee”reform in 2003 and
the abolition of agricultural taxes in 2005), recentralizing land requisition author-
ity to the county level, and bestowing oversight of village finances to
township-level authorities.
29
Yet one of the major initiatives of the Hu–Wen era, the “Building a new social-
ist countryside”campaign, failed to launch any campaigns against corrupt village
cadres. Annual No. 1 Documents issued between 2004 and 2012 discussed
improving farmers’income by increasing technological and infrastructural invest-
ment, building modern agriculture and improving policies related to migrant
workers;
30
a few did make references to grassroots cadres, but the emphasis
was on the “care and protection”(guanxin he aihu 关心和爱护) of these cadres,
the improvement of their training in policies, laws and practical skills (2006), and
the recruitment and promotion of Party secretaries from among veterans,
returned migrant workers and economically savvy (zhifu nengshou 致富能手)
Party members in order to offset “weak”(ruanruo huansan 软弱涣散) grassroots
25 For an informative review of policies, see Zhang, Jinsong 2005. The most notable ones include the 1985
Notice to prohibit “san luan”; the 1990 Notice to reduce farmers’burdens; the 1991 Regulations on
farmers’burdens and labour; the 1992 Notice following up on the 1991 Regulations; the 1993
Urgent Notice about reducing farmers’burdens; the 1996 Decisions regarding reducing farmers’bur-
dens; and the 1998 Decisions regarding a few issues related to agriculture and rural work.
26 He and Cheng 2001.
27 “Guanyu zai nongcun pubian shixing cunwu gongkai he minzhu guanli zhidu de tongzhi”(Notice
regarding general implementation of open governance and democratic management in rural villages).
Beijing Courts Database, 18 April 1998, http://fgcx.bjcourt.gov.cn:4601/law?fn=chl098s113.txt&dbt=
chl. Accessed 20 September 2021.
28 Yu, Bin 2006; Sun, Jinglin 2010; Wang, Juan 2017, Table 1.1.
29 Wang, Juan 2017, Ch. 4.
30 “Jujiao zhongyang yi hao wenjian 2004–2021”(The Central Committee of the Chinese Communist
Party Document No. 1, 2004–2021), The Ministry of Agriculture of the PRC, http://www.moa.gov.
cn/ztzl/jj2021zyyhwj/. Accessed 2 June 2021.
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Party organizations (2010) and improve self-governance in building Party organi-
zations in rural areas (2012).
Notable changes have taken place during the Xi administration. The overall
focus of rural work, as evidenced by nine annual No. 1 Documents, has been
on reducing poverty and attaining “moderate prosperity”(xiaokang 小康). The
Party has, however, taken unprecedented institutional measures since 2018 to
emphasize rural work. The 2019 CCP Rural Work Regulations (Zhongguo gong-
chandang nongcun gongzuo tiaoli 中国共产党农村工作条例, 2019 Rural Work
Regulations hereafter), for example, formalized the holding of an annual Rural
Work Meeting by the Party centre, and the formation of a leading small group
on rural work led by the Politburo Standing Committee and staffed with a per-
manent office. Local Party committees at the county-level and above are also
required to set up corresponding permanent small leading groups.
31
In addition to this institution building, Xi has also consolidated the
party-state’s control over village cadres with three key components in Party reg-
ulations and state laws. The first, the proposed “one shoulder pole”(described
below), will directly position village heads as concurrent Party branch secretaries
and under Party scrutiny. Second, village cadres are now formally categorized as
“public agents”and are on an equal footing with other state officials subject to
the 2020 Law on Administrative Discipline for Public Agents. Third, judicial
mobilization in the form of the “sweep away black forces and eradicating evil
forces”campaign (saohei chu e 扫黑除恶, SABFEE hereafter) has facilitated rec-
tification and reorganization of village administrations by means of criminal just-
ice. We elaborate on these components below.
“One Shoulder Pole”: The Party Supplants the Self-governing Body
The Party has always been conscientious about the leadership role of its Party
members and branches in rural areas. The specific ways in which Party members
and branches lead rural affairs and their relationship with the grassroots admin-
istration have changed over time. Under Xi Jinping’s leadership, Party branch
secretaries have, for the first time, been explicitly instructed to be elected as vil-
lage heads through village elections, thereby blurring the boundary between the
Party and grassroots administration.
