Reviving residents’committees

TO urbanites on China’s mainland, residents’ committees are the closest basic social unit to families and their danwei, or work unit traditionally a tightly knit community.

The first residents’ committee in the PRC was established in Hangzhou’s Shangcheng District, Zhejiang Province, on October 23, 1949. Residents’ committees have since played a vital role in providing grassroots social services and management guidance in Chinese cities.

The Organizational Regulations for Urban Subdistrict Offices and The Organizational Regulations for Urban Residents’Committees, promulgated in 1954, established the framework for the urban grassroots management system. The system’s organizational structure is centered on subdistrict offices and residents’ committees. Subdistrict offices function as representative offices of district governments while residents’ commit- tees operate as residents’ self-governing organizations. Today, 85,000 residence communities all around the country are guided by committed residents’ committees, which boast an active membership base of 431,000 people.

China has witnessed rapid social development since the adoption of its reform and opening-up policy. At the same time, people have experienced dramatic changes in their living environment. They have moved from crowded quadrangles to multi-storied towers, and from government allocated housing to private apartments. Some have even moved into mansions.

These changes have made residents’ committees less influential in people’s daily lives. Today’s younger generations are perhaps more familiar with property owners’ committees. Those born in the 1980s and 1990s are not used to the idea that residents’ committees can play a prominent role in locals’ lives and help in solving all kinds of community problems.

How does the current state of residents’ committees appear, and what is the nature of their relationship with community residents nowadays? To find answers to these questions, China Today visited the residents’ committee in the Xinfengjie No. 1 Residence Community in Beijing’s Xicheng District.

Committee Workers Are Multitaskers

The signboard above the Xinfengjie No.1 Community Work Station lists the names of the community committee’s 17 suborganizations. Employment services and social security, cultural and sporting activities and services for senior citizens are all represented. The work station is actually a three-bedroom apartment, in which its dozen staff members are extremely busy: their desks are overflowing with paperwork, cabinets are chock-a-block and an uninterrupted flow of visitors stream in throughout the day.

The day China Today visited was a particularly busy one for the station community committee reelections were to be held the following day. Cao Mingjun, the committee chief, says that like community committees the nation over, the one in Xinfengjie No. 1 is composed of elected members and contracted social workers. Her lieutenant is Li Ying, a diminutive bespectacled lady with slight Northeastern accent, who applied for the position in 2007 and was taken on after sitting an examination and passing an interview.

The Xinfengjie No.1 Residence Community was created in the later half of 2002. Three years later its first community committee was elected. As more people moved into the area, a reelection was held in 2009. Now more than 5,600 residents from over 2,400 households live in the area, more than half of whom are aged between 25 and 50.

As most of Xinfengjie No. 1 residents are of working age and like to enjoy their leisure time, the committee focuses its work on cultural and sporting programs and services for the elderly and children. It has established a culture and arts association, a choir, a dance troupe, a poetry club and a fitness team. In summer and Spring Festival it encourages residents to put on various performances. It also provides a daycare service for schoolchildren during winter and summer breaks. Over the past eight years, the committee has won 20 awards at the municipal and district level for its outstanding services.

Broad Involvement

Many elected members of the Xinfengjie No. 1 committee are retired inhabitants who have the time and connections to best serve their fellow residents. Liang Zizhen, 72, is one of them. She lives in the residence community’s No. 8 building. The spotless white walls of the building’s stair well are lavishly adorned with calligraphy, paintings and papercuts wall art donated or created exclusively by tenants. At Mrs. Liang’s behest, apartment owners in her building have on a number of occasions raised funds to refurbish the walls, with beautiful results. Liang’s activism in the community embodies the good that committees can do. She has used her experience and wisdom to weigh in on discussions of local issues and has also made generous donations to support local events she once gave RMB 2,000 to the community troupe to keep it afloat.

Many retirees like Mrs. Liang are devoted to community work. In Xinfengjie No. 1, she is one of over 100 volunteers who contribute to the betterment of the community and the city in general. Before the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, for example, a number of these volunteers rehearsed for three months to help out in the running of one of the game venues. Liang says not a single member withdrew or complained about the task. Their spirit was indicative of the Chinese people’s approach to volunteerism during the Games, and embodied the desire to bring honor to their country, city and community. For these seniors, participation in community work also helps them maintain a positive outlook on life and is also a source of enjoyment.

Clarification Necessary

Community committees are designed to handle a mixture of affairs critical to urban residents’ daily lives. In fulfilling this mission deeper into the 21st century, committee management, organization and specific functions need to be clarified and reformed.

The Organizational Regulations for Urban Community Committees of 1954 and the Organizational Law for Urban Community Committees of 1989 both define the committee as an autonomous group of local residents. A 2010 document, Opinions on Enhancing and Improving the Work of Urban Community Committees, specifies its three primary functions ― organizing activities for residents, assisting local governments in their work, and being responsible for “neighborhood watch.”

Based on such stipulations, local government departments often describe community committees as their “mouth and legs,” a negative result of which has been that many departments have passed their responsibilities to committees, burdening their staff with government assignments and eating into their limited sources.

“Every committee must have a post corresponding to every government department,” says Cao Mingjun, pointing to the office signboard with 17 sub-divisions. Her committee actually doesn’t have 17 members, and many play multiple roles.

A leader of a subdistrict office once pointed out the disconnects and contradictions in the current laws some say community committees are really civilian groups performing autonomous functions rather than a branch of government; while others note they are subject to government instructions and guidance, and are obliged to help local government and its bureaus when called upon.

Local governments have been to an extent using this latter interpretation to justify passing the buck to community committees in dealing with the myriad facets of social management, ranging from social security to family planning and public sanitation. This broad scope of responsibilities can keep committee workers busy seven days a week throughout the year. When a holiday or major local event comes around, such as the Beijing Olympic Games or celebration of the founding of the People’s Republic, they are called upon to patrol their neighborhoods to ensure public security and other tasks, including erecting banners and hanging lanterns along their district’s streets. Even the responsibility for carrying out elections for the district People’s Congress and the community CPC committee falls to community committees. All this puts immense strain on committees’ well-meaning volunteers and their other resources. Residents can often be deterred from joining committees for fear of too much responsibility.

Another issue plaguing community committees is the status of their employees and volunteers. They are social workers, since community committees are neither institutes, nor corporations, nor government organs.

Insufficient funding, and consequent low pay, deters bright minds and competent hands from joining community committees. Li Ying, deputy committee chief at Xinfengjie No. 1, puts in a lot of overtime for her RMB 3,000 monthly salary which is below average for Beijing residents.

The problems of overwork and poor salary are being tackled by the government. In 2010 a document was issued that should increase appropriations in local budgets for urban community committees. The results are already apparent. According to Li Ying, a growing number of college graduates apply for committee jobs. More funds are trickling in this year she and her colleagues receive smart phones to facilitate their work. The government also launched the social worker qualification exam to better regulate community work, and Li proudly displays her certificate.

Signs point to steady improvements in the funding and effectiveness of community committees. As the urban basis of democratic management and grassroots social services provision, the importance of community committees to urban residents is set to increase.