RED LANTERN Shandong, the ghost of forced demolitions returns in rural villages

According to some reports published on Chinese social networks, the cranes and excavators that had stopped in June 2020 due to tensions in the communities and criticism from local academics are back in action. The goal is to “modernize” and merge a fifth of the 70,000 villages by moving their inhabitants to new neighborhoods on the outskirts of medium and large cities. Applying different forms of violence against those who do not accept it.

Milan () – News has recently emerged suggesting that forced demolitions of rural villages in the eastern province of Shandong that had been suspended by the authorities in June 2020 have begun again. One of the most serious episodes known is the one that took place on March 19, when demolition squads with riot gear broke into the village of Xizhifang (in Jinan prefecture), provoking protests from the local population. In vain the residents asked the police to intervene, who instead acted against the protesters, seizing their mobile phones, beating them and even subjecting them to house arrest.

The events we have just described actually follow a script that is already well known in the news and is just one of the many dissenting reactions regarding the “village merger” policy – in Chinese, he cun bing ju -.

Considered the flagship of the “rural revitalization strategy” (xiangcun zhenxing zhanlüe), involves the destruction of entire rural villages and subsequent relocation of their inhabitants into larger, modern “communities” (shequ), built on the outskirts of medium and large cities. These new settlements, made up of apartment blocks or independent housing clusters, should have all the necessary services, such as hospitals, schools, hospices, police stations and waste accumulation areas. The announced objective of the “merger of villages”, in fact, is to accelerate the natural process of urbanization, promote the modernization of rural areas and the local economy and improve the living standards of peasants.

With these intentions, in October 2019 the Shandong authorities launched an ambitious plan that provides for the merger of a fifth of the 70,000 traditional administrative villages in its territory and which was to be completed by the end of the following year.

However, during its application, numerous errors and excesses were committed to the detriment of the rural population, bravely denounced by some Chinese researchers and university professors. Among them, He Xuefeng, a well-known sociologist at Wuhan University, described the suffering caused to peasants by this measure and even went so far as to define it as “the Great Leap Forward of modern times.” In fact, the practice of “village merger” is reminiscent of Maoist politics in several ways, starting with the way it is carried out.

In fact, testimonies collected by Chinese scholars have revealed serious cases of violence and abuse of power by local leaders who, also motivated by personal benefit, force residents to sign contracts to demolish their homes. Families who refuse to do so are labeled “saboteurs” (dingzihu) and subjected to terrible reprisals, such as being deprived of public services and suffering vandalism attacks on their homes or crops. Some opponents were even beaten or arrested, while others were fired or forced to leave their jobs due to the pressures they suffered.

Often the demolition notice arrives so unexpectedly that families do not even have time to remove their belongings from their homes, which are buried under the rubble. Another widespread practice is “first destroy and then build” (xian chai hou jian), under which rural residents’ homes are demolished before new ones are built, leaving them with few options: rely on friends or family, find an apartment to rent, or make do in makeshift shelters such as simple straw and mud huts or tents installed outside the plots.

Although in dilapidated condition, these accommodations are sometimes still preferable to those in modern rural communities. In fact, when they move into the new apartments, families must personally purchase furniture, fixtures, appliances, and pay for various public services, since local governments in Shandong cannot afford to pay the planned subsidies. A farmer originally from Juancheng (Heze Prefecture), for example, admitted: “I don’t like the new house […] We have to spend money from the moment we open our eyes in the morning. In the village we drew water from a well and cooked rice with the firewood we collected. Now we have to pay for water even when we flush the toilet, or for electricity when we cook […]. We are not used to it […] And besides we don’t have money. “It’s easy to survive in a village with very little money.”

Leaving the village of origin also means having to abandon work, because the distance no longer allows the former inhabitants to dedicate themselves to agricultural production as before. For this reason, many are forced to give up the rights to use the plots they cultivated, effectively becoming “landless peasants” (shidi nongmin). This decision implies giving up what they consider their main source of income and, although they obtain compensation for the transfer of use rights, this is not enough to ensure their livelihood for a long time. Furthermore, they are not guaranteed to immediately find employment in the place where they are going to live or in another nearby one.

However, economic reasons are not the only ones that make the prospect of moving to new communities unattractive. There are also emotional reasons that make rural residents hesitate. In fact, since they are mostly older people, it is very difficult for them to leave the house that was built with the effort of several generations and start again somewhere else. And when they move, farmers are forced to integrate into a new social context and rebuild their interpersonal relationships. This process is long and complex, since the residents of the new communities, although they come from neighboring villages, often present differences at an economic and cultural level, and in their habits and lifestyle.

Lü Dewen, a researcher at Wuhan University, is right then when he states: “If Covid-19 was a natural disaster […] The merger of villages is a man-made calamity, [es] “a threat that lurks and has no regard for human feelings is in contradiction to the mentality of the peasants.”

Although initially the authorities tried to hide the discontent of the latter, sometimes resorting to censorship of images and comments on the Internet, the criticism expressed by Chinese scholars has already exploded in recent years a true media case, becoming a rare example of the “constructive journalism” in the country. This led the leaders to admit the mistakes that had been made and announce in June 2020 the temporary suspension of the “village merger” project in Shandong.

However, according to some rumors and indiscretions circulating on the Chinese network in recent months, it seems that cranes and excavators have returned to work in the fields of the province. Indeed, of the programmatic documents that were published after 2020 on the “three rural issues” (san nong) – that is, agriculture, rural areas and farmers – the intention to continue with said policy emerges, although always respecting the will of the subjects involved. The most recent news, however, casts doubt on whether this is really the case.

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