During the Mao era, the Party relied on Party members and peasant associa-
tions to engage in rural work. Peasant associations were elected bodies for rural
administration and were believed to be a remedy for corruption and ideological
rightism. Poor peasant associations established before 1949 were replaced by
peasant associations in 1950, which were then replaced in turn by grassroots
31 County-level small leading groups in charge of rural work had been set up previously, such as during the
“Building a new socialist countryside”campaign, a policy initiative launched during Hu–Wen adminis-
tration in 2006 (Ahlers and Schubert 2009). However, it was a temporary team instead of a permanent
structure. For the full text of the 2019 Rural Work Regulations, see “Zhonggong zhongyang yinfa
‘Zhongguo gongchandang nongcun gongzuo tiaoli’.”Xinhuanet, 1 September 2019, http://www.gov.
cn/zhengce/2019-09/01/content_5426319.htm. Accessed 1 May 2021.
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governments after Land Reform.
32
When the Party estimated in May 1964 that
one-third of power at the grassroots level had been hijacked by class enemies in
rural China,
33
new poor and lower-middle peasants associations were established
to replace grassroots cadres.
34
During the reform era, particularly when the Provisional Organic Law of
Villagers’Committees (1988) introduced village-level elections, the relationship
between village committees (VCs) as an elected body and village Party branches
changed. In the 1990s, Party branches were seen as the “leading core”(lingdao
hexin 领导核心) of rural organizations; since 2019, they are expected to exercise
“comprehensive leadership”(quanmian lingdao 全面领导) over rural affairs.
According to the Minutes of the National Symposium on the Building of
Village-level Organizations (Quanguo cunji zuzhi jianshe gongzuo zuotan hui
jiyao 全国村级组织建设工作座谈会纪要) held on 13 December 1990 (1990
Minutes hereafter), Party branches in villages were responsible for implementing
Party policies, educating and evaluating cadres in collective enterprises, and
“leading”(lingado 领导) VCs, village collective economic organizations, the
youth league, women’s organizations and the militia. This Party–VC relationship
was reiterated in the 1999 “Regulations regarding the CCP rural grassroots-level
organization work”(Zhongguo gongchandang nongcun jiceng zuzhi gongzuo tiaoli
中国共产党农村基层组织工作条例) (Articles 2 and 9). However, since the prom-
ulgation of the 2019 “Regulations regarding the CCP rural grassroots-level
organization work”(2019 Organization Regulations hereafter), Party branches
are no longer regarded as the “leading core”; instead, they now exercise “compre-
hensive leadership”over village affairs.
35
The effect on personnel arrangements of the “comprehensive leadership”pro-
moted in the 2019 Organization Regulations and the 2019 Rural Work
Regulations appears to be that village Party secretaries should, “through legal
procedures”(tongguo fading chengxu 通过法定程序), serve as both VC chair
and manager of village collectively owned economic organizations. Membership
of the two committees –Party committees and village committees –should over-
lap. Similarly, the 2019 No. 1 Document urged “full implementation”(quanmian
tuixing 全面推行) of the practice of Party secretaries chairing village committees
(i.e. the position of village head) through “legal procedures.”
36
32 Zhang, Yinghong 2007.
33 Xia 2015.
34 “Guanyu zai wenti yanzhong de diqu you pinxie xingshi quanli de pishi”(Notice regarding poor and
lower-middle peasant associations taking control in areas with serious issues). Xinhuanet,12
November 2007, http://www.ce.cn/xwzx/gnsz/szyw/200706/13 /t20070613_11731053.shtml. Accessed 26
April 2021.
35 “Zhonggong zhongyang yinfa ‘Zhongguo gongchangdang nongcun jiceng zuzhi gongzuo tiaoli’”
(Central Committee of CCP publishes regulations on CCP rural grassroots-level organization work).
Xinhuanet, 10 January 2019, http://www.xinhuanet.com/2019-01/10/c_1123973918.htm. Accessed 1
May 2021.
36 “Guanyu jiaqiang he gaijin xiangcun zhili de zhidao yijian”(The guidance on strengthening and
improving village management). Xinhuanet, 23 June 2019, http://www.gov.cn/zhengce/2019-06/23/
content_5402625.htm. Accessed 2 May 2021.
