Can capable village officials serve well as leaders in becoming wealthy?
With the deepening development of the socialist market economy, a common phenomenon has emerged in rural areas: those who are young and strong have gone out to seek their fortunes, leaving the “elderly, weak, sick and disabled” behind to stay in the villages. However, in recent years, this situation has changed in some places. For example, in rural Wenzhou, now more and more entrepreneurs who “left home young” and achieved success in business elsewhere are beginning to return to the “nest” to serve as village Party secretaries and village directors.
Why do they return to their hometowns to serve as village officials? What role do these “capable” village officials play in rural development and the building of grassroots organizations? Please see the frontline investigation by an Economic Daily reporter from Yueqing City, Wenzhou——
Who is willing to come back and serve as a village “official”?
On April 13, when the reporter went to Beitang Village in Yueqing City, Wenzhou, to conduct interviews, several village committee members were holding a meeting. According to this year's plan, the village is to build a modern urban agriculture sightseeing park. They were deliberating on how to come up with a land reform plan suited to the village's actual conditions.
In 2008, Beitang Village elected Su Desheng, who had successfully started a business in Shanxi, as village director. He has now served three consecutive terms and holds both the posts of Party secretary and village director. Of the 12 members of the village's two committees, 7 are “entrepreneurs”.
Su Desheng told the reporter that he became a village official mainly out of a deep-rooted “homesickness”. Although he left his hometown as a teenager to brave the business world, over more than 20 years, as his business grew bigger and bigger, he rarely returned home except for important festivals such as Spring Festival, Qingming and the Dragon Boat Festival. In 2003, when his elderly father died of illness, he stayed in the village for half a year, and this time gave him a great “shock”. “At that time, the village had many small electroplating factories, illegal sheds were put up everywhere, sewage was discharged directly into the river, and air pollution was very serious.” He lamented that although he had made so much money, his hometown still looked poor. He decided to first put up a sum of money to treat the water, build roads and improve the environment. “My ‘roots’ are in Beitang, and in the future I will still ‘return to my roots like falling leaves’.”
In fact, since 2000, a large number of “capable people” who started businesses elsewhere have returned to Yueqing City to serve as village cadres. As of last year, among the 7,855 members of the two committees in the city's 911 villages, 4,304 had experience of working or doing business away from home, accounting for 54.79% of the total. In the city's Furong Town, “capable” village officials have already formed a group. Of the town's 59 villages, more than 50 have “capable people” serving as Party secretaries and directors.
Chen Quanmiao of Xiao'ao Village in Yandang Town was “called home” to serve as Party secretary in 2013. During the interview, the reporter heard about something like this: on the eve of the village-level organizational change of term, the organization department of Yueqing City went to inspect various villages. As soon as the group entered Xiao'ao Village, they were surrounded by villagers, who all began talking at once about the village two committees' “shortcomings”, saying that the village cadres were not united and quarreled whenever they held meetings, that surrounding villages were developing by leaps and bounds, while their village had “not moved at all” for 10 years.
Chen Quanmiao said, “Responsibility is more important than life, and faith is more important than money.” He took on projects in Shanghai and steadily earned several hundred thousand yuan a year, living a very comfortable life. But, “watching my own village become a backward village, could I ‘stand by and do nothing’?” Now, Chen Quanmiao runs nonstop to the city and town every day, seeking policies and funds for the village's projects. “Although it is hard, I feel very grounded in my heart,” he said.
Some people analyze that there are roughly three situations for why “capable people” are willing to return to their hometowns to serve as village officials: because of hometown ties, they feel they have a responsibility to build the village well; in order to fulfill personal ambitions, they want to use a platform to display their talents, “stand out and bring glory to their ancestors”; and as they grow older, they want to retire to their hometown and enjoy their remaining years in comfort.
During interviews, the reporter repeatedly asked “capable people” why they were willing to serve as village officials. They said that being a village cadre is “striving for honor, not for wealth”, with no pay and instead having to spend their own money. It is nearly voluntary work and yet one still has to take criticism. But some admitted frankly: being a village cadre can bring face and honor, and win the respect of villagers and praise from later generations. One “capable” village director told the reporter that the reason he was willing to give up hundreds of thousands of yuan in annual enterprise income was not because this village “official” post was so big, but because he sought peace of mind. He said that after achieving economic success, he hoped to do some good things for the elders and fellow villagers in the village and gain their recognition and goodwill. Being a village cadre and doing practical things for the villagers was an important way for him to gain prestige.
What do village “officials” actually do?
The car stopped in front of an antique-style building in Xicheng Village, Furong Town, Yueqing. The reporter still could not believe that this place, which looked like a museum, was the office building of the village committee.
Village Party secretary Yu Chenxi introduced the rapid changes in the village after he took office in 2004: the new building before their eyes was the “masterpiece” of the village two committees in 2005. The 30-mu park in front of the building had previously been the filthiest garbage dump; in 2006 the village also built a 500-meter embankment, after which villagers were safe and sound every typhoon season; in addition, the village built two vertical and two horizontal main roads running through the whole village from east to west and north to south, each 8 meters wide. Now, the whole village is full of new houses, and even half of the poor households have moved into resettlement housing.
Yu Chenxi said that although village officials are grassroots “small officials”, their responsibilities, obligations and tasks are by no means few. On the large scale, “above there are a thousand threads, below there is one needle”, and they must complete and handle on time tasks assigned by higher levels, such as family planning, tree planting and afforestation, farmland water conservancy, banning straw burning, and welcoming inspections; on the small scale, they also have to handle trivial matters for the masses such as issuing certification letters, affixing seals and mediating civil disputes. “There is no end to village affairs,” said Yu Chenxi, who has been village Party secretary for 10 years and understands this deeply.
Village director Zhang Jianbin said, “Village cadres are there to do things for ordinary people. If you do well, people will say you are good. Outsiders who come to the village as cadres leave after a while. We are from this village. If we do well, our descendants will be respected; if we do badly, we will ‘stink for ten thousand years’.”
In 2003, the per capita net income of Xicheng Village was less than 500 yuan; now “six or seven households have assets in the hundreds of millions, and there are plenty with tens of millions.” Zhang Jianbin told the reporter that previously the village had no highway and the environment was poor, and a foundation plot in the best location cost only 10,000 yuan. Now, even a foundation plot in a remote corner is worth at least 200,000 yuan, and in good locations it has already exceeded 500,000 yuan. Some villagers who bought houses in the town have in recent years come back one after another to renovate their houses.
There is a very common phenomenon in rural Wenzhou: individuals are rich while the collective is poor. According to 2014 statistics, of the city's 5,405 administrative villages, 3,546 were “hollow villages”. Because the village collective economy is weak and there is no money to do things, anyone with some “ability” has run off elsewhere, leading to poor management in many villages, with even greater difficulty in handling affairs, and weak execution capacity and poor cohesion in the village two committees.