近日，经济学家张化桥在财新网博客发表的《中国农村被抛弃了》一文，文中描述了被无视的中国农村的悲惨现状：环境恶化、犯罪率上升、儿童留守、农民心理和身体健康等等问题。
文章写道，上世纪90年代开始，央行的印钞机驱动着银行信贷的无节制增长，导致高达两位数的通胀持续多年，这迅速蚕食了农村的收入，进一步扩大了农村和城市的差距。城市的平均月工资从20年前的几百元增长到了今天的4000元(合650美元)，而农村的收入水平则远远地落在了后面。城市的房价呈几何级数增长，许多地方甚至增长了五六倍，而相比之下，农村房地产的价值却几乎没有提高。太多农村居民错过了中国的房地产繁荣，进一步拉大了城市和农村的贫富差距。
文章称，不同层级的地方政府都疏于管理，废弛懈怠。工厂在城边距离乡村不远的地方修建了起来。它们抽干了湖泊，污染了河水和空气。专家估计，中国有超过450个癌症村，在这些地方癌症患者密集出现，发病率远远高于平均水平。村民们付出了惨重的代价。
文章还提到，农村家庭处境凄惨，农村的自杀率是城市的三倍。在农村，父母把年幼的子女留在农村的家中，自己去其他地方的工厂打工。有6000万儿童承受着这样的命运，他们大多数被留给祖父母、外祖父母看管，但其中有数百万儿童要独自生活。留守儿童通常不得不面对孤独(许多人没有兄弟姐妹)和无助。有些报告称，留守儿童遭遇性侵的案件正在增多。与此同时，越来越多的农村儿童辍学。
同时农村领导人的选举经常受到操纵，基层选举舞弊也越发猖獗。政府的撒手不管留下了一个危险的权力真空，许多村民只能自我保护。许多人说，一些类似黑社会的组织正在幕后操纵着权力。
文章称，中国农村的许多地区已经类似于无政府状态，犯罪率提高，在农村，只有最极端的犯罪才会向警方报案，但有些骇人听闻的案子根本无人理睬。即使报警，警方根本不去跟进调查。
文章点评说，中国传统的社会脉络已经被撕成碎片——这种瓦解在农村最为明显，家庭破裂、犯罪率飙升，恶化的环境也在夺去人的性命。
原文如下：
HONG KONG— On atrip home late last year tothe rural Chinese village of my childhood, I found my brother tyinga military knife under his belt as he was leaving the house. Iasked why he needed a knife, and he replied,“It is not as safehere as before.”
The peaceful and idyllic village I grew up in,like many of China's rural towns, has been brought to ruins by thebreakdown of traditional social norms that followed decades offailed policies and neglect by the state. Many of my contemporaryfellow villagers would prefer to go back to the old days.
Nostalgia in China maysound strange to peoplewhose image of the country's recenthistory is colored by memoriesof Mao’s disastrous policies, which in the years following theCommunist revolution in1949 brought economic disaster, starvationand mass death. But my generation, which came of age after theGreat Famine and at the end of the Cultural Revolution in themid-1970s, missed the worst of the misery. And in typical Chinesefashion, my elders preferred not to talk about the bad days.
My childhood came at a unique moment forChina. We were still living traditional village lives, having leftthe horrors of Mao behind, but not yet in the thick of thecapitalist frenzy. Families were strong, crime was unheard of andthe landscape was pristine. We didn't mind being poor— in my thirdand fourth years at primary school in the early-’70s, the wholeschool did not have textbooks— because we didn't know what we weremissing. We lived in peaceful, tight-knit communities.
But China's traditional social fabric hasbecome shredded— and the disintegration is most obvious in thecountryside, where families are falling apart, crime is soaring andthe environment is killing people. Many villagers who were happy tohave the state retreat from their private lives in recent decadesare now crying for government intervention. Something has to bedone to rebuild China’s languishing village life.
Beginning in the late1970s, the communes weresplit up into family farms, prompting a surge of productivity andmore freedom for rural residents. Peasants suddenly had the powerto decide what crops to grow, how to grow them and how to selltheir harvests and other products. Many farmers decided to leavetheland to work in factories in the boomtowns along the southeastcoast, bringing home money as well as fresh knowledge from theoutside world. Many brought back much-needed skills to build theirown businesses. This golden era was celebrated as the triumph ofDeng Xiaoping's economic liberation.
