Some Cadres Got Schooled

If the results of a recent central government inspection tour of universities in and around Nanjing are any indication, some local officials here might need some further schooling.

Since the beginning of this year, Jiangsu has been the target of a number of probes, from anticorruption investigations to checks on the state of political discipline. There’s nothing public to suggest that anything especially untoward is occurring here; it’s just Nanjing’s turn to be inspected, part of Beijing’s general crusade against graft.

That’s not to say that all’s been found to be well in Jiangsu generally: the vice-governor of the province was formally placed under investigation earlier this month. Rumors abound of some local officials suddenly missing, or being taken away for questioning. And now it’s the administrators of a number of Nanjing’s universities who’ve been cited as being out of synch with what the central government wants to see.

But here’s the interesting part, at least from a local perspective. It’s not just the taking of the odd bribe that some party officials have been accused of soliciting. Instead, they’re charged with having lost control of the campuses they’re supposed to be supervising.

The report says that “institutions of higher learning should be a quiet place to cultivate excellent talents and carry out academic research.” Unfortunately, according to the findings of investigators in their inspection of 24 universities in Nanjing, some colleges here are “disaster areas” [重灾区]—the direct result of shortcomings in the behavior of some Communist party cadres who are ostensibly in charge of running these schools.

For example, at the Jiangsu Institute of Education, Party committee meetings weren’t held in a timely fashion; when they finally did take place, according to the report, they didn’t even discuss party affairs. At the Jiangsu Police College Academy, cadres were described as “indecisive and letting important matters go unresolved.” At nearby Changzhou University, “tough problems were not tackled and difficulty was something that was feared.”

What the report portrays as “the weakening of the leadership of the party, inattention to Party building, and a lack of discipline” produced problems at other local colleges. The inspectors found that the former president of Nanjing Institute of Physical Education “engaged in autocracy, influenced decisions [after he left the post], and created circle of interests that resembled a gang.” Likewise, the report charged that Jiangsu Vocational College of Nursing was run by a “small circle” of administrators—essentially a clique, which meant that “political consciousness was weak”.

That’s party code for a lack of supervision over cadres; decisions made on the basis of personal ties, not party directives. For example, inspectors discovered that the hiring of research and teaching staff at one of Changzhou’s technology institutes was rife with nepotism.

The absence of oversight also produced corruption in its usual form, the media account of the report notes.

Administrators and faculty at the Nanjing Institute of the Arts, for example, purportedly accepted money from parents to place their children there; educators at some others campuses went outside the normal application channels to recruit and enroll students in exchange for commissions. Various personnel at Changzhou Light Industry Vocational and Technical College are alleged to have used admission fees to buy shopping cards, tobacco, tea, and other gifts for themselves.

Larger instances of graft also occurred, according to inspectors. Jiangsu Provincial Academy of Educational Sciences, Nanjing Railway Vocational and Technical College didn't bother to engage in an open bidding process when they received permission to upgrade the existing campus and build new facilities. Some members of Jiangsu Vocational College of Commerce, according to the report, “used their powers to accept bribes”, while “some leading cadres” at Nantong University were found by inspectors to have intervened in unspecified but apparently illicit ways during the construction at that school.

The inspection team also found a number of cases of misconduct where research projects were concerned, including using funds to pay personnel who weren’t part of any project. Budgeting and auditing was lax, as was reimbursement oversight—this was where “the greatest level of deception and secrecy took place,” according to the summary of the report that appeared in the Chinese media.  

In all of the instances above, the report notes, the problem was with the Party. Some leading cadres simply stopped doing their job. Even if they aren’t directly charged with soliciting or accepting payments or positions or promotions, it’s Party officials who are responsible for oversight, accountability and discipline. After all, Party secretaries run universities and colleges; party committees are responsible for supervising faculty, the curriculum, and the campuses that professors teach at and students study on. No one thinks that control is absolute; it isn’t anyway. But the report, courageous in its own right, is a damning indictment, because it’s meant to be—a wake-up call for some cadres who've haven't been doing their assignments.

There are two larger issues here, perhaps best seen from a local perspective.

