Will the Boat Sink the Water?: The Life of China's Peasants (16 page)

The police action of October 5, 1997, did not come out of the blue but was, rather, the culmination of a series of events that was triggered by a minor affair, when Gao Xuewen once again had a chance to show his power. One of the respected village elders, seventy-year-old Granny Gao, had ventured to challenge the double tax for the site of her house. Gao Xuewen, contrary to the cultured flavor of his name (a combination of the words “study” and “literary”), reacted like a bully, ransacking the

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house and smashing pots and pans and attacking the inhabitants. This was on October 4. As usual, it was the guilty party who rushed to make accusations. Gao Xuewen not only escaped reprimand but by his maneuvers managed on the very next day to return in triumph with security officers and armed police in tow, who started arresting people right and left, leaving the whole village stunned.

The first to be arrested during the afternoon of October 5 was Granny Gao. Not satisfied with arresting her, the police arrested her entire immediate family. Still not satisfied, they went on to arrest her elder and younger brothers, who were visiting, as well as her nephew and also her brother-in-law on her husband’s side. In short, the police grabbed everybody present in the house, whether from her or her husband’s side of the fam-ily, ten people altogether from a family gathering of eleven. The only one left behind was a ninety-year-old grandmother-in-law, a bedridden invalid. Granny Gao was being dragged to the police car when it was noticed that her cheeks still bore the marks of Gao Xuewen’s blows from the day before. It would not do to let her show her face with all those telling marks, so she was pushed out of the car at the last moment.

Meanwhile, there had been an interesting little interlude dur-ing the raid.

The day before, some neighbors had not been able to bear to sit by with their hands folded while the poor, defenseless old woman was knocked about by the brute of a village chief. So they went to the neighboring county, Gaoji, and hired a photographer to record the evidence of what had been done to Granny Gao. There was a national drive to disseminate legal information among the peasants, which was why they even had such an idea. The photographer, a woman, arrived on October 5 and had finished taking pictures of Granny Gao’s battered face and

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was just about to photograph the state of the ransacked room when Gao Xuewen arrived with his gang. At the sight of the photographer collecting the evidence, a furious Gao Xuewen not only arrested Granny Gao but seized the photographer as well.

The woman photographer had seen something of the world. Totally unimpressed by Gao and the gang, she said contemptuously, “Watch your step. I am not from your county!” One member of the invading group, the cashier of the township financial office, was provoked beyond endurance by the photographer’s attitude. He pointed a finger at the woman and swore, “Even if you were the wife of Jiang Zemin or Li Peng, you will get a taste of my power!”*

Everyone present was stunned.

“Take her away!” the cashier commanded in a thunderous voice.

The woman barely deigned to give the impertinent cashier a look. Not at all intimidated, she retorted in a level voice, “Truthfully speaking, I can’t pretend to have such lofty connections, but I’ll tell you what—the deputy head of your county security bureau is a relative of mine. You are welcome to check.” That left the crowd even more stunned.

The security people took notice. Reluctant to take her at her word, it was also risky to totally shrug her off. Thus, when the photographer was taken away with the rest, the armed police as

*Jiang Zemin (born August 17, 1926) served as general secretary of the Communist Party of China from 1989 to 2002; as president of the People’s Republic from 1993 to 2003; and as chairman of the Central Military Commission from 1989 to 2004.

Li Peng (born in 1928) was the chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from 1998 to 2003 and was second-ranking in the Chinese Communist Party, behind Jiang Zemin. He served as premier of the State Council between 1987 and 1998. Concerned about maintaining social and political stability, Li promoted a cautious approach toward Chinese economic reform.

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well as the security people restrained themselves—even acted conciliatory.

Another minor episode during the mass arrest related to the white-bearded Gao Zongpeng, a man who had long seen through the tricks of the village cadres, and would leap to the defense of the weak and defenseless at the drop of a hat. The village leadership considered Gao Zongpeng a typical troublemaker. When Gao Zongpeng saw the crowd from the county and the township storming Gao Village, arresting people right and left, quite predictably he stuck his neck out and scolded the village cadres: “You sons of turtles, don’t go too far! Do you want to provoke a peasant uprising?” Gao Zongpeng was already on the village chief’s black list, so sticking his head out just made matters easier. The county and township gang arrested him and took away his two sons and a daughter-in-law into the bargain.

That was how fifty-two people were arrested: seventy-year- olds and toddlers, war veterans and longtime Party members, including many women old and young.

One could see at a glance that the arrested group included the “undesirables” of Gao Village: those who had gone to higher authorities to complain about excessive taxes, those who had voiced suspicions about the village financial records, and others who had differences of one kind or another with the village authorities. Under the guise of dealing with Granny Gao, the village leadership tried to get rid of everyone they considered a thorn in their side.

Since the raid was a joint action hastily arranged by forces from different departments, none of whom were familiar with the villagers, the raiders’ show of force landed them with a mot-ley crowd on their hands. Caught in the net with Granny Gao and the local troublemakers were outsiders who had come to visit relatives or to help with the harvest, and there were even some entrepreneurs who had come on business. And it was

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complete mayhem, because these law enforcement officers came from different departments, such as security and militia, and they took the individuals they had arrested back to their own headquarters, so the show of force ended up by separating families. When the police cars and other vehicles started off with their prizes, the air was rent by screams and wailing as parents looked for children, and brother called to sister. The old and the sick left behind later recalled the scene with horror. It reminded them of the invading Japanese army, they commented bitterly, except that these villains did not speak Japanese.

All the arrested were questioned the same night, the only exception being the woman photographer from the neighboring county. A short investigation revealed that her family indeed had some tenuous relationship with one of the many deputy heads of the county security office, and she was quietly released. As for the others, they were all made to pay “fines” to be released. In the end many villagers had to borrow money at high interest to buy their freedom and found themselves weighed down by as much as ten thousand yuan in debt. Some were totally ruined; others became migrant workers in cities to making a living.

The nephew of Granny Gao, a hot-blooded young man, could not control his temper at the blackmail. As a result, he got kicked so hard in the shins that he was lamed for a month, and was forced to pay the “fine” down to the last penny. When he was finally released from detention, he was steeped in bitter-ness, all his youthful illusions swept away.

One Day and One Night in Gao Village

To get back into the chain of events that culminated in the raid requires starting at the beginning with more detail. In 1990, Granny Gao’s house was rebuilt on the foundation of an earli—

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er house and had never encroached on arable land. During decollectivization, the land had already been counted toward her allotment of arable land, and she was taxed annually like everybody else. In addition, there was a one-time “house-site tax” to be paid, which she had paid in 1996. But on October 4, 1997, one day before the raid, she had been asked again to pay the 110 yuan house-site tax. Village Chief Gao Xuewen had once again appeared at her door and demanded payment of the house-site tax. Granny asked in surprise, “But haven’t I paid it already?” The village chief, not accustomed to being questioned, ordered her, “Do as you are told! Pay up and pay in full. I have no time for your nonsense!”

Granny wanted to get the matter cleared up once and for all. “Last year,” she reminded him, “I paid one hundred ten yuan, and you said that I was in the clear. Why you are here again?”

Village Chief Gao, losing patience, raised his voice. “Paid? To whom?”

Granny had long been upset by the village cadres’ practice of making a scrawl on a scrap of paper instead of giving a proper receipt for payments. So she retorted, “I paid it to the star of the night. You should know that!”