Observing Village Elections in China - Carter Center China Village Elections Program

Project Chronology

1996 07/96	Dr. Robert Pastor, Carter Center Fellow, holds intensive meetings with senior officials in the Ministry of Civil Affairs (MCA) on comparative election experiences, visits 3 villages in Shandong province and interviews numerous officials and villagers on village elections.
09/96	The Carter Center is invited by the Department of Basic Level Governance at the MCA to observe and advise the spring 1997 village committee elections in Fujian province.
11/96	An expert meeting at The Carter Center, chaired by former President Jimmy Carter and Dr. Pastor, is held to discuss establishing a new initiative with the People's Republic of China. A three-phase project is identified.
1997 03/97	A 7-person international delegation led by Dr. Pastor observes village committee elections in Fujian and Hebei provinces and holds discussions in Beijing.
07-08/97	President Carter, former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn, Stanford University Professor Dr. Michel Oksenberg, and Dr. Pastor visit China for talks with President Jiang Zemin and other high-level officials on Sino-US cooperation, village elections and possible cooperation between The Carter Center and China.
07-09/97	President Carter and Minister of the MCA, Duoji Cairang exchange letters to consolidate the agreement on cooperation between The Carter Center and the MCA.
1998 03/98	A 9-person team led by Dr. Pastor observes elections in 7 villages and interviews officials of 2 villages where elections had just been conducted in Jilin and Liaoning provinces. Memorandum of Understanding is signed by Dr. Pastor on behalf of The Carter Center and by Mr. Xu Liugen, Director-General of the Department of International Affairs of the MCA. The agreement envisages long-term cooperation in three main areas: design and implementation of a national computer system to collect village elections data; standardization of electoral procedures; and exchanges and publicizing Chinese village elections.
06-07/98	A Carter Center team returns to China to begin implementation of a pilot computer system to transfer data on village elections from nine pilot counties in three pilot provinces: Jilin, Hunan and Fujian.
08/98	Sponsored by The United States Information Agency and The Carter Center, an MCA delegation visits the United States. During its stay in Atlanta, the delegation observes the Georgia primary runoff elections, participates in seminars on U.S. electoral system and offers briefing on China's village elections.
08/09/98	A Carter Center team visits Beijing, reviewing village elections data at the MCA and observing the training of computer operators for the pilot project. The training, funded by The Carter Center, is held from August 31 to September 5 at the Information Center of the MCA in Beijing.
11/98	A Carter Center team visits Beijing, Changsha, Hunan and Wuhan, Hubei. In Beijing, they discuss with MCA officials and scholars about the newly adopted Organic Law of Villager Committees and the next steps of the pilot project. In Wuhan, they visit China's leading research institute on rural reforms--The Institute on Rural Affairs of Central China Normal University. In Changsha, they observe the training of 158 county and municipal election officials on electoral procedures and data-gathering system. This province-wide training, the first ever in China, is supported partially by The Carter Center.
1999 01/99	A Carter Center team visits Beijing and Chongqing municipality. In Beijing, the team meets with senior officials of the National People's Congress (NPC). In Chongqing, the team observes direct elections of township people's congress (TPC) deputies in Zhujiaqiao and Banqiao villages and observes the nomination and election of the chairman and vice-chairman of the township presidium as well as township magistrate and vice-magistrates by TPC deputies in Baoding Township. This is the first-ever international observation of elections for government officials in China.
