A week ago I wrote about my conversation with a village chief who had come to Beijing for the National People's Congress. The feedback I received was divided,

To recap, the chief said that where he came from, "only poor villages have heated elections." He however had hardly anyone to run against in almost every election because in his village, which he has headed for more than 40 years, the village committee does all the basic things the villagers want before elections start.

One reader praised the village chief's experience as reflecting "a fundamental reason" why some democracies have failed and some other systems have succeeded, namely satisfying the needs of the people.

Another reader remained doubtful, and even went so far as to suggest that life may be so good in the village that it has practically killed the desire for more competitive elections.

I felt both readers missed the point slightly. The first reader was concerned mainly about the needs of the people, which, he seemed to insist, are more important than competitive elections. The other was mainly about the weakness of human beings. It can be seen in all systems that, when the economy is good, people generally have fewer things to complain about.

Neither discussed why and how a local leadership could have kept doing the right things for more than 40 years, and have avoided facing a major challenge in elections.

I thought maybe I had not explained it well in my first article. So I went back to my notes, to look for clues showing what factors have made the village chief do the right things.

He started to lead the villagers to plant trees in 1963, after a flood wiped out all their assets, thus embarking on a 40-odd-year afforestation campaign that has changed the village into a local tourist destination. That was a lesson about the environment.

In the 1980s, when farming was about to become less profitable, he lead the villagers to plant more fruit trees. That was his introductory course in the market economy.

Then he learned that no farmer can cope with market forces and earn a better price for his crops individually. So the village started to run its own fruit processing industry and developed its own sales channels like a modern corporation. This was the beginning of the man's managerial career.

In the last few years, having seen the cost of medical care skyrocket and many local households virtually ruined by a visit to a big-city hospital, he learned his lesson in public finance namely creating community-wide health insurance.

So it is not because of a lack of competition that the village leadership can stay in power for 40-plus years. Despite the fact that within the village there has never seemed much of a race, the village chief has taken seriously the competition, or perhaps pressure, from outside the village.

If he had failed to react, first to the poor environment and then to the everything-goes-cheap market economy, I'm sure dissatisfaction would have started simmering and there would have been calls for his replacement.

Without pressure from the outside, a democracy may well degenerate into a game for the powerful to seek self-entertainment, or for those with vested interests to multiply their gains. This kind of game will estrange farmers to a much larger extent than long-term village leadership.

Email: younuo@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 03/13/2006 page4)