What are the main triggering factors of agriculture-related corruption?
Important findings:
75.2% of respondents said that agriculture-related corruption is widespread in their region; 44.2% of respondents said that agriculture-related corruption occurs more often among township-level officials.
At present, agriculture-related corruption problems occur more often in the three areas of “new rural construction” (57.0%), “rural poverty alleviation and development” (55.1%), and “fiscal support for agriculture” (45.2%).
“Embezzling and misappropriating land expropriation compensation funds” (62.6%), “selling off and privately pocketing collective assets” (55.1%), and “fraudulently obtaining and intercepting funds benefiting farmers” (53.4%) are the main methods adopted by officials involved in agriculture-related corruption.
After farmers' vital interests are harmed by official corruption, they mostly hold one of three attitudes: “officials protect each other, so reporting is useless” (36.5%), “there is no channel for reporting, so one can only swallow one's anger” (25.9%), and “dare not report, for fear of retaliation” (24.1%).
As for the harms of agriculture-related corruption, they are more prominently manifested in the three aspects of “worsening the political ecosystem” (3.44 points), “hindering new rural construction” (3.35 points), and “triggering conflicts between officials and the public” (3.28 points).
Survey period: October 27, 2015 - November 9, 2015
Survey method: electronic questionnaires released on the Internet + pushed via WeChat public platform
Sample composition: a total of 3,084 valid samples were collected. Regarding the regions where respondents are located, municipalities directly under the Central Government accounted for 10.8%, provincial capital cities accounted for 15.6%, prefecture-level cities accounted for 22.2%, counties or county-level cities accounted for 22.1%, and townships and villages accounted for 29.3%.
In building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, the core, the focus, and the difficulty all lie in the vast rural areas. A comprehensively moderately prosperous rural society is also the fundamental foundation and prerequisite for China's comprehensive moderate prosperity. This is not only because, under the constraints of the urban-rural dual structure, there has long been a relatively large development gap between China's urban and rural areas, but also because, for a country like China with a tradition of agriculture and a large agricultural population, agriculture as the primary industry has always occupied a foundational position in China's national economy. For this very reason, in recent years the central government has introduced a series of policies supporting agriculture and benefiting farmers, increased investment in rural areas, and comprehensively accelerated the pace of building a moderately prosperous society in rural areas.
However, while the state attaches great importance to solving the issues relating to agriculture, rural areas, and farmers, “agriculture-related corruption” is exposed online from time to time. From land expropriation and demolition, disaster relief and assistance, to dilapidated housing renovation, rural poverty alleviation, and so on, relevant reports show that agriculture-related corruption may already have penetrated into multiple areas that bear on farmers' vital interests.
In reality, why does agriculture-related corruption occur? Exactly what level has it reached, and what negative effects has it had on farmers and the local economy and society? How can agriculture-related corruption be effectively governed…… To clarify these matters, the Survey and Research Center of People's Tribune conducted a questionnaire survey around a series of issues concerning agriculture-related corruption. The main survey findings are presented below.
I. More than 70% of respondents believe that agriculture-related corruption is widespread and occurs more often among township-level officials
Exactly what level has agriculture-related corruption reached? We set the following question for respondents to answer: “Based on your observation and understanding, is agriculture-related corruption widespread in your region?” The survey shows that, for this question, as many as 40.5% of respondents chose “very widespread.” In addition, another 34.7% of respondents chose “relatively widespread.” By contrast, the number of respondents who chose “average,” “not very widespread,” and “not widespread” accounted for only 18.1%, 5.2%, and 1.5% of the total number of respondents.
When we further asked respondents “At which level of officials does agriculture-related corruption occur more often?”, first, 44.2% of respondents chose “township level,” a proportion ranking first among all options; second, those who chose “district and county level” and “village level” were roughly comparable in number and proportion, with 28.0% and 27.8% of respondents choosing these two options respectively.
On the one hand, as the administrative organization established by the national administrative system at the rural grassroots level, the township government is, to some extent, the foundation for the operation of the entire national administrative system, and many of the state's policies and work guidelines must be implemented through the township level. Especially with regard to related agricultural policies and systems, the township level is often their actual subject of implementation. On the other hand, the occurrence of agriculture-related corruption among township officials also means that some officials within the township administrative system have not correctly and properly exercised the power in their hands. From these points alone there is sufficient reason to infer that disciplinary and rule-violating behavior by grassroots officials caused by the alienation or failure of power will have very serious consequences for the local rural economy and society.
II. New rural construction, rural poverty alleviation and development, and fiscal support for agriculture are the three areas where agriculture-related corruption is more prominent
After the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed the development goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, the central government continued to increase support for rural areas and introduced a series of policies supporting agriculture and benefiting farmers. From developing agricultural productivity to socialist new rural construction, from promoting new-type urbanization to rural poverty alleviation and development, and so on, the introduction and implementation of these policies and measures, on the one hand, injected new vitality and impetus into the development of the rural economy and society, and on the other hand also gave grassroots officials more power to allocate resources and factors, thereby making the space for possible rent-seeking and rent-setting by grassroots officials larger than before.
We set 13 agriculture-related areas or links, including “new rural construction,” “agricultural industrialization,” “rural poverty alleviation and development,” “fiscal support for agriculture,” “new-type urbanization,” and “improvement of agricultural facilities,” as independent options, and asked respondents in which of these areas or links agriculture-related corruption is more prominent. The survey shows that “new rural construction” (57.0%), “rural poverty alleviation and development” (55.1%), and “fiscal support for agriculture” (45.2%) ranked in the top three among all options. At the same time, 37.1%, 34.1%, and 30.8% of respondents chose “new-type urbanization,” “agricultural industrialization,” and “improvement of agricultural facilities” respectively. See Figure 3 for the selection proportions of other options.
The issues relating to agriculture, rural areas, and farmers in the process of comprehensively deepening reform are prominently manifested in three aspects: the relatively backward production and lifestyle in rural areas, the relatively low level of agricultural industrialization and modernization, and the still relatively severe problem of rural poverty. As the centenary goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects draws ever nearer, these three aspects have increasingly become key constraints on building a moderately prosperous society in all respects in rural areas. Socialist new rural construction, rural poverty alleviation and development, and fiscal support for agriculture, as important levers for accelerating rural economic and social development, have in recent years consistently been placed high hopes on by all sectors to solve the issues relating to agriculture, rural areas, and farmers in the new era, and have also attracted widespread expectations. Against such a realistic background, the occurrence of agriculture-related corruption in these three areas is not only detrimental to the transformation and development of the rural economy and society, but will also greatly affect the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects in rural areas, and even the process of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects for the entire country.