06/99	Mr. Charles E. Costello, Director of Democracy Program and Dr. Yawei Liu, Associate Director of the China Village Election Project, visit Beijing and sign a new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the MCA. This MOU outlines the cooperative activities between the Center and the MCA in late 1999 and early 2000. Some highlights of the MOU include installing 40 computers in Hunan Province, conducting an independent data verification of villager committee elections in Hunan and sponsoring a training of village election officials in late 1999. A symposium is organized by the MCA in Beijing to evaluate the pilot phase of the Project. Seven Chinese leading experts on village-level democracy, all officials of the Rural Division of the Department of the Basic-level Governance, including Director-General Zhang Mingliang and MCA officials in charge of data and statistics attend the meeting. Dr. Yawei Liu from the Center and representatives from the Center's consulting firm, GC Information, Ltd. also participate in the symposium. The MCA submits a 26-page report to the symposium which contains an assessment of the software designed by GC Information, Ltd., an analysis of the data gathered from 3,267 villages and a brief outline of future cooperative activities between the Center and the MCA
06/-09/99	In cooperation with the Hunan Department of Civil Affairs and Changsha Institute of Civil Affairs, The Carter Center sponsors an independent data verification project in 120 villages in 40 counties in Hunan where computers are installed. A total of 124 students and teachers from Changsha Institute of Civil Affairs participate in the sampling survey. A total of 355 data verification survey forms and 115 forms with original election data are collected. All 120 student participants write an essay on their experience during the survey and their assessment of the village election.
09/99	Dr. Yawei Liu and Mr. Thomas Crick work with the Time-Warner newstour to observe a villager committee election in Liujiachang Village, Xiantao City, Hubei Province. During the visit, Yawei and Tom also visit Changsha, Hunan. They have meetings with the officials of the Hunan Department of Civil Affairs, observe how the data-gathering system work in a district office and talk with students and teachers at Changsha Institute of Civil Affairs that have recently conducted data verification survey in 120 villages in Hunan during the summer.
12/99	The Carter Center sponsors a training of election officials in Baoding Municipality, Hebei Province. Baoding is the fifth largest city in China with a population of 10 million. A total of 220 officials, including leaders from municipal and county levels, participate in the training. Besides attending seminars on the newly adopted Organic Law of Villager Committees and electoral procedures and watching television documentaries on several villager committee elections, participants of the training also conduct a mock villager committee election among themselves.
2000 01/00	At the invitation of the MCA, The Carter Center sends a delegation to observe villager committee (VC) elections in Hebei Province. The delegation is led by Ambassador Gordon L. Streeb, Associate Executive Director of the Center, and made up of nine Center staff members, election experts and China scholars from various universities in the United States and Denmark. A new three-year cooperative agreement is initialed by Mr. Charles E. Costello, Director, Democracy Program and Mr. Zhang Mingliang, Director-General, Department of Basic-level Governance, the MCA. This new agreement outlines future cooperative activities in three main areas, namely, 1) working together to collect village election data in four provinces and standardize electoral procedures; 2) publicizing village elections both in China and the West; and 3) conducting bilateral exchanges to learn from each other's experiences in conducting and organizing elections. A Chinese web site on villager self-government (www.chinarural.org), cosponsored by The Carter Center and the MCA, is launched.
03/00	Yawei Liu observes the presidential election in Taiwan.
03/-04/00	Sponsored by The United States Information Agency and The Carter Center, a Chinese National People's Congress (NPC) delegation visits the United States. During its stay in Philadelphia, the delegation observes the presidential primary. In Atlanta, President Carter meets the delegation and discusses with the delegation about establishing a cooperative relationship with the NPC in standardizing election procedures at the township and county people's congress elections. The delegation also visits New Orleans and Los Angeles. .
04/00	"The Cooperative Agreement between The Ministry of Civil Affairs and The Carter Center to Standardize Villager Committee Election Procedures" is signed by Dr. John B. Hardman, Director, The Carter Center and Mr. Zhang Mingliang, Director General, Department of Basic-level Governance, the MCA. This agreement is designed to develop model and replicable electoral practices through the following activities: (1) establish a complete data collection system in Fujian and Jilin provinces and in one third of the counties in Shaanxi province; (2) conduct academic research on standardizing election procedures; (3) print and distribute voter education materials; (4) train provincial and county level election officials in electoral laws, procedures and information delivery techniques; (5) continue dialogue, share experiences and publicize village level election information; and (6) conduct bilateral exchanges between the MCA and The Carter Center.
