Public Goods and State-Society Relations: An Impact Study of China’s Rural Stimulus

Abstract

Thanks to a series of new central government policies culminating with the massive 2008 economic stimulus package, state-society relations in rural China seem to have recovered significantly from damage sustained from the 1990s to early 2000s. Evidence I present in this chapter from two surveys—one conducted in 2002 and the other in 2010—reflect a dramatic turnaround in rural state-society relations after President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao assumed China’s top two leadership positions in March 2003. This leadership transition was accompanied by a sea change in policy that shifted attention and resources to China’s villages as part of the larger effort to “construct a harmonious society” (goujian hexie shehui, 构建和谐社 会). Since 2004, every “No. 1 Central Document” (zhongyang yihao wenjian, 中央一号文件), the CCP’s key statement setting policy priorities and providing policy guidance nationwide, has had a rural focus.1 At the Fourth Plenary Session of the Sixteenth Chinese Communist Party Central Committee in 2004, Hu Jintao introduced the concept of “two directions” (liang ge quxiang, 两个趋向), which in 2005 he elaborated by explaining that China has moved beyond a primary stage of economic development in which “agriculture supports industry” (nongye zhichi gongye, 农业支持工业) and has reached a new stage of economic development in which “industry regurgitates nourishment back to agriculture and cities support villages” (gongye fanbu nongye, chengshi zhichi nongcun, 工业反哺农业、城市支持农村).2.