First, the schools cited for malfeasance and other forms of malpractice here in Nanjing are vocational colleges and universities. They’re the ones that constitute the bulk of educational expansion in China, which in the last twenty years has grown nearly eight-fold. They offer students who don’t test into the elite or middle-range schools the opportunity to acquire a 3-year degree--one that is even more narrowly focused than their counterparts at better-regarded colleges. Administrators at upper echelon universities are focused on building their brand, controlling the curriculum, attracting research funding from Beijing or overseas, and responding to the latest central government directive. Clearly, some officeholders and bureaucrats at lower-tier schools have their minds elsewhere. That’s a problem for Party cadres as more and more students from other than upper-class origins seek educational opportunities.

So, while the traditional model tends to see student unhappiness in China as emerging from leading universities where professors and enlightened undergraduates want more academic freedom, a more likely source of discontent could well be found at these vocational schools—that is, if the Party doesn't do something about the way some of these schools are being run. Clearly, it wants to.

The second point is this: One of the hallmarks of President Xi Jinping’s tenure has been an effort by Beijing to instill more ideological content into China’s political and social life. His ongoing prescription for China—and Chinese education in particular--is more socialism and more than just a little Marxism. It’s not clear how that initiative will play out here in practice. But it’s going to be difficult for the Communist party to better control education on some of China’s campuses when some of their own officials are having difficulties just supervising basic administrative operations.

China’s school year is over for students very soon. New classes for some cadres, on the other hand, appear to just be starting.

Where Have Some Of The Farmers Gone?

The local market in a township outside Nanjing city proper has far fewer farmers selling produce this year compared to just a few months ago. So far fewer, in fact, that some of the available space is being taken up by vendors selling household goods.

What’s the explanation?

Are the missing farmers in the local market—who form the bulk of the people selling produce at the local market, not middlemen as in the cities—the result of the recent weather patterns, specifically the rain that’s been hitting Nanjing and surrounding areas and plaguing the Jiangnan generally?

Some local residents think so, though they point to the higher prices of vegetables in particular and note that the produce that is for sale isn’t nearly as good this year as it was last year.

Or is this situation simply a reflection of larger social and economic forces?

After all, townships all over China, particularly in Jiangsu, have seen a massive rearrangement of population in the last 40 years, one that shows every sign of continuing. Whether it’s been farmers and their families deciding to pull up stakes themselves and decamp for the city in the hope of a better future; or governments resettling rural residents to claim the land for economic development, the result has been the same: Fewer farmers, less land available for cultivation, and an income chasm between those earning wages in the city as construction workers versus those who continue to work the plots that remain.

The Chinese government, for its part, has taken command in recent years, deciding that it can’t halt rural migration by social control. Instead, officials have been tasked to build bigger metropolises and absorb areas that border major cities, often by looking to pin remaining farmers in place. In Jiangsu, the rural skyline is often speared by towers that are homes marked for 安置农民, or “resettled farmers”.

One can debate the precise figures and scale of this migration, but the phenomenon itself is beyond dispute.

What’s debatable are how these policies are playing out at the local level. 

Those observers who see these relocations in China as inevitably resulting in social conflict tend to overlook that even involuntary resettlements rarely flare into violent disputes. Yes, there have been many land grabs, and there are instances of resistance and reaction, occasionally getting quite ugly. But the appropriation of land has tended to be local, limited in area, usually involving a few hundred residents at most. Officials here have learned to move carefully, curiously, and to project a sense of control from the top down.

Moreover, Chinese policymakers now have considerable experience managing cases of relocation when they see those as unavoidable. After studying earlier cases where ignorance and arrogance on the part of some of their local colleagues sparked unhappiness and defiance, many officials are much better prepared to offer considerable compensation, better housing, and social services than they were in earlier years. Sadly, it’s stupidity that often makes the news; success in these projects rarely merits a mention—and there have been many residents who see their relocation as an improvement.

Might the sudden dearth of sellers be a combination of the two situations—the macro-level dynamics where farmers are pushed or pulled off land, and a year where the deluge is from the heavens, not directed by Beijing?