06/00	The Carter Center sponsors an Election Information System Training Seminar in Fuzhou, Fujian, China. 102 election officials from each and every county, prefecture and municipality in Fujian and the provincial department of civil affairs participate in the training.
07/-08/00	92 computers are installed in all Fujian counties in order to collect village election data. Fujian's new round of village election begins in August and ends in December 2000.
08/00	A Carter Center delegation observes village elections in Dehua and Xianyou counties, Fujian. The Standing Committee of the Fujian People's Congress approves amended provincial measures for villager committee elections on July 28, 2000. The amended law includes new regulations such as prohibiting proxy voting and limiting the use of roving ballot boxes. This is the third time a Center delegation visits Fujian. On August 2, the delegation observes a sea-election in Qiuban Village in Dehua. No candidates win enough votes to be the chair but the delegates are impressed by the competitiveness of the election and the enthusiasm of the voters. On August 4, the Center group observes two more elections in Xiangling Village and Liuxian Village in Xianyou and talks with election officials from Putian Municipality and Xianyou County. The Carter Center and the MCA cosponsor a conference in Beijing to discuss how to revise the PRC National Procedures on Villager Committee Elections, an outdated implementation manual published in 1995. 55 officials and scholars attend the conference, representing the Center, the MCA, the NPC, the Tribune on Townships and Villages, the Central Department of Organization, Hong Kong Chinese University, Hong Kong City University, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Central Party Academy. Election officials from eight provinces and municipalities are also present at the conference. Participants express their opinions on the revision report submitted by three MCA scholars and exchange ideas on the eligibility of voters, the formation of election commissions, the examination of candidates' qualifications, campaigning and enforcement of the Organic Law.
09/00	At the invitation of The Carter Center a high-ranking NPC delegation visits Atlanta and meets with President Carter. The NPC delegation is led by Minister Zeng Jianhui, chairman of the NPC's Foreign Affairs Committee. Minister Zeng reaffirms NPC's support for the Center's project in China and discusses with President Carter and the China staff further cooperative activities between the Center and the Bureau of Liaison of the NPC that supervises all Chinese elections above the village level. Minister Zeng extends invitation to President and Mrs. Carter to visit China at their convenience in 2001.
11/00	An MCA delegation comes to the United States to observe the presidential election. During its stay, the delegation exchanges ideas with China scholars at Stanford University, talks with the Center's China staff, holds discussions with local and state election officials in Georgia and meets with NGOs in Washington, DC. On the Election Day, the group examines every step of the general election from poll opening to poll closing and observes ballot tabulation and media coverage. Members of the delegation pay particular attention to voter identity verification, secret ballot booth, absentee balloting and management of polling stations.
12/00	With support from The Carter Center, the MCA conducts the first national seminar on villager committee elections in Beijing for election officials at all levels. The 113 trainees attending the first seminar represent 29 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions (only Zhejiang and Xinjiang were unable to send trainees). 26 trainees represent provincial Departments of Civil Affairs, 41 prefecture-level Bureaus of Civil Affairs, 45 county-level Bureaus of Civil Affairs, and one a village-level Civil Affairs assistant. 22 trainees are women (19.5%) and 91 are men (80.5%)
2001 03/01	The second national seminar on villager committee elections is held by the MCA in Beijing with support from The Carter Center. 141 trainees attend the seminar representing 28 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions (only Beijing, Jilin, Hunan and Hainan were unable to send trainees). 10 trainees represent provincial Departments of Civil Affairs, 34 prefecture-level Bureaus of Civil Affairs, 94 county-level Bureaus of Civil Affairs, one a county-level Department of Organization, and one a village-level Civil Affairs assistant. 22 are women (15.6%) and 119 are men (84.4%).
05/01	170 computers are purchased and installed by the Project in Jilin Province in order to collect village election data. Jilin's new round of village election ends in June 2001
06/-07/01	Dr. Yawei Liu, associate director of the China Village Elections Project, works with a Duke University team and a Task Force on the Local Election System in China is formed. The team visits villages and townships in Guangdong and Jiangxi provinces and discusses extensively with local officials on the role of township/town people's congress and how to improve the election measures at the township/town level. A working conference is held in Lushan Mountain, Jiangxi, to design separate electoral procedures for both township/town people's congress deputies election and election of township/town magistrates.
