ABSTRACT
There have been complaints about the party secretary. A farmer described the secretary’s behaviour with the adage by the Song dynasty scholar Yu Wenbao, ‘I really resent the fact that Li Yurong secured the best land for himself. Well, that is clearly a
case of ‘the tower closest to the water gets the moon’ (jin shui loutai xian de yue).’ 31 Regardless of whether the party secretary did get hold of the best tracts, he violated the law when-as a member of the village authorities-he participated in the auction. Article 22 of the Auction Law states that ‘the auctioning party and its employees are not allowed to participate in the capacity of a competing party in auctioning activities organized by itself, nor to entrust others to compete on its behalf’. 32 The 1996 Notice on the Wastelands Policy does not exclude state officials from the auctions. But a senior official within the Ministry of Agriculture warned against the participation of cadres:
It may seem rational that state and Party organs participate in the management of the ‘Four Wastelands’, but it can easily foster unhealthy tendencies… We should prohibit the lease of the ‘Four Wastelands’ by cadres of state organs [Li, 1995:30].
