earticle

영어

Collective property has been the backbone of community in rural China. Lineage organizations in traditional China, the people’s commune in socialist China, and the village committee of today are all founded upon the basis of collective properties. It is the governance structure of the property as well as the ownership that determines the social relationship in the community. This paper examines how the collective property governance has been transformed in rural China through the case of Huaxi village. For the last 50 years, the collective property governance in Huaxi has experienced three distinguished periods: the people's commune period, the village enterprise periods, and the today's Huaxi Group Inc. period. In terms of governance structure, the first two periods are very similar. One of the biggest changes in the last periods is the separation between village and enterprises. During the first two periods, it was the village that directly controlled the collective property including village enterprises. However, being alienated from the enterprise management. ordinary Huaxi villagers now hardly control their collective properties. Rather, ordinary villagers have become dependent on the corporation which are controlled by the board of directors and managers, all of whom are party cadres. Benefited from bonus system, top managers informally privatize collective properties. Thus, this research shows that it is not ownership itself but the governance structure of property that determines the actual social relationship in rural China.