07/01	The Carter Center sponsors an Election Information System Training Seminar in Changchun, Jilin. 73 election officials from each and every county, prefecture and municipality in Jilin and the provincial department of civil affairs participate in the training. The third national seminar on villager committee elections is held by the MCA in Yinchuan, Ningxia Hui Nationality Autonomous Region with support from The Carter Center. Over 120 trainees attend the seminar. Most of the trainees come from Ningxia, including for the first time, officials from towns and townships. Teams from Shaanxi, Qinghai, Xinjiang Uigur Nationality Autonomous Region and Gansu also participate in the seminar. Trainees observe a pilot village election in Baliqiao Village, Manchun Town on the outskirts of Yinchuan on July 21. The failure of this election to produce a villager committee chair and the subsequent eruption of public anger on electoral irregularities offer a rare lesson to officials from five Northwestern provinces and autonomous regions. The review and critique of this demonstration village election by the trainees and instructors from the MCA last five hours. Jilin Provincial Department of Civil Affairs launches the first random survey of the result and procedures of villager committee election in Jilin. Faculty members and students of Northeastern China Normal University conduct the survey in 40 randomly selected villages across the province.
08/01	The first volume of essays on villager self-government is published by China Social Press with support from the Center. The 29 essays included in this volume are selected from a large pool of submissions following a national call for papers at the Chinese web site on China Villager Self-government sponsored by the Center. The volume contains 445,000 Chinese characters and useful appendices such as both Chinese and English bibliographies of recent books and articles on Chinese rural development, political reform and direct village elections. .
09/01	The International Symposium on Villager Self-Government and the Development of Rural Society in China is held at the Beijing Eastern Garden International Conference Center. The conference is organized by the MCA and the Center with support from the Ford Foundation and other Western donors. Over 120 Chinese scholars and officials as well as researchers, academics and observers from the United States, Great Britain, Japan, Germany, Norway, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong attend the conference. Representatives from the Ford Foundation, the European Union, the Asia Foundation, the United Nations Development Project, the British Council and other domestic and international NGOs also observe the conference. At the invitation of Minister Zeng Jianhui, Chairman of the NPC Foreign Affairs Committee, President Jimmy Carter leads a delegation to China. The mission of this visit is to promote the Center's China Village Election Project, observe a village election in Jiangsu Province, exchange ideas with top Chinese leaders on issues of common concern, and prod them to apply the improved measures of villager committee elections to township elections in China that are due to be held at the end of 2001 and early 2002. In Beijing, President Carter opens the international symposium on villager self-government and the development of rural society in China and meets with Chinese President Jiang Zemin, NPC Standing Committee Chairman Li Peng, Chairman Zeng Jianhui and MCA Minister Duoji Cairang. In addition to grassroots democratization in China and the Center's effort in offering technical assistance in this endeavor, other subjects are also discussed during these meetings, including Sino-American relations, the situation in the Korean Peninsula, religious freedom in China and the question of Tibet. In Shanghai, the delegation meets with local government and people's congress leaders and travels to Quanwang Village in nearby Suzhou to observe a villager committee election.
11/-12/01	Sponsored by the Center, 50,000 copies of The National Measures on Villager Committee Elections are printed and distributed to provinces that will conduct a new round of villager committee elections in late 2001 and 2002. Agreements are signed between provincial departments of civil affairs and the Ministry of Civil Affairs to distribute these measures in a rapid manner free of charge.