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This practice of “one shoulder pole”–combining the post of the formally
elected village head with that of the village Party secretary –has for decades
been seen as a way to resolve the conflict between village Party branches and
elected bodies. When the Organic Law on Village Committees came into effect
in 1999, “one shoulder pole”pilot projects were conducted in Shandong,
Guangdong and Hainan provinces. In 2002, shortly after these pilot programmes,
the General Office of the Central Party Committee and the General Office of the
State Council issued Document No. 14 (2002 Notice hereafter) to “encourage”
(changdao 倡导) such practices, but implementation at a local level varied greatly
across provinces.
37
Given the heterogeneity of China’s villages, it is certainly not
the case that all Party secretaries have the upper hand, despite official support
from their Party bosses at the township level.
38
In villages where elections are
held, scholars have noted both power-sharing
39
and conflicts between Party sec-
retaries and village heads.
40
The 2019 Organization Regulations and the 2019 Rural Work Regulations,
therefore, marked the first time that “one shoulder pole”was formally mandated
to be “fully implemented”“through legal procedures.”This was a major policy
shift. According to the 1990 Minutes, leading members of the village Party
branch could, through election, serve concurrently as head of the VC. The
2002 Notice “encouraged”(tichang 提倡) the practice of Party members being
elected to VCs and Party secretary candidates standing for election as VC
head. Only until they were elected could they be recommended to be Party sec-
retaries. In contrast to the 2002 Notice, in which elected village heads were
appointed as Party secretaries, the new practice aims to have Party secretaries
elected as village heads, without specifying how to make it happen.
The “one shoulder pole”method is essentially jurisdiction manipulation, as
observed by Ling Li.
41
Li concludes that the Party can exert its control over
state administration by placing exclusive jurisdiction over state affairs under
the Party. The Party is in effect “gerrymandering,”often by “combining offices
and joint posts,”or “one office with two plaques/hats,”in cases in which a
post or an institution under regulatory scrutiny is not a Party post or Party organ-
ization. However, there is a caveat: elected village heads have never officially
been state agents. What we observe here is not simply a case of the Party
under Xi taking control of state affairs; rather it is the Party taking control of
affairs away from a self-governing, democratically elected body.
This raises the question of how, in practice, village Party secretaries can be
guaranteed to be elected as village heads. In addition to the procedural and can-
didate manipulations documented elsewhere,
42
anti-corruption measures have
37 Tang 2015.
38 Oi and Rozelle 2000.
39 Sun, Xin, et al. 2013; Fewsmith 2006.
40 Guo, Zhenglin, and Bernstein 2004.
41 Li, Ling 2020.
42 Wang, Zhongyuan 2020.
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emerged as complementary tools to eliminate alternative candidates. The 2019
No.1 Document instructed county-level governments to “re-examine”village
elections (huitou kan 回头看) and to disqualify those village cadres and Party
branch members with a criminal record or who were involved with black forces,
previously identified as “village despots”(cunba 村霸)or“evil forces”according
to the judicial criteria used during the SABFEE campaign. The 2020 No. 1
Document further emphasized the importance of anti-corruption work at the
grassroots level to prevent the rise of “village despots.”
We explicate the connections between the SABFEE campaign, corruption and
elections in a later section. For now, it suffices to say that while such
anti-corruption drives have the potential to improve the quality of
Party-nominated candidates, they also provide a means to eliminate noncompli-
ant ones. Should a Party branch secretary not be elected as the head of a VC, it is
highly likely that the successful candidate will be subjected to a thorough vetting
of his or her criminal background.
“Public Agents”: Affirmation of the Legal Status of Village Cadres
Another major change that occurred in 2020 was the recategorization of village
cadres as “public agents”so that they are now subject to the 2020 Law on
Administrative Discipline for Public Agents. This change has not only clarified
the position of village cadres as public agents by state law but has also placed
them under the scrutiny of the administrative process and the state supervisory
apparatus.
