ON JANUARY 23, 2009, the Chinese Communist Party’s official People’s Daily newspaper published its coveted list of “national civilized villages,” selected on a three-year basis by the Central Commission for Guiding Cultural and Ethical Progress. These were villages that had, according to the commission, shown strong leadership, done “solid and effective work,” “maintained social order and stability,” and provided quality social services. From the thousands of villages in China’s southern province of Guangdong, just 25 were chosen for this exceptionally rare honour. Among them was Wukan, an unknown fishing village on the outskirts of Lufeng, a small but growing city on the province’s central coast.
Three years later, as the selection process for the next raft of “national civilized villages” was no doubt kicking into high gear, protests erupted in civilised Wukan, exposing local anger over dirty land deals that had long festered beneath the surface. The uprising, stemming from the death in police custody of a popular village leader, quickly became global news as villagers erected barricades against armed police equipped with tear gas and water cannons. Wukan became a village under siege.
The chief cause of the corruption occurring in Wukan was the lack of democracy and supervision. The lesson from this is that we must fully preserve as the core the exercise of democratic and supervisory rights by villagers, solidly advancing democratic management and democratic politics in the countryside.
Wukan seemed to be an illustration, moreover, of the responsiveness of the Party leadership. But few asked the tougher questions about this supposed new paradigm of civilised governance at the village level — not least how such a civilized village could resolve its thorny land issues as an uncivilised and hostile Communist Party bureaucracy loomed overhead.
The news cycle moved on. Villagers returned to their fishing boats. Wukan was forgotten.
But Wukan’s troubles, it seems, never ceased. Earlier this year, as the village’s democratically elected leader, Lin Zuluan, called for renewed meetings over still unresolved land disputes, he was detained and charged with abuse of power and accepting bribes. Protests broke out afresh, with villagers professing Lin’s innocence even as his alleged confession was aired on national television.
“We villagers don’t believe it,” one woman told National Public Radio, “because in our hearts, we think of Lin Zuluan as a good party secretary.”
In his final remarks, the defendant Lin Zuluan expressed his deepest repentance, thanking judicial officers for their civilised and fair handling of his case.
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