12/01	The fourth national seminar on villager committee elections is held by the MCA in Changsha, Hunan with support from the Center. This is the second time that the Center sponsors training of villager committee election officials in Hunan, one of the four provinces that are participating in the Carter Center-MCA joint project to standardize villager committee election procedures. A total of 160 trainees attend the seminar. Most of the trainees come from Hunan's 14 municipalities (prefectures). Representatives from Hubei, Henan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Chongqing, Sichuan and Guangxi also participate in the training. Having received intruction on how to conduct villager committee elections, trainees observe a pilot village election in Shantang Village, Pingtang Town, Wangcheng County on the outskirts of Changsha. Trainees then critique and comment on the election, raising various issues that are crucial to the improvement of the quality of villager committee elections. Representatives from the China Rural Governance Project of the European Union, the United Nations Development Program and a Vietnamese delegation also observe the training and the pilot villager committee election. It is agreed by the Center and the MCA that all future training will continue to follow the so-called Yinchuan Model, first introduced in Yinchuan, Ningxia in July 2001. A Center group observes a town people's congress (TCP) deputies election in Baodi District, Tianjin. Tianjin is one of the first Chinese provinces and municipalities under central administration that has completed its TPC deputies election. China is scheduled to conclude this round of TPC deputies election (which is conducted every three years) by the end of 2002. The group witnesses many problems at the TPC voting district called Xiaoxuanzhuang Village (pop.: 1,270; eligible voters: 820), Dazhongzhuang Town. There is no voter identification verification; many voters carry blank voter IDs; proxy ballots are cast without written authorization; no one uses the secret ballot room; and the roving ballot box is not used according to the requirements of the law. When a voter questions the identity of one of the candidates listed on the ballot (We find out later that this candidate is a deputy town magistrate that has been transferred to Dazhongzhuang from a different town. He is away in South China on the election day.), he is forcefully escorted out of the polling station. During the post election discussion with village and town officials, we are told that villagers are much more interested in the villager committee election than the TPC deputies election because TPC deputies are irrelevant to their life. A Center group organizes a seminar on the status of local elections in China. The seminar is attended by officials from various departments of the National People's Congress, officials from Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei people's congresses and scholars from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Qinghua University and Beijing College of Administrative Management. In addition to evaluating the current status of local elections, primarily the direct election of deputies to township/town and county people's congresses, the seminar devotes much time on revising electoral measures of township/town people's congress deputies designed by the Task Force on the Local Election System in China that consists of members and experts from the Center and Duke University. Many election reform related activities are deliberated and determine at the seminar. The consensus reached at the seminar is that the best and safest way to carry out the election reform is to fully enforce what is already legal and do what is required by the law in the local elections.
2001 1/02	Having convened meetings in Lushan, Jiangxi, Durham, North Carolina and Atlanta, Georgia, and with help from scholars and experts from both the United States and China, the Task Force on the Local Election System in China has designed a total of eight electoral measures (two for the direct election of TPC deputies and six for the indirect election of township/town magistrates and deputy magistrates). These measures have been translated into Chinese. The Task Force is actively seeking Chinese partners and willing officials to apply these measures to real elections.
3/02	The Center conducts a pilot election of town people's congress deputies in Zhangjiakou, Hebei province, in collaboration with a research institute of the China Academy of Social Sciences (CASS). The pilot features a primary election, meetings between candidates and voters, use of secret ballot booths, collection of election data and budget planning on elections. A one-day conference on direct and indirect people's congress deputy elections and the role of local people's congresses is held in Beijing. Scholars from CASS and other research institutions and officials from the NPC and the MCA participate in the meeting.
05/02	A total of 65 computers are contributed by the Center to the Shaanxi Provincial Department of Civil Affairs. A Center group observes a village election in Jining City, Shandong Province. The same group travels to Xian, Shaanxi to monitor the Center-sponsored computer training seminar for election officials. .
06/02	The first book series on China's rural elections and governance (a total of eight books) sponsored and edited by the Project are published by the Northwest University Press in Xi'an, Shaanxi. A press conference on the book series is held at the Great Hall of the People. It is attended by about 50 authors, commentators, media outlet representatives and officials. Yawei Liu and a few Project partners from China observe a township people's congress deputy election in Langfang, Hebei province.
7/02	The Center launches a website called, "China Elections and Governance" (www.chinaelections.org). The website is aimed to provide as much information as possible on all levels of elections, governance, political reforms and social issues in the China.
