The case studies featured here offer rare insight into Chinese political life in the countryside. This is the \ufb01rst in-depth English study of the problem of aggressive taxation\u00a0by local governments in contemporary China and its social and political implications.\u00a0Bernstein and Lu help explain how this has played a large role in de\ufb01ning the relationship\u00a0between the state and peasants in the reform period. Their analysis adds to the larger\u00a0debate over whether China\u2019s growing strength could pose a threat to other countries, or\u00a0whether China\u2019s leaders will be preoccupied with domestic problems such as this one.<\/p>\n
The authors also explain why the central government, although\u00a0often siding with the peasants, has not been able to solve the burden problem by instituting\u00a0a sound, reliable \ufb01nancial system in the countryside. The regime has, to some extent,\u00a0sought to empower peasants to defend their interests \u2013 informing them about tax rules, expanding the legal system, and instituting village elections \u2013 but these attempts have not yet generated enough power from \u201cbelow\u201d to counter powerful local governments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The \ufb01nancial burdens imposed on peasants have become a major source of discontent in the Chinese countryside and a worrisome source of political and social instability\u00a0for the Chinese government. Throughout the 1990s and into the new century, much\u00a0of rural China has been in a state of crisis as tension has grown between the peasant masses and the state.<\/p>\n
Farmers who bitterly resented the tax burden began increasingly to\u00a0protest (sometimes violently) against unpredictable and open-ended \ufb01nancial\u00a0 exactions\u00a0by predatory local governments. Local rural of\ufb01cials, in turn, are driven by intense\u00a0pressure to develop and modernize in order to catch up with the more highly developed\u00a0coastal areas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":9210,"template":"","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false},"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[10379],"product_tag":[10352,10321],"class_list":["post-9209","product","type-product","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","product_cat-altax-library-en","product_tag-china","product_tag-taxation-en","first","instock","sale","downloadable","virtual","purchasable","product-type-simple"],"yoast_head":"\n