tailieunhanh - Taxation without Representation in Contemporary Rural China - P.Bernstein

The term "country" as used in this publication also refers, as appropriate, to territories and areas. The designations employed and the presentation of the material do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Secretariat of the United Nations concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area, or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. In addition, the designations of country groups. | Taxation without Representation IN Contemporary Rural China Thomas p. Bernstein Xiaobo Lii Cambridge more information 978O521813181 This page intentionally left blank Taxation without Representation in Contemporary Rural China The financial burdens imposed on peasants have become a major source of discontent in the Chinese countryside and a worrisome source of political and social instability for the Chinese government. Throughout the 1990s and into the new century much of rural China has been in a state of crisis as tension has grown between the peasant masses and the state. Farmers who bitterly resented the tax burden began increasingly to protest sometimes violently against unpredictable and open-ended financial exactions by predatory local governments. Local rural officials in turn are driven by intense pressure to develop and modernize in order to catch up with the more highly developed coastal areas. Bernstein and Lu show how and why China s developmental programs led to contentious complicated relationships between peasants and the central and local governments. They discuss the reasons why peasants in grain-growing agricultural China have benefited far less during the reform era than those in the industrializing coastal areas. They examine the forms and sources of heavy informal taxation and shed light on how peasants defend their interests by adopting strategies of collective resistance both peaceful and violent . The authors also explain why the central government although often siding with the peasants has not been able to solve the burden problem by instituting a sound reliable financial system in the countryside. The regime has to some extent sought to empower peasants to defend their interests - informing them about tax I Ll les. expanding the legal system and instituting village elections - but these attempts have not yet generated enough power from below to counter powerful local governments. The case studies featured here offer .