The current state of officialdom in Xinye County was revealed in Dr. Feng Junqi's in-depth investigation, which he wrote during his two-year tenure in 2008 and has become a true portrayal of the root causes of China's grassroots problems at the county level. This article will focus on the reality of grassroots officialdom at the county level, the reasons behind many problems such as young people's reluctance to return to their hometowns for development, tofu slag projects, mass incidents, and the uneven impact of this situation on China's economic development and urbanization process.
Xinye County, located in Nanyang City, bordering Xiangfan, Hubei Province, has 980,000 acres of land and a population of 780,000. However, there is a phenomenon of single-handedly covering the sky in the political system at the county level, which has led to a serious vicious circle, affecting the development of China's county economy and accelerating the continuous expansion of large cities.
In this agricultural county, where there are only 1,013 cadres at or above the deputy section level, the deep-rooted political family is prominent. Among them, there are 680 people at the deputy section level, 280 people in the main department, 40 people in the deputy department, and 5 people in the main department. Interestingly, the cadres below the department level are basically from their own counties, while most of the cadres above the deputy department level are from other counties in Nanyang.
In his investigation, Feng Junqi found that there were 161 political families at the grassroots level at the county level, of which 21 had produced more than five large families with members at or above the deputy section level, and 140 small families with more than two members. This means that at least one out of every ten cadres has family forces behind them, and 20% of the cadres belong to the second generation of officials.
In the case of **concern, Pan Ziqin, the Propaganda Minister of the Xinye County Party Committee, personally went to Beijing to meet Feng Junqi, hoping that he would not accept ** interview for the time being. Some members of the political family also called Feng one after another, saying that they were under pressure and hoped that he would understand. The power of this political family has had a profound impact on the county-level grassroots.
Feng Junqi, 35 years old, from Runan County, Henan Province, was admitted to Peking University in 2005 to study for a doctorate in sociology. In 2008, he began to serve as an assistant to the county magistrate in Shinno, and became a member of the county's power core. In the past two years, he has collected hundreds of interviewees through a large number of interviews, including 161 party and government leaders, including the secretary of the county party committee.
In August 2010, Feng Junqi joined the Institute of Contemporary China Studies and submitted a first draft of nearly 300,000 words to Southern Weekly. The most striking part of this article is the chapter on political families, but Feng is in no hurry to get it in the news. He said: "I'm very entangled, Xinye has raised me for two years, and I have feelings. This shows his mixed feelings about this officialdom.
In deciphering the maps of 161 political families, Feng Junqi was helped by materials such as the Xinye County Chronicles, the Xinye Yearbook, and the Nanyang Cadre List 1949-2000, as well as the support of the children of two open-minded cadre families.
Among them, the Zhang family is the most representative of these 21 families. In Feng's **, Zhang Taikang is the core figure of the Zhang family, and is actually the pseudonym of Zhang Yibin, the head of the Xinyeyuan Organization and chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. Zhang Yibin served as the county party secretary in Tanghe County and later retired as director of the Nanyang District Labor Bureau. His sister, Zhang Xiubin, served as Xinye's deputy county magistrate and chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, while his brother-in-law was the director of the health bureau.
Zhang Yibin's family is huge, with 8 children, of which his son Zhang Xinsheng is the director of Nanyang Customs, his eldest son-in-law Zhang Debao is the director of the Nanyang City Tourism Bureau, the second son-in-law He Limin is the president of the First People's Hospital of Nanyang City, and the fourth son-in-law Wang Qing is the head of Wancheng District. This huge family network has penetrated into all departments of the county, and even extended to Nanyang, Zhengzhou, and even Beijing.
This kind of relationship network woven by in-law is a common pattern in Shinno officialdom. Feng Junqi's investigation found that the formation of many political families was hereditary, such as his father-in-law who served as secretary in a certain township, and his son-in-law who later served in the same township. In addition, the children of county leaders at or above the deputy department level generally have at least one sub-department, and many of them are even full-time subjects. This phenomenon leads to the fact that the size of the political family is directly proportional to the power and position of the core figure of the family, forming local interest groups and power groups.
Under the influence of political families, there is a serious sense of unfairness in the officialdom at the grassroots level at the county level. Feng Junqi's investigation revealed the law of the promotion of ordinary cadres, showing that it takes eight years to be promoted from the unit level to the deputy section, three years to be promoted from the deputy section to the main section, and seven years to be promoted from the main section to the deputy department. This means that a 22-year-old college graduate has to go through several stages before he or she is likely to make significant progress in his political career.
However, members of the political family were able to make the jump in just a few years, and finally transferred to another county to take up a real position, which made the children of the common people almost despair about this door. This disparity has led to a worship of power, with the power of the county party secretary being above the county governor, and the county magistrate will have no hope of serving as county party secretary if he cannot take over as county party secretary.
Under this mentality of chasing and worshiping power, the secretary of the county party committee is like the "emperor of Zhongxian County", and every inspection must be welcomed by the township leaders. This shows that despite the changing times, the mentality of worshipping and chasing power still exists. In this case, the county-level grassroots ** has an unshakable position within the organization.
In general, the current situation of officialdom at the county level in Xinye reflects the enormous influence of political families, which seriously hinders the development of the county's economy and the balance between China's urbanization process. The report's in-depth analysis reveals problems in China's grassroots officialdom and provides a powerful reference for reform.