The period of renaissance in the countrysideended in the mid-to-late1990s. Reckless growth of bank creditpowered by the central bank’sprinting press caused years ofdouble-digit inflation that quickly eroded the incomes in thecountryside and helped widen gaps between rural villages and thecities. Average monthly wages in the cities surged from a fewhundred yuan two decades ago to about4,000 yuan($650) today,while incomes in the countryside lagged far behind.
More important, following the government’sprivatization of state housing, urban housing prices grewexponentially, five-to-six-fold in many cases, while the value ofruralhomes rose little by comparison. Too many rural residentshave missed out on China's property boom, contributing to thewealth gap between the cities and the countryside.
Local governments have done little to help. Asmore and more farmers flocked to factories in coastal cities,layers of local government were neglected and decayed. Factorieseventually emerged in towns near rural villages, sucking the lakesdry and poisoning the rivers and the air. Experts estimate Chinahas more than450 cancer villages, towns where cancer cases clusterat much higher than average rates. Villagers have paid a steepprice. Some residents of my village have died of unknown ills intheir40s and50s.
The state of my family’s home village ofJingmen, Hubei Province, is common across China. Its roads are nolonger usable as they have not been maintained for over a decade.The community buildings have been torn down; the last time I wasthere I only saw dust and broken tiles all around.
Rural families are suffering. The suicide ratein the countryside is three times as high as in the cities,according to reports from2011. My uncle, who had been living in amakeshift shack after his grown children kicked him out of theirhouse, hanged himself four years ago, never having recovered fromthe death of his wife two years earlier.
It is common for both parents to leave theirsmall children at home in the village while they go to work infactories elsewhere. Some60 million children suffer this fate;most are left in the care of their grandparents, but more than3percent— millions of children— are left to live on their own.Children who stay behind often have to cope with loneliness(notmany have siblings) and helplessness. Some reports say that sexualabuse of left-behind children is on the rise.
Meanwhile, increasing numbers of ruralchildren are dropping out of school. One study suggests there areat least20 million school dropouts in rural areas, or1 in10young villagers. The primary school that I attended in the1970swas dismembered a decade ago, due to dwindling numbers of students.As a result, young kids in the village have to travel along morethan five miles of mud roads each day to go to school.
In many cases, men go to jobs in the citieswhile their wives stay behind with the children in the village.They get to see each other only a few days a year. Distance,emotional stress and financial frustration tear families apart.
According to the journal Learning Weekly,China's rural divorce rate surged fourfold between1979 and2009.Lianhe Zaobao, a Singapore-based newspaper, and numerous governmentpublications have reported that many parts of rural China havebecome anarchic, with rising crime rates and election fraud.
Beijing's effort to decentralize the country'sgovernance over the past few decades has played a major role inthis social decay. The elections of village heads are often riggedand corruption is rampant. The retreat of the state has left adangerous power vacuum, and many villagers have been left to fendfor themselves. There is a lot of talk of mafia-like groupswielding power behind the scenes.
Crime, rare in the Communist era, isincreasing. Statistics are hard to come by— even the police do notpublish them. In the countryside, only the most extreme crimes getreported, but even some horrific cases are ignored. Several yearsago, my cousin was almost beaten to death by a fellow villager andhis relatives in a conflict over an extramarital affair. My sisterreported the brutality to the police but they never followedup.
In the old days, officials at the village andtownships had the mandate and resources to mediate disputes,including domestic violence. The police would patrol even the mostremote villages. Today the police seem to stay in cities, andvillage heads don’t have the resources to intervene in socialissues. The abolition of an“agriculture tax” about a decade agohas added to the budget constraints of local governments.
While the government is still obsessed witheconomic growth rates, the country's inequality and a damagedenvironment— especially in the villages— are much biggerchallenges. Whatever libertarians say about the undesirableconsequences of the state, many rural Chinese, particularly thepoor like my relatives and fellow villagers, want more governmentintervention. Farmers are forming petition groups in variousplaces, demanding the government intervene in land disputes,pollution and election fraud.
The misery in the Chinese countryside issevere but fixable. The government and the public must come outfrom the shadows and prioritize the rebuilding of village life. Thestate has the financial resources and expertise to do something. Itjust needs the will.
Joe Zhang,