It’s not clear what the explanation is—at least not yet. But these sorts of macro-level policies make it likely that seasonal shifts when they happen (as they seem to be doing now) will strike localities with more force than before. And then it will not only be residents who will be compelled to adapt, but local officials, sandwiched between servicing their purported constituents and serving their political patrons. 

Local cadres are clearly becoming better at addressing local problems, and this is starting to look like another one of them. But they'll be caught between two camps--addressing local concerns while taking national orders--with nowhere to hide themselves. These are the problems of a population that's not staying still, and one that officials here are as much part of as the people they supervise. 

All Local Politics Is Ideological

There’s not always much attention paid by outside observers to ideological debates in China. But there should be, because as much as Marxism or socialism doesn't seem to play a role in people’s daily lives, political arguments about ideological direction in Beijing are genuine. And how these arguments end up above will help determine how cities, counties and townships are guided below. 

Talk to any Communist party member –especially a cadre charged with governance of some sort--and they’ll tell you that slogans are strategies. Slogans and sayings provide markers and reminders about what political superiors want to see implemented, and they’re designed to provide a platform, a context, and a referent for practical solutions—something that officials at all levels want more of, in part because their betters and their constituents insist on it.   

Right now, the lead ideological slogan is 两学一做 –or, roughly translated, “two studies, one effort”.  And there’s a strategy lurking in this catchphrase.

The “ two studies” part involves political discipline and ideological instruction, so that party spirit and morality are enhanced, and that cadres buy into what Beijing’s been selling. It’s not been easy to get party members to have faith in yet another series of statements and slogans, especially as many have been more concerned about Beijing’s anticorruption campaign than a new vision for a new China.  So this effort is to broaden the party’s educational scheme to start to move away from slapping cadres about to focusing on getting them to sing from the same general hymnal.  

The “one effort” component of the slogan references unity but also practical considerations: Cadres are to learn from each other and their errors, so that they can reconnect with the masses by solving local matters and be seen as doing real work for real people, instead of focusing on themselves and their career prospects.

Announcements, admonitions and instructions are all well-intentioned, but implementation is always the biggest challenge for Beijing. It’s not that lower-level officials are necessarily disposed to reject what the central leadership prescribes because of local conditions; it’s that they’ve been receiving different signals from different places about whether its economic growth or ideological campaigns they should be giving priority to. This slogan is meant to end that static, and get everybody on the same course.

Party officials in Jiangsu just received their own broadcast earlier this week, with the announcement that retired cadres would be mobilized to help their younger colleagues implement “Two Studies, One Effort”.  According to the report, there are 48.95 million retired cadres and party members, and “the wealth of political wisdom, work experience and life experience [can be used to] organize and guide party members with their expertise to contribute to the reform and development of Jiangsu.” 

This effort to mobilize retired rank-and-file seems to be all the local rage in at least some parts of the province, and it makes practical sense where solving problems are concerned. Older cadres often return to their ancestral village or hometown after they retire, and residents there usually see them as trusted and venerated members of the community.

But there’s politics at work here as well.

First, there’s Xi’s purported campaign against the Communist Youth League.  It makes sense to rouse retired cadres for support if younger colleagues and their patrons are under suspicion for malfeasance or just inattention to important party matters.

Then there’s the risk of mobilizing younger party cadres on the 50^th anniversary of China’s Cultural Revolution; by doing so, you may spark a political movement that won’t be yours to control. Xi’s opponents could use such a development to hit out at his leadership, or even look to leverage local dissatisfaction with some of his policies to resist his efforts at changing the way the Party operates. Using the old to stiff-arm the young instead makes good political sense here too.

Finally, there’s the very real probability that this idea to employ retired Party rank-and-file didn’t come from the top, but from below—from the retirees themselves. In Jiangsu, there are more than a few cadres who think that the Communist party has lost its way in recent years, focusing on the economy at the expense of ideology. They think Xi is largely right in what he wants to do: Party reform, not political reform. Conservatism, socialist core values, greater intervention by the Party to protect the indigent and the aged—these are all goals that appeal to officials who return to their birthplace and see a patina of progress without actual improvement to the circumstances of many. These retired cadres aren’t interested in stepping back but stepping back in. They believe ideology matters, and they think they could matter as well.  