Legally speaking, village cadres have a complex position given their ambiguous
status as a sui generis group. On the one hand, they are elected by members of
village committees, which are defined as autonomous organizations (zizhi zuzhi
自治组织) according to Article 111 of the 2018 Constitution. As a self-governing
organization, a village committee is not regarded as a public body and, for that
reason, village cadres who chair and manage a village committee are not com-
monly considered to be public agents representing the state.
43
On the other
hand, village cadres are elected to carry out public services such as mediating dis-
putes, maintaining public order and implementing public health and family plan-
ning policies (Article 7 of 2018 the Organic Law on Village Committees). Their
role as head of the village committee inevitably entails public duties such as col-
lecting fees and levies and keeping a close watch on those who are deprived of
political rights.
44
Given that the ambiguous legal standing of village cadres did not fit squarely
with that of a state agent, it was difficult to know under what legal jurisdiction
43 The autonomous status of village committees is further manifested in the 2018 Organic Law on Village
Committees, which stipulates that the self-government and self-determination characteristic of village
committees is supported by grassroots democracy in the forms of “democratic election, democratic
decision-making, democratic management and democratic supervision.”See the 2018 Constitution,
Article 2.
44 Benewick, Tong and Howell 2004.
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they came when punishing them for criminal acts such as corruption. It is true
that village cadres who committed corruption-related crimes were subject to
criminal sanctions prior to the 2020 Law on Administrative Discipline for
Public Agents, which itself was not based on criminal law but rather on extended
legislative interpretations passed in 1988 and 2000.
45
For example, the charges of
corruption and bribery could only be applied to village cadres in accordance with
their role as “other personnel who manage public assets”(qita jingshou, guanli
gonggongcaiwu de renyuan 其他经手、管理公共财物的人员) according to an
additional interpretation published by the Standing Committee of the National
People’s Congress (NPC) in 1988.
46
Similarly, the legislative interpretation
passed in 2000 on the application of Article 93(2) held that village cadres
could be charged and punished for corruption and embezzlement offences as
state officials.
47
Thousands of village cadres were indeed charged with and con-
victed of corruption on the basis of these legislative interpretations prior to
2019.
48
At the same time, administrative regulations had a limited deterrent effect on
sanctioning village cadres’misconduct. For example, the State Council’s1992
“Regulations governing the administration of the costs borne and services pro-
vided by peasants”(Nongmin chengdan feiyong he laowu guanli tiaoli 农民承担
费用和劳务管理条例) referenced both the 1990 “Regulations on administrative
supervision”(Xingzheng jiancha tiaoli 行政监察条例) and the 1987
“Regulations on administrative penalties for public security”(Zhi’an guanli
chufa tiaoli 治安管理处罚条例, 1987 Regulations hereafter) in its rules for discip-
lining village cadres who engaged in the “three arbitrary”activities.
49
However,
the punitive measures granted to administrative supervisory bodies –warning,
demerit and demotion –lacked teeth when it came to village cadres. According
to the 1987 Regulations, the police could only intervene in circumstances
where assaults occurred and physical harm ensued, which limited the chances
of bringing village cadres to account.
The 2020 Law on Administrative Discipline for Public Agents (2020 Law here-
after) was a turning point in this regard. For the first time, village cadres were
officially classed as “public agents”and subject to disciplinary laws. The 2020
45 See Art. 1 of “The supplementary regulation on punishing crimes of corruption and bribery,”promul-
gated by the NPC Standing Committee 1988. See also Art. 2 of the Supreme People’s Court and the
Supreme People’s procuratorate on “The implementation of the supplementary regulation on punishing
crimes of corruption and bribery”and the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress on
Interpretation of Art. 93 (2), passed on 29 April 2000 and formally promulgated on 27 August 2009
by the NPC Standing Committee.
46 Ibid.
47 Ibid.
48 For example, the Conjoined Party Central Discipline Inspection Commission–State Supervisory
Ministry announced that over 74,000 low-rank functionaries (or what the Chinese media call “flies”)
were disciplined in 2016. See “Gonggu fanfubai douzheng yadaoxing taishi”(Consolidating the
anti-corruption position), China Discipline Inspection Commission Paper, 2 August 2017, https://
www.ccdi.gov.cn/special/sbjqcqh/jjqh_sbjqzqh/201702/t20170208_93669.html. Accessed 23 August
2021.
