Abstract
This paper is an empirical study focusing on the relations between the expansion of Township-Village Cadre and the resulting peasants’ burden during China’s transition period. Since 1978, China has experienced reforms from a socialist planned towards a free market economy. In an attempt to acquire wealth and accomplish personal interest within peasant society, the Township-Village Cadre use all means of the new free market economy to their advantage. The author terms the growing scales and numbers of Township-Village Cadre as external expansion and their attempt to accumulate more wealth as internal expansion. The cost of this dual dimensional expansion further loads the burden of local peasants directly and indirectly.
In “T” Township, the expenditure of administrative expenses is increasing alongside the growth in the numbers of Township-Village cadre. According to some statistics at the township level from 1984 to 1995, expenditure increased 14.3 times, far exceeding the rate of increase in peasant income during the same period. Moreover, unofficially, the direct plunder of huge sums of money incurred from peasants takes a significant portion of the income. Thus, the Township-Village Cadre in transitional Chinese village regions, are actually enforcing the state’s plundering policies through their corrupt conduct.