Xi could use their help, and so can a lot of localities in Jiangsu.

Graft In The Grassroots

One of the standard stories about China is that comrades are becoming citizens, asserting their rights to private space, preserving and expanding their freedoms, and eagerly looking to expand the gains they’ve made in terms of social expression and economic opportunity into the political realm. Civil society, we are often told, is being built by people gradually taking more civic responsibility--such as securing property rights. (Everything in China is gradual, outside observers keep reminding us, and so be patient.)

It would be comforting if that tale was true, but it’s not, at least where social and political change are concerned. Indeed, a good deal of daily local behaviour that often flows from decades of economic reform and opening in China can be best classified as criminal. 

Two local cases from personal experience might help illustrate what’s actually and often occurring on the ground outside the usual suspect major cities of Beijing and Shanghai. It’s graft, but it’s neither high-level politics nor even that practiced by local officials to, say, advance a specific project. These are minor events, but they are telling.   

One instance took place in a major city in Jiangsu, in an upscale community populated mostly by retired cadres, professors, military personnel, and what foreign outsiders often refer to a China’s middle-class (even though Chinese themselves rarely use the equivalent term of中产阶级 because it makes little sense in the financial context). The city in question has seen an enormous amount of property transfers lately, as the housing market there simply refuses to cool off. Consequently, many new owners—as well as some old ones—are eager to renovate the property they do buy, or make improvements in the hope that their apartment or villa can benefit from the fever that’s driven prices up. In this case, the owner has decided to make a major improvement to his detached residence:  adding a cellar, a door to the outside, a small patio, a stone wall, and various other changes that involve a fair amount of work.

Which means materials that need to be assembled and secured on-site, especially concrete to be brought in as components and mixed. 

As anyone and everyone knows, you mix concrete on a pad of some sort, or in a barrow or a trough.  When you are done, you wash out the mixing tub, or hose off the plywood, and clean up.

But if you’re an inexperienced type of worker, unregulated, or just journeyman labor in China, you don’t much care about how or where, you just get the job done and move on to the next job, hoping to get paid for the work you’ve completed and at the rate agreed to earlier. You don’t have a hope in hell of ever residing in such a community in this life, and so go away when the job is done, not caring a whit about the mess you’ve made, because to you and your employer, as well as the homeowner (so long as it's not on his property—and it wasn’t), there are more important matters in life than taking responsibility. Like making more money.

Which is what happened in this instance.

A few residents complained to the company that did the work while it was going on; they got nowhere. The homeowner was nowhere to be seen, because he’s someone with power and authority; he’s not interested in his neighbors, seeing them simply as adjoining residents, not as fellow members of a community working together to make the compound a better place for all. He’s got to where he is by ignoring others and giving orders, not by seeing himself as a common citizen with the same concerns. He doesn’t care about anything beyond his own future and the comfort of his family. Economic reform has made he and his ilk rich and irresponsible, so why change?

The next stop for those concerned was the property management company, who have Mr. Wang (not his real name, though it should be): he’s a troubleshooter, a middleman, someone to be sought out when there’s an issue that needs to be addressed—such as parking space assignments, noise complaints, trash removal, or dealing with annoying residents.

Mr. Wang the enforcer of the rules and regulations of the community. Or at least those he takes some interest in. Which is to say, a financial interest in.

Mr. Wang's role isn’t to resolve disputes, but benefit from them. He hears about the problem, promises to address it, then visits the site in question and tells the workers and their foreman that he’s had complaints about their conduct. He doesn’t want any trouble, he’ll tell them, and neither do they. The best way to solve the issue isn’t necessarily for them to stop what they’re doing, because that might be inconvenient for their work schedule. Instead, for a small fee, Mr. Wang is willing to forget the whole thing, and simply charge them for the inconvenience of causing him trouble. The workers or company agrees, pays the troubleshooter off, and then they leave with stealth and haste as soon as the job is done.