49 State council 1992.
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Law refers to the 2018 Supervision Law ( jianchafa 监察法) for reference of the
scope of “public agents”(Article 2). According to Article 15 of the 2018
Supervision Law, supervisory commissions are responsible for punishing the mal-
feasance of six categories of personnel, including personnel engaged in manage-
ment at grassroots-level self-governance organizations, like village cadres.
To be sure, village cadres, in their role as “state agents”(guojia gongzuo
renyuan 国家工作人员), were mentioned peripherally in law prior to the 2018
Supervision Law. Addressing Article 93 of 1997 Criminal Law, the NPC
Standing Committee and the Supreme People’s Court classified village committee
personnel who assist the People’s government in carrying out administrative work
as “state agents”under limited circumstances.
50
This decision, however, was
more of a technical solution to a stand-alone legal issue as opposed to a political
commitment. This is evidenced by the fact that the decision was primarily circu-
lated within judicial organs and the NPC Standing Committee and was not pub-
lished until 2009.
51
By contrast, the current legal regime managing village cadres
has not only adopted law as its primary format but has widely publicized the for-
mal integration of village cadres as personnel under the oversight of supervisory
agencies.
52
Both judicial organs and the disciplinary apparatus are tasked with
studying the 2020 Law.
53
The paradigm shift in the legal regulation of village cadres in the Xi era is
therefore unequivocal. Village cadres are now officially affirmed as state cadres
and subject to criminal liability as well as administrative sanctions alongside
other state agents. According to Article 22 of the 2020 Law, a variety of discip-
linary measures can be applied to village cadres, including not only regular sanc-
tions such as warnings and demerits but also more consequential ones such as
cuts to bonuses and subsidies. As noted, the 2020 Law, in conjunction with the
2018 Supervision Law, has specifically declared village cadres to be public agents.
This clarification of their legal categorization is important as it places village
cadres on an equal footing with other government officials and thus subject to
the same disciplinary procedures. It allows the supervisory commissions to
impose administrative sanctions directly on village cadres, bringing the key
players of the basic village communities firmly under the control of the
party-state’s supervisory authority.
50 More specifically, it is when they engaged in (1) management of disaster relief, flood control, poverty
alleviation, migration management and public donations; (2) management of charity funds from public
donations; (3) operation and management of state-owned land; (4) management of land expropriation
compensation funds; (5) levying taxes; (6) work in relation to the one-child policy, household registra-
tion and conscription; and (7) other work in facilitating the administration of the local government. The
Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress on Interpretation of Article 93(2), passed on 29
April 2000 and formally promulgated on 27 August 2009.
51 See Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress on Interpretation of Article 93(2), promul-
gated on 27 August 2009.
52 Changyuan 2020.
53 A simple search of “study, 2020 Law on Administrative Discipline for Public Agents”(xuexi gongzhi
renyuan chufen fa) yields over half a million results on the Baidu search engine.
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Campaign Justice: Efficiently Cleaning Up Village Administration
Since 2018, campaign-style enforcement has also been deployed to keep grass-
roots cadres in line. Although campaign-style enforcement by mass movement
was used to discipline village cadres during the Four Cleans, mobilizing the crim-
inal justice system to sanction village cadres is a new move. Launched in January
2018 to eliminate so-called black and evil forces (hei e shili 黑恶势力) and their
“protective umbrellas”(baohusan 保护伞), the three-year SABFEE campaign
removed thousands of village cadres from office. Convicted of black and evil
crimes (hei e fanzui 黑恶犯罪), these dismissed cadres were stigmatized as crim-
inals and “village despots”alike.
Some scholars have associated the SABFEE with the “strike hard”anti-crime
movement launched in the mid-1980s.
54
There are indeed similarities between the
two: both targeted organized crime and emphasized efficient means to dispose of
a large number of criminal cases. Politically motivated, these campaigns were
directed by the party-state apparatus and supported by propaganda departments.
However, unlike the “strike hard”campaign, which was aimed at cracking down
on certain types of criminal activities, the SABFEE targeted specific groups of
people. The CCP Central Office and the State Council declared that the cam-
paign would wage war on (1) “black society”gangsters; (2) evil forces who use
violence, threats or other means to bully the public and cause social disorder;
and (3) their “protective umbrellas”(patronage networks) within the Party and
the government, as well as Party committee members, government officials and
members of the police force who fail to put in an effort to eliminate these criminal
forces.
