Fishery Association

Another essential task for watershed management was to manage local natural resources (especially fisheries) that were on the verge of exhaustion. Competition in fishing activities and the use of illegal fishing gear intensified in the 1990s. In addition to the need to catch

more fish to compensate for the loss of farming land, the slack regulatory enforcement was also a critical reason. The establishment of the Lashihai Wetland Reserve and its dedicated agency, the Reserve Agency (管理所), at the provincial level in 1998 ironically seemed to destroy the local managerial mechanism. It deprived the local police officers who had both local knowledge and the respect of villagers. In the past, the police had been allowed to charge a boat owner 180 RMB per year. The high administrative fee was effective in controlling the number of boats on the lake. The fee also offset the costs borne by the police in patrolling and cracking down on the illegal fishing gear.³ As the managing authority was forced to be transferred to the Reserve Agency, the long-term practice was suspended while the new model failed to effectively take its place. Anarchy ensued.

Faced with the impending extinction of the fishery resources, the Watershed

Management Committee further organized another self-saving collective action to cope with the crisis. A local association, the Lashi Township Wetland Fishery Association for

Economic and Technological Cooperation (拉市鄉濕地漁業經濟技術合作協會, hereafter the Fishery Association) was set up in 2002 to go through administrative procedures in filing complaints to the city leaders and related public authorities. Although the government eventually responded by appropriating a reasonable amount of budget for cracking down on the illegal fishing gear, there was still no feasible action plan or a sufficient number of staff to carry out this mission. The Reserve Agency eventually found a convenient way to get out of trouble: by authorizing those who were complaining to resolve the problem, but withholding the subsidy from higher levels of government.

The Fishery Association was therefore “authorized” to clean up illegal fishing gear in the lake. Without legal power as in the case of the government agencies, the leaders, Aliushu and his associates, could only carry out the troublesome task in a very soft manner. They

3 The illegal fishing gear usually referred to fishing nets with too small a mesh size.

began by persuading close relatives to set an example by withdrawing their illegal gear from the lake. Although some friends and relatives responded positively, most of the villagers were reluctant to do so mainly because they were in a prisoner’s dilemma game. Unless they could be sure that all other illegal fishing gear would be effectively cracked down upon so that they could benefit from the restoration of the fish population in the future, the best strategy for them was to free-ride by retaining their gear. In doing so, they would be promised a better catch as the number of competitors was reduced. In addition, the gear cost a fortune and it was thus a hard decision for the owner to give it up.⁴ Consequently, a gridlock persisted.

To break through the gridlock, the Fishery Association proposed a compensation

scheme to reduce the losses borne by the illegal gear owners if they cooperated by turning in the equipment. Unfortunately, such an initiative was opposed by the chiefs of the villages because they believed that such compensation would encourage law-breaking behavior.

Without either forceful means or incentive-based alternatives, the illegal gear kept threatening the ecology of the lake in the years that followed.

The Fishery Association did not make any progress until Aliushu found a way to get on the government’s nerves through the existing political system. He decided to take part in the election for representatives in the Municipal People’s Congress. In general, such office had long been considered to be an honorary position. Nevertheless, whenever the Congress was in session, the government tended to be more receptive to the opinions of the

representatives because they might give the officers a hard time due to their open criticism.

It became a window of opportunity for the civil groups to reach a compromise with the authorities.

4

Several reasons might explain such a seemingly dramatic turn. First, from the time of the engagement of the Green Watershed and Oxfam Hong Kong, the achievements of Xihucun attracted nationwide attention. For the sake of setting an example, creating propaganda for tourism, and probably giving credit to local cadres, Aliushu was nominated by the party. Secondly, he received a large number of votes not only because his efforts improved the well-being of local residents, but also because he fought for the compensation scheme for the illegal fishing gear owners. Third, his leading collective actions in that region demonstrated his charisma and enabled him to acquire a credible reputation. Sitting in the People’s Congress, he had a chance to re-initiate the rejected proposal at a higher level within the political arena, namely, the city government, and received an endorsement there.

