China Along the Yellow River: Reflections on Rural Society (Routledgecurzon Studies on the Chinese Economy)

235 Pages·2005·2.58 MB·English

by  Cao Jinqing

China Along the Yellow River
This book, by leading Chinese sociologist Cao Jinqing, has had a major impact in its
original Chinese version. Reviewed in the Far East Economic Review as ‘one of the
richest portraits of the Chinese countryside published in the reform era’, the book charts a
long journey through the hinterland region of the Yellow River undertaken by the author
in 1996. It examines in exhaustive detail the lives and work of peasants, Party and local
government officials, providing a wealth of data on the nature of life in post-reform rural
China. The author argues that the current economic reforms in China have brought
hardship for many small farmers in China’s interior. The latter, he says, are being driven
almost beyond endurance by official corruption and excessive taxation; in the past they
have frequently rebelled, and he questions whether they will do so again.
Cao Jinqing was born in 1949 in Zhejiang province, Central China, and graduated as a
mature student in philosophy from Fudan University, Shanghai, in 1982. He now heads
the Sociology Department at East China University of Science & Technology. This book
is not his first publication but it is his first major work. It has sold widely in China, but is
little known outside China.
Nicky Harman graduated in Chinese at Leeds University in 1972. She currently teaches
Chinese translation at Imperial College London, and translated K—The Art of Love by
Hong Ying (Marion Boyars, 2002).
Huang Ruhua was born in 1960 in Shanghai, Central China, and graduated in
philosophy from Fudan University, Shanghai in 1982. Between 1985 and 1990, she
lectured in Shanghai, and now lives and works in London.
RoutledgeCurzon Studies on the Chinese
Economy

Series Editors
Peter Nolan, University of Cambridge
Dong Fureng, Beijing University
The aim of this series is to publish original, high-quality, research-level work by both
new and established scholars in the West and the East, on all aspects of the Chinese
economy, including studies of business and economic history.
1 The Growth of Market Relations in Post-Reform Rural China
A Micro-Analysis of Peasants, Migrants and Peasant Entrepreneurs
Hiroshi Sato
2 The Chinese Coal Industry
An Economic History
Elspeth Thomson
3 Sustaining China’s Economic Growth in the Twenty-First Century
Edited by Shujie Yao and Xiaming Liu
4 China’s Poor Regions
Rural-Urban Migration, Poverty, Economic Reform and Urbanisation
Mei Zhang
5 China’s Large Enterprises and the Challenge of Late Industrialization
Dylan Sutherland
6 China’s Economic Growth
Yanrui Wu
7 The Employment Impact of China’s World Trade Organisation Accession
A.S.Bhalla and S.Qiu
8 Catch-Up and Competitiveness in China
The Case of Large Firms in the Oil Industry
Jin Zhang
9 Corporate Governance in China
Jian Chen
10 The Theory of the Firm and Chinese Enterprise Reform
The Case of China International Trust and Investment Corporation
Qin Xiao
11 Globalisation, Transition and Development in China
The Case of the Coal Industry
Huaichuan Rui
12 China Along the Yellow River
Reflections on Rural Society
Cao Jinqing, translated by Nicky Harman and Huang Ruhua
13 Economic Growth, Income Distribution and Poverty Reduction in Contemporary
China
Shujie Yao

China Along the Yellow River
Reflections on rural society
Cao Jinqing
Translated by Nicky Harman and Huang
Ruhua

LONDON AND NEW YORK
Huang He Biande Zhongguo first published 2000 by Shanghai Wenyi Chubanshe Publishers
English edition first published 2005 by RoutledgeCurzon 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon,
Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by RoutledgeCurzon 270 Madison Ave., New
York, NY 10016
RoutledgeCurzon is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis
or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to
http://www.ebookstore.tandf.co.uk/.”
Huang He Biande Zhongguo © 2000, 2005 Cao Jinqing Translation © 2005
Nicky Harman and Huang Ruhua
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or
by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from
the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
ISBN 0-203-48024-4 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-67240-2 (Adobe e-Reader Format)
ISBN 0-415-34113-2 (Print Edition)
Contents

Translators’ foreword viii

NICKY HARMAN AND HUANG RUHUA

Introduction: a Chinese ethnography of rural state and society 1

RACHEL MURPHY, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
China along the Yellow River 15

Notes 210
Appendix 213
Index 217
Translators’ foreword

Cao Jinqing was born in 1949 in Zhejiang Province, central China, and graduated as a
mature student in philosophy from Fudan University, Shanghai, in 1982. He now heads
the Sociology Department at East China University of Science & Technology.
China Along the Yellow River (Huang He Biande Zhongguo) was published by the
Shanghai Wenyi Chubanshe Publishers in 2000. It was the second of a pair of books
written by Professor Cao on the theme of changing society in rural China, the first
focusing on northern Zhejiang Province and this, the second, on Henan Province. The
book has received acclaim in China among academics and non-academics alike: by the
end of 2003, it had been reprinted eleven times and sold over 49,000 copies.
China Along the Yellow River, as published in the Chinese, is a book of considerable
length, running to 775 pages. When we first discussed translation, it was immediately
apparent that this would have to be an abridged version. The question then was how to
cut it. The original book falls into two clearly defined sections: the first one-third covers
Cao’s first field trip to Henan, in the summer of 1996; the last two-thirds covers his
second trip, in the autumn of that year. We chose to cut the first section of the book in its
entirety, but that still left us with 500-odd pages. We then decided to leave out or shorten
some of Cao’s historical references and to omit some of the accounts of lectures or talks
which he gave while in Henan. We were also reluctantly forced to leave out or shorten
other material, interesting and relevant though it was, in order to achieve the required
length. We have retained the diary format in which the book is written, but have omitted
each day’s dates since the process of abridging means that some days are necessarily
missing from the English. Cao Jinqing chose, in some places, to refer to people and
places by name, and in other places to hide their identity by giving them an initial letter.
We have in general adhered to his practice.
The translators: Nicky Harman graduated in Chinese at Leeds University in 1972. She
currently teaches on the MSc in Scientific, Technical and Medical Translation at Imperial
College London, and translated K—The Art of Love by Hong Ying (London: Marion
Boyars, 2002). Huang Ruhua was born in 1960 in Shanghai and, like Cao Jinqing,
graduated in philosophy from Fudan University, Shanghai, in 1982. Between 1985 and
1990 she lectured in Shanghai, and then moved to England where she has settled in
London.
The book came into Huang Ruhua’s hands in 2002 at a twenty-year class reunion at
Fudan University. Both of us were immediately taken by the richness of the materials it
contained, its engaging style and thought-provoking analysis. We began our work
without having found a publisher, and so were more than delighted when Routledge
Curzon agreed to publish it as part of their China series.
Nicky Harman and Huang Ruhua

Map 1 China with its provinces