55
Although village cadres were not explicitly targeted, they can be easily
framed as having dealings with black and/or evil forces.
56
Of these categories,
“black force”crimes are well-established concepts in Chinese criminal law.
According to Article 294 of the 2007 Criminal Law, whoever forms, leads or
takes an active part in organizing criminal syndicates to commit organized illegal
or criminal acts through violence, threat or other means shall be prosecuted for a
mafia-style gang crime. The category of “evil force”crimes was introduced by a
series of judicial interpretations based on the campaign guidelines. Those who
commit evil force crimes are referred to as “frequently assembled criminal and
unlawful organizations that are yet to be developed into mafia-style gangs [but]
that carry out multiple criminal activities within a certain region or a certain
industry through lording it over the people, perpetrating outrages, riding rough-
shod over people, and disrupting the economic order and people’s daily
54 Wang, Peng 2020.
55 “Zhonggong zhongyang guowuyuan fachu guanyu kaizhan sao hei chu e zhuanxiang douzheng de
tongzhi”(The Central Party Committee and State Council published notices concerning the implemen-
tation of the special action to sweep away black and evil forces). Xinhuanet, 24 January 2018, http://
www.xinhuanet.com/legal/2018-01/24/c_1122309773.htm. Accessed 3 June 2021; Zhu 2018.
56 “Zhonggong zhongyang bangongting, guowuyuan yinfa quanguo sao hei chu e zhuanxiang douzheng
dudao gongzuo fang’an”(The Central Committee of CCP and State Council on publishing working
plans on supervising the nationwide campaign to sweep away black and evil forces). Xinhuanet,5
July 2018, http://www.gov.cn/zhengce/2018-07/05/content_5303847.htm. Accessed 6 June 2021.
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activities.”
57
Village cadres who have strong local connections, particularly in the
form of clans, are likely to fall into these categories.
There are two interrelated reasons behind the inclusion of village cadres in the
SABFEE campaign. The first is that some SABFEE targets overlapped with
those of the “catching flies”component of Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption cam-
paign. According to the “Steering working plan of the nationwide SABFEE cam-
paign,”jointly issued in January 2018 by the general offices of the Party Central
Committee and the State Council, SABFEE work was to be combined with the
“catching flies”anti-corruption movement at the grassroots level.
58
Second, cor-
ruption at the grassroots level seems to be among a wide range of illicit dealings
committed by or involving grassroots cadres. The National Discipline and
Supervision Daily (Zhongguo jiijan jiancha bao 中国纪检监察报) reported that
grassroots communities were among those hardest hit by crimes and unlawful
activities committed by “black and evil forces”owing to the clan system,
which supported local tyrants and “village despots.”
59
The news report went
on to suggest that the “specialized struggle’(zhuanxiang douzheng 专项斗争)
against black and evil forces that had infiltrated the grassroots Party organiza-
tions was a “potent medicine”(mengyao 猛药) to treat the longstanding disease.
Complementing Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption drive, the campaign was undoubt-
edly a drastic move to manage grassroots cadres and strengthen the Party’s gov-
ernance at the basic level.
The connection between organized crimes in rural areas and village adminis-
tration during the SABFEE campaign is a new development. In the reform
era, various irregularities in rural governance were noticed by the central govern-
ment, yet no action was taken to tackle these problems until 2018. In fact, in the
1990s, He Qinglian 何清涟, a well-known critic of Chinese economic and polit-
ical reforms, warned that evil forces in the countryside in form of clans and hoo-
ligans had seized power through village elections and dominated Chinese rural
politics.
60
Ignoring He’s warning, a number of No.1 Documents during the
Hu–Wen administration instead perceived issues of misgovernment and deep-
seated social ills in the countryside, such as prostitution, gambling and drug addic-
tion, as “ugly social phenomena”(shehui chou e xianxiang 社会丑恶现象), which
should be “strictly struck down”through village policing (nongcun jingwu jianshe
农村警务建设) (2006 No. 1 Document). Although rural electoral fraud, such as
vote buying, and the interference of religious groups and clans in village public
affairs were noted, the only vague solution suggested was to strengthen “instruction
and leadership”(liangdao he zhidao 领导和指导) during the electoral cycle (2010
No. 1 Document).