Such official status together with a favorable attitude from the higher level of government (the city), Aliushu eventually managed to realize his idea in 2007.

After this turning point, the Fishery Association consistently patrolled the lakeshore to ensure that order was maintained on the lake. Such voluntary efforts were also echoed by the governments at different levels. Official policy later promoted tourism by protecting the wild birds and thus implemented a fishing ban between October and March to prevent possible disturbances to the birds. As the fish stocks returned, a new business

emphasizing “natural fish” (literally 生態魚, in contrast to the “aqua-farmed fish”) flourished together with the rise in tourism and the benefits of conservation were widely shared by the villagers, the collective governing action showed its prominence and potential in rural areas.

Constructing an Institutional Foundation for Grassroots Initiatives

From a macro perspective, an increasing number of cases regarding the active

participation of nonprofit organizations in grassroots governance indicates a gradual revival of the “third realm” (Huang, 1993) that once prevailed in pre-communist China.⁵ From a micro perspective, however, such progress has been quite puzzling if we consider individuals to be rational actors such that neither collective actions by villagers nor empowerment by the ruling elites could be easy to achieve. How such progress has been made is therefore still subject to clarification. This case provides some thoughts on the conditions for the emerging civil society to be able to participate in public governance by overcoming the concerns of the power elites and the inertia of the bureaucrats in the lower echelons of the ruling hierarchy.

The case indicates that both the demand and supply side factors should be met if the civil groups are to play a meaningful role in solving public policy problems. The literature has abounded with discussions on the determinants of successful collective actions on the supply side. This study explores what has happened on the demand side. In addition to a perceived need for actions to solve the specific problems faced by villagers, a critical factor in a less democratic context is the perceived urgency of the response actions by the ruling elites. In a political system without an effective mechanism to ensure the accountability of public officers, how to trigger the attention of the public authority has become a fundamental issue. Lily Tsai has pointed out the possibility of solidarity groups in holding local officials accountable for the provision of public goods (2007). It is widely recognized, however, that such informal mechanisms vary in different localities and might not be universally applicable in terms of ensuring accountability. According to the bureaucratic structure in China, only lower level bureaucrats reside locally and are thus more concerned with

maintaining a good reputation in local social networks. Public officials in higher echelons, such as bureau chiefs in a county government, tend to seek career opportunities over a larger

5

geographical area than the primary social networks can reach.

In other words, the further a public official moves upward, the more he or she needs to construct and maintain regional or even nationwide networks that promise further promotion, and the less he will be attached to local connections, which means that he is less likely to share grassroots concerns. For public goods and services with economies of scale that can be managed by village or township governments, local officials might have the incentive and capacity to remain accountable, given that other conditions are controlled.⁶ Since many other issues demand a greater financial capacity and involve a wider range of stakeholders, local officials tend to be more responsive to the interests of superiors who set the criteria of performance and nominate the candidates for promotions.

To break through such structural constraints, one popular strategy is to make the event big enough to become a credible threat to the careers of officials in upper level governments.

From this point of view, a quick escalation of violence in many local protests might not be an accidental display of emotional reactions, but a thoughtful tactic to redefine the nature of the issue to attract the attention of upper levels of government. In contrast to the violence that usually exacts a heavy toll, an alternative tactic is issue-linkage. Sometimes a window will open to offer an opportunity for local initiators to square their interests with those of higher level governments. In practice, they need to identify the major concerns of upper level governments, interpret the congruence of their interests, and embed the solution to local problems into the broader scheme that the superior government has endorsed.

As shown in this case, conserving the water for the development of tourism after the success in enlisting the old town of Lijiang as a “World Heritage Site” and the lake itself into

6 In cases in which great interests are at stake, such as urban rezoning and land acquisition, pressure from solidarity groups might not be compatible with the pressure coming from above, and thus tends to be less effective in holding local officials accountable to grassroots interests.

the “List of Ramsar Wetlands of International Importance” overwhelmed the city

government. By contrast, the welfare of villagers after the lake-embanking projects was largely left to the township governments and their village branches to worry about.