11/02	The Center invites a ten-member Chinese delegation to observe the U.S. mid-term elections in Philadelphia. In the delegation are seven MCA and local civil affairs officials and three NPC officials who are practitioners of village elections and local people's congress elections in China. The observation mission is co-sponsored by the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations who also invites eight scholars from Taiwan and Hong Kong.
12/02	At the invitation of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the NPC, a Center group observes county/district people's congress deputies elections in Yunnan Province. It is the first time ever a Western organization observes elections at this level. After the election observation, the group files recommendations to the NPC and local election officials on possible improvement in and/or inclusion of primary elections, campaigning and secret ballot. The MCA and the China Village Elections Project conduct an assessment of the activities of the Joint Project to Standardize Village Election Procedures. Officials from the pilot provinces of Hunan, Jilin and Shaanxi attend the meeting and offer their evaluation. Discussion on the renewal of the Project begins. Yawei Liu, together with an NPC official and a CASS scholar, observes a township people's congress election in Baodi County, Tianjin Municipality. The Project sponsors the publication of two research books on direct and indirect elections of People's Congress deputy elections in China.
2003 03/-08/03	The website of "China Elections and Governance" sponsored by the Center, in collaboration with three other websites in China, organizes a national essay contest on village elections and self-government. The other websites are Zhongguo renda xinwenwang (China People's Congress News; www.npcnews.com.cn), Zhongguo cunmin zizhi xinxiwang (China Villager Self-government Information; www.chinarural.org), and Zhongguo nongcun yanjiuwang (China Rural Research; www.ccrs.org.cn). The call-for-paper is sent in March. By the end of July, 1057 articles are received from contesters who are local civil affairs officials, villager cadres, rural teachers, and scholars from various provinces. 70 winning essays are selected by a committee including officials from State Council, the NPC and the MCA and prominent Chinese scholars at an August meeting in Beijing. President Carter visits Beijing in September to attend the awards ceremony and gives awards to the prize-winners. (For more information on the essay contest, visit http://www.chinaelections.org/newslist.asp?classid=165.)
04-05/03	The Center monitors the sudden outbursts of electoral activism in Shenzhen City.
08/03	The Center organizes a conference on election campaigns, self-nomination and independent candidates emerging from district-level people's congress deputy elections in Shenzhen in April/May, in collaboration with School of Public Administration, Shenzhen University. About 50 scholars, officials, candidates, journalists participate in the three-day conference to discuss the origins and legitimacy of unprecedented campaigning of (independent) candidates, the controversial recalling of a newly-elected people's deputy in Shenzhen and the loopholes in the current election law and provincial regulations. A conference proceeding is published. (For transcripts of the conference and reports on the Shenzhen elections, visit http://www.chinaelections.org/newslist.asp?classid=204.) The Center organizes a seminar on reform of town/township and county/district level people's congress deputies' election regulations in Beijing. The participants are mainly electoral officials from the NPC and people's congresses in Guangdong, Jiangsu, Shaanxi, etc. A manual on local people's congress deputy election measures is later published by the publishing arm of the NPC, the Democracy & Rule of Law Press. Some of the recommendations raised in the seminar are adopted by the NPC in amending the election law in 2004.
9/03	At the invitation of Mr. Jiang Enzhu, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the NPC, President Carter visits China. During his stay in China, President Carter meets with President Hu Jintao and top officials from the NPC and MCA. President Hu Jintao discusses grassroots democracy in China with President Carter and thanks him for the Center's advice and assistance in standardization village elections procedures. President Hu also asks the Center to provide assistance at improving election measures and empowering people's congress deputies at the township and county level. President Carter presides over the award ceremony and gives awards to the winners of the national essay contest on village elections and villager self-government. He also gives a speech at Beijing University on the relationship between economic reform and political reform. The Center inks another three-year agreement with the MCA to cooperate on standardizing village election procedures. In addition, a Memorandum of Understanding is signed between the Center and