57 “Guanyu banli e shili xingshi anjian ruogan wenti de yijian”(Notice concerning several questions on
handling evil force cases). Xinhuanet, 9 April 2019, https://www.spp.gov.cn/zdgz/201904/t20190409_
414134.shtml. Accessed 10 May 2021.
58 Xinhuanet, 24 January 2018.
59 Zhai 2018.
60 He 1997.
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Although disciplining miscreant village cadres and cleaning up basic adminis-
tration were some of the main objectives of the SABFEE campaign, the motiv-
ation of the campaign reflects the party-state’s vision of rural governance and
village elections. In August 2019, the general offices of the Central Party
Committee and the State Council circulated the “Guiding opinion regarding
strengthening and improving rural governance”(Guanyu jiaqiang he gaijin xiang-
cun zhili de zhidao yijian 关于加强和改进乡村治理的指导意见), which drew
explicit links between the elimination of black and evil forces (including certain
rural clan forces), rural governance and correcting village election fraud. It called
for a crackdown on black and/or evil forces (alongside dominant clan forces) that
manipulate and disrupt local Party committee elections and village committee
elections.
61
In line with the 2019 Document No.1, the 2019 Guiding Opinion
underscores the importance of the election of village cadres through lawful
means and the interlocking of members of grassroots Party committees with
those of village committees.
62
The SABFEE campaign achieved noteworthy results in rural areas. By the end
of 2020 when the campaign was drawing to a close, over 41,700 village cadres
had been expelled from village committees in disgrace.
63
A total of 1,289
“black society”gang members and 14,027 “evil forces”in rural areas were con-
victed and punished after the three-year campaign, among which 3,727 were “vil-
lage despots,”purportedly responsible for eroding the governing effectiveness of
basic Party organizations.
64
In February 2021, the Commission for Deepening
Overall Reform of the Central Party Committee issued mandates to institution-
alize preventive measures to avoid the future rise of “village despots.”
65
Conclusion: Paradigm Shift and Continuities
Moving from the Mao era to the Xi era, there has been a paradigm shift in the
ways in which the party-state disciplines village cadres. The constituent weight of
three tools –policy regulations, mass movements and laws –has changed how the
party-state is able to exert firm control over grassroots cadres through Party rules
and state laws. What underpins the shift? Distinctive to the Xi Jinping adminis-
tration, the party-state has promoted Party supremacy together with the institu-
tionalization and standardization of state affairs
66
and state–society relations.
67
We maintain that changes related to village cadres form part of this broad reform
61 “Guanyu jiaqiang he gaijin xiangcun zhili de zhidao yijian”(The guidance on strengthening and
improving village management). Xinhuanet, 23 June 2019, http://www.gov.cn/zhengce/2019-06/23/
content_5402625.htm. Accessed 2 May 2021.
62 Ibid.
63 Xiong 2020.
64 Yang et al. 2021.
65 “Guanyu chixu fangfan he zhengzhi ‘cunba’wenti de yijian”(Opinions on continuously managing and
preventing village despots). CNWest, 20 February 2021, http://m.cnwest.com/snyw/a/2021/02/20/
19512611.html. Accessed 10 July 2021.
66 Guo, Baogang 2020.
67 Fu and Distelhorst 2018.
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that pulls the otherwise semi-outsider village cadres into the party-state appar-
atus, removing any lingering ambiguity about the autonomous status of village
committees.
During the Mao era, policy directives were repeatedly issued with questionable
effect. Then came the Four Cleans campaign during which laws and regulations
were replaced with mass movements. For more than three decades (between the
1980s and early 2010s), policy directives were the primary instruments used to
discipline village cadres, who remained marginal subjects of the law. Under the
current Xi administration, laws that were side-lined in the 1960s have been
brought to the fore not only by consolidating the legal status of village cadres
as government officials but also via campaigns carried out by the criminal justice
system. At the same time, the Party has tightened its control over village cadres
by explicitly enforcing a nationwide reform of supplanting village leaders and
committees with Party members and committees.