Nevertheless, the tasks of either improving economic opportunities or reducing environmental harm (landslides and the destruction of fishery resources) promoted in

farmers’ self-salvation initiatives were mainly beyond their capacity. Similarly, once the lake became famous for bird watching, a new agency was set up by a superior government to give a big push. The negative consequences of destroying local rule-enforcing practices at local level of government was left unmanaged.

It is fortunate that local collective actions were successfully mobilized and external resources acquired (mainly from Green Watershed and Oxfam Hong Kong). It is also lucky that these actions did not trigger too many feelings of being threatened on the part of the local public authority probably because the functions being carried out were supposed to be the responsibility of the government. They were not, however, blessed by the political elites at all in the beginning. The greatest hurdle that the initiators encountered, in this case and essentially in many others as well, seemed to be the negotiations against the local

officials for empowerment. They needed to gain the discretionary power in using the funds raised by themselves, to hire and promote personnel they believed were appropriate, to enforce the rules for appropriating natural resources internally as well as externally, and to reach agreements with other governing partners in an autonomous manner.

While autonomy is an indispensable condition for effective self-governance, it is quite a luxury in an authoritarian regime in which the ruling elites have very limited self-confidence in the legitimacy that they have. They tend to regard the alternative sources of power from society as threatening. To gain the support of the public authority, there must be a

legitimation process. This process includes at least two ingredients. The first part is to offer

a discourse that integrates local initiatives into the agenda that the government has

emphasized. It is a process of linking issues to create a “contingent symbiosis” between the state and the social group (Spires, 2011). By interpreting the meaning of local efforts in accordance with the aims that the governments have officially announced to pursue grassroots initiatives might be able to persuade the officials that they can gain credit by endorsing self-organized actions. In this case, although the grassroots programs were pursuing the goal of improving the welfare of local residents, they earned their legitimacy and recognition from the public authority by emphasizing the functions of conserving water resources (by reducing mudslides and pollution) and of protecting the wild birds (by

conserving the fishery resources). Both fit the grand picture of developing tourism that promised regional economic growth.

The second ingredient of this process is having an arena to process such legitimation.

The mass media is usually preferred in the western world when a policy discourse needs to be deployed, yet it is less accessible by the civil groups when it is controlled by the authority, as is the case in China. The Internet could also serve this purpose, but it is less official, less effective in triggering attention in the public sector, and thus less powerful in promoting legitimacy for specific projects. One ideal alternative demonstrated in this case is the Municipal People’s Congress. It is an official occasion in which public officials need to sit in and listen to the appeals of individual representatives. To avoid any accidental

confrontations and embarrassment at that big official event, public officials are usually more willing to compromise. Given these favorable conditions, it becomes an ideal arena to accomplish the discourse of legitimation.

Conclusion: Bring Society Back into a Nondemocratic Regime

It is ideal to have not only private but also nonprofit sectors to participate in public governance. It is also great to promote self-governance by involving civil society that tends to have more of the local knowledge necessary for designing and implementing public policies. A fundamental problem faced when inviting society back into governing business in an authoritarian context, however, is to build up a new state-society relationship to prevent the party state from being deprived of dominance and its sole legitimacy after empowering the society. An authoritarian legacy makes collective action very politically sensitive and negotiating for autonomy from the ruling elites is by nature a difficult task. How this task can be accomplished deserves a more comprehensive understanding.

This successful case points out the conditions for empowerment. This study indicates the need for a legitimation process in the course of collective actions. While many other tricks might also help,⁷ this process is critical for the power elites when regarding local initiatives as their own projects. Through discourse the local initiators of collective actions have a chance to build up links with the power elites, share their interests and concerns, and interpret the meaning of actions in accordance with the official guidelines. Such linkages might not be honored in a democratic political system, but seem to be a necessity for local initiatives when negotiating for autonomy.

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