Will the Boat Sink the Water?: The Life of China's Peasants (22 page)

Contrary to their expectations, things went very smoothly at the reception. The response to their petition was so swift and favorable that the three were actually quite flustered. The comrades listened to their list of complaints and promised to write directly to the Anhui provincial units concerned, to request an investigation and satisfactory resolution to their problem. It was bitterly cold in Beijing, the wind cutting like daggers into their bones, but the three young men felt suffused with the warmth of their reception.

Wang Hongchao suggested that since they were here, they should look up all the government institutions concerned, to get the most out of this trip on behalf of the villagers. So the three friends asked their way to the Ministry of Agriculture.

At the Ministry of Agriculture, they felt perfectly at home and laid bare their case. The comrades there listened carefully, looked at the documents, and unequivocally stated that officials at Baimiao Township and Wang Village were in the wrong. Without being asked, they wrote a letter of support which they

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asked Wang and his friends to take to the Anhui provincial Agricultural Committee. The letter was a printed form with a space to jot down some general remarks. But on this occasion, the comrades wrote down the details of the case and added an admonishment: “This kind of extortion is in direct violation of the stated policies of the Party and the government regarding relieving the peasants of their excessive burden . . .” At the end of the letter, instead of the perfunctory “Hoping you will look to the matter” etc., this letter added: “Now we are sending them to you; please make sure you look into their case and deal with it conscientiously.” The comrades at the Ministry of Agriculture saw Wang Junbin and his friends all the way to the gate. Before saying good-bye, one of the comrades said with a sigh, “The leadership has again and again sent down directives, but at the grass roots the cadres are perfectly heedless.” Such concern sounded sincere and warming to the hearts of the three innocent young peasants.

The weather in Beijing was windless and clear, but the piercing cold sunk its teeth into their skin mercilessly. As the train headed south, the temperature rose perceptibly. But for Wang Junbin and his friends, the nearer to home they got, the colder they felt. After this, their first visit to Beijing, they felt more and more alienated from their native place. As they approached home, they were actually gripped by fear.

On the other hand, as they left Beijing, the three young men’s excitement at their favorable reception was also tinged with bitterness, clouding their good mood. They realized that as good as Beijing was, it did not belong to them, and they did not belong in Beijing. They were, after all, strangers here. They were tied to Wang Village, Baimiao Township, Linquan County. Their fates were controlled by people down there, in the hands of puny creatures from the village or township. No matter how far they traveled, those hands still held the strings.

Once across the Yangtze River, the three men were silent,

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each lost in his own thoughts. All night they nodded to the rumblings and clanging of the train and did not sleep a wink. At daybreak, they were tired and sleepy, but the train had stopped and they found themselves in Hefei, the provincial capital.

Once in Hefei, the three followed the instructions of the comrades at the Ministry of Agriculture and headed immediately for the Anhui office of the “leading group for relieving peasants’ burdens.” The comrades at the Peasants’ Burden Relief Office listened carefully to the complaints of the three Wangs, acknowledged that they had a case, and proceeded immediately to write a letter to their subordinates at the corresponding office on a lower tier—the Peasants’ Burden Relief Office of Linquan County. The cadre did not mince words: “We have received peasants from Baimiao Township of your county, directed to us by the Ministry of Agriculture. From the records that they showed, there is a grave problem of excessive taxation. According to our information, the three petitioners have repeatedly appealed to your leadership, but with no results, and popular resentment is widespread. We now relay to you the position of the Ministry of Agriculture, as laid out in their let-ter, which we enclose with other related material. We hope you will speedily send personnel to make a thorough investigation and deal with it appropriately. If the peasants have been unduly taxed, it is imperative to make compensation. Please make a report of your handling of the case . . . ”

To make sure that there was no misunderstanding, the comrades at the provincial level carefully stamped the letter with an official seal. Before seeing the peasants off, the comrades gave them a copy of a pamphlet listing the various Party policies regarding relieving the peasants’ burden, which they themselves had compiled. As the three young peasants left the building, they looked back gratefully at the rundown building that housed the provincial Peasants’ Burden Relief Office. During this stop in Hefei, the three young men also looked up the

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Disciplinary Committee of the Anhui Party organization. The comrades at the provincial Disciplinary Committee also assured them that they would look into the matter.

After their return home, Wang Junbin, Wang Hongchao, and Wang Xiangdong once again walked into the office of the Party Committee of Linquan County. They took out the letters, one given them by the Ministry of Agriculture and one given to them by the Anhui provincial Peasants’ Burden Relief Office. This time the office personnel did not shoo them out.

It was obvious that the county office had already received word directly from Beijing. It could be safely assumed that County Party Secretary Zhang Xide was by now well aware that the peasants from Wang Village had gone all the way to Beijing to make accusations against him. He emerged from his office, his face creased with smiles, and immediately sat down to write a note, directed to the Baimiao Township Party Committee and township administration. The note read: “Peasants from Wang village have complained to the higher authorities demanding the return of money paid over and above the mandatory figure for cash reserve. Please deal with this properly and in a timely fashion, and return in full the money owing.”

The three men took the note and scrutinized it. It was a hastily handwritten scrawl, and it took the three some time to make out the words. When they did make out the writing, the wording left them perplexed. How would “the mandatory fig-ure for cash reserve” be defined? Why not deal with the issue officially as the comrades did at the central and the provincial level? Why not point out the gravity of the issue? How to account for the fact that the peasants had repeatedly gone to the township and county and been rebuffed? Despite these unan-swered questions, it was indeed a personal handwritten note

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from the county Party Secretary, promising to return the excessive payments extorted from them. The three months between the fall of 1993, when the three men first decided to make appeals to Beijing, and now, when they held Zhang Xide’s note in their hands, had not been spent in vain. The peasants of Wang village were overjoyed.

One can imagine the mixed feelings of the township and village cadres as they were handed the note from County Party Boss Zhang Xide. By sending them this note through the three peasant representatives, Zhang as good as reproached them for letting him down and bringing trouble on his head. On the other hand, they figured, it was but a note scribbled on a scrap of paper. On second reading, the wording of the note—such as saying that “peasants . . . have complained . . . ”—smacked of Zhang Xide’s own resentment. Moreover, Zhang’s final exhortation, “Please deal with this properly,” was as good as telling them that he was washing his hands of the matter.

In spite of whatever underhanded insinuations might be hid-den in the note, Baimiao Township officials had to make some gestures toward resolving the problem of the peasants’ excessive burden. Under the supervision of the county Party Disciplinary Committee, an investigative group was set up that included peasant representatives and started work in the township and the village. The problems were so obvious, it took no more than an initial examination to find in excess of 11,000 yuan extorted for the “village cash reserve” for the year 1993. In auditing the records of Wang Village, the peasant representatives came across mountains of unjustified IOU notes for cash, as well as unexplained withdrawals from the village cash reserve and other public monies. Sometimes the figures for withdrawals from the accounts of township and village public funds were lumped together. Separate withdrawals for the year

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1993 were for as much as 47,650 yuan, but the record was made out as 33,760.46 yuan. So where had the extra 13,883.54 yuan gone? The peasants were furious at the messed-up state of the village finances. Meanwhile, two months passed after County Party Secretary Zhang Xide wrote his note, and still the cadres made only token payments to the villagers.

Moreover, strange things were taking place which were very unsettling. First of all, Wang Junbin, who had always worked for the township land control office, was suddenly fired. After that, his friends Wang Hongchao and Wang Xiangdong received a summons from the township administrative office. The minute they walked into the building compound, each got a sound beating from thugs who lay in waiting.