The troubleshooter tells the unhappy resident or three that he’s spoken to the offenders and they promise to mend their ways. When matters end up with the concrete bonded to the sidewalk and the aesthetic of the lane ruined—well, that’s really too bad; the company left in a hurry without doing the work; and no, he doesn’t know who it is but they certainly won’t be allowed inside the compound again. Nothing to be done; Mr. Wang shares your annoyance.

The other case took place in an equally upscale compound of more recent vintage, and located about 30 kilometers outside the city referenced above. The community is largely full of large villas, or 4 story townhouses with 2 residences. It sold out quickly some years back, with certain officials and well-placed people receiving advance notice of the sale and the first choice of properties.  Interestingly, less than 20% of the properties are occupied, and those that are often have violated the restrictions on changing the physical shape of their residence. 

For example, while the roof of the 4 story townhouses is public property and not to be used by the residents of the units occupying the upper 2 floors, nearly everyone who has commenced renovation has claimed the roof as theirs, and built glassed-in terraces or other structures where they are strictly forbidden from doing so. 

For those on the lower 2 floors, they have a small backyard, with the narrow area behind that (about 4 meters or so) preserved and landscaped as wild space, without a path or access way. 

Unless you’re a well-placed member of the bureaucracy who has decided that such rules and regulations do not apply to you and your family.

One resident there has decided that not only does the public space behind his backyard belong to him—and he’s claimed it by building an extension to his garden—but the space on the side separating the townhouses also are his, and he’s located an extensive patio there.

But there’s more. Or at least for him. 

Seeing that there’s no one currently occupying the townhouse next to him, at least on the lower floors, he’s taken over the public space behind those backyards as well, planted trees and plants, and claimed those areas as his realm too.

The property management people in this case are not nearly as sanguine about this behavior. Indeed, they called in the local urban management squad to evict the workers who were doing the original expansion--before it became territorial acquisition on an even larger scale. They stopped the construction, for a few days.  At that point, the developer of the property who also owns the company managing the compound made a phone call or twelve to the property management people to back off, and let the comrade in question proceed--whereupon he completed the project in his backyard and began to move on his neighbor’s. 

Sources indicated that payments were made with banquets and gifts and various other favors to those responsible for enforcing existing regulations within the compound; that’s easily done because the offender in question works for government media in the nearest large city and has all sorts of opportunities to offer jobs or at least entertainment.

One can draw all sorts of lessons about local politics and society in China from these cases. 

At one level, this is class warfare—not by the masses, but by a certain type of property owner out to protect the status quo, not overturn it. It’s an ongoing new normal: economic gains that are politically secured largely through small-scale corruption. The situation is unlike the recent protests by parents in Jiangsu concerning college admission quotas in that carefully targeted anger about a specific policy worked to reverse that decision to alter the existing situation. In the case of the two communities, simple attempts to see that rules and standards of conduct are enforced turned out to be futile.

Another takeaway is that there’s graft in the grass:  not tigers lurking or flies buzzing, but worms simply slithering in the rotten soil. The payoffs are local, but they’re also lethal: Few regular residents see the system—the local system—as working on their behalf; only officials think so.  And those with local power are willing to do whatever it takes to keep it functioning, by soliciting or providing small-scale bribes for their own ends. So, cage as many "tigers" as you want; swat as many "flies" as you please: The "worms" are underground and they aren't going anywhere.

The end result—or the result thus far—is that residents in China aren't citizens and they aren't comrades either, at least not in the new order. Instead, they're left to shake their heads, shrug their shoulders, plan to leave the country in despair, or aspire to get enough influence to be able to get away with the same behaviour themselves someday. 

We’re often told by China scholars and writers who don’t work or reside in China that people here are angry and active, or that they actually and often strongly support the current authoritarian system. 

But those interpretations are largely wrong. The tale shouldn't be about members of China’s so-called middle class taking to local streets to protest because they suddenly lack normal institutional channels to complain effectively. The real story is that because the local avenues for resolution are seen as corrupt that residents rarely bother.