This is not to say that there are no elements of continuity from Mao to Xi. In
fact, there have been deliberate moves to revisit past practices such as with the
reinvention of the “Fengqiao experience”(fengqiao jingyan 枫桥经验).
Well-known methods used during the Four Cleans campaign in Fengqiao
District in Zhejiang included persuading “enemies”through reason (wendou 文
斗, i.e. struggle sessions), rather than using coercive measures (wudou 武斗, i.e.
going through the criminal justice system), and using localized, massline solutions
rather than relying on directives from above.
68
The 2019 Organization
Regulations and 2020 Document No. 1 have reinvented the “Fengqiao experi-
ence”for the “new era”in their emphasis on relying on the masses as sources
of information and the local containment of social instability. In stark contrast
to the discouragement of “coercion”in the 1960s, however, disciplining grass-
roots cadres in the present day underscores the importance of coercive powers,
via the imposition of Party rules and state laws through which village cadres
are to be sanctioned.
Party leadership is also being continued in the Xi era, but the Party’s presence
in rural governance has been strengthened by exercising “comprehensive leader-
ship”in village affairs and taking over village committees in practice. The village
election rules have recently been revised so that elections in villages and people’s
congresses at the township and village levels are to be synchronized and held
every five years.
69
Certain unauthorized behaviour that may potentially disturb
68 Zhuji County Party Committee 1964.
69 Art. 10 of the 2018 Organic Law of Village Committees has revised the tenure of VCs from three years
to five years, corresponding to the elections of county and township people’s congresses. Currently, vil-
lage elections nationwide have been unified to be carried out in 2021. See “2021 nian cun ganbu huanjie
xuanju you shenme bianhua”(What are the changes to the 2021 village cadre elections?). Tuliunet,22
January 2021, https://www.tuliu.com/read-130430.html. Accessed 9 June 2021. At the same time, the
first Organic Law of Urban Residential Committees (chengshi juminweiyuanhui zuizhi fa) was promul-
gated. There has been scant research comparing the urban councils with rural village committees
through the relational lens of Party branches and elected bodies, with the notable exception of
Benewick, Tong and Howell 2004.
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the process of election or influence the electoral outcome has been listed as
illegal.
70
After village elections in 2021, we can expect to see more village cadres
holding concurrent posts in both village and Party committees.
Village cadres used to straddle two identities: state agents and societal repre-
sentatives. Whereas it remains to be seen whether the paradigm shift towards for-
mally constraining village cadres through Party rules and laws will make a
significant difference in practice, the current emphasis on Party leadership and
legal disciplinary measures seems to have drawn village cadres closer to being
the lowest-level agents of the party-state.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful for the consistent support and insightful suggestions from
Patricia Thornton, which greatly improved the quality of this article. Thanks
also go to Xiaohong Yu, Weimin Zuo and two anonymous reviewers for their
helpful comments on earlier drafts.
Conflicts of interest
None.
Biographical notes
Juan WANG is associate professor of political science at McGill University. She
writes on local governance, contentious politics, and law and politics in China.
Yu MOU is a senior lecturer in law at SOAS University of London. She
researches criminal law and criminal justice in China.
摘摘要要:对基层村干部的管理惩戒一直都是中国共产党国家治理的重要内容，
但是其困难之处在于针对基层村干部的惩戒手段较为有限。在2018 年之前，
党内惩戒并不适用非党员的基层干部。法律条文也鲜有对村委会基层干部的
直接惩戒措施，不少制裁需要通过司法解释来实现。干部评审制度也不适用
于非国家公职人员的村干部。这种困境在2018 年以后发生了显著的变化。基
层村干部近年来被逐步纳入党的制度化建设。对基层村干部的治理不再仅仅
作为政策层面的要求，
而是更多体现在党规和正式立法中。这种管理模式的
改变主要反映在三方面。首先，村支书和村长一肩挑以及村委和党委成员的
重合让基层村干部直接受制于党规。其次，基层村干部正式纳入国家公职人
员范畴。最后，扫黑除恶专项斗争实现了对基层政权的清理，为即将开展的
村干部换届选举工作铺平了道路。
关关键键词词:村干部;法律;基层治理;制度化建设;基层选举;习近平
70 Dinghu 2020.
16 The China Quarterly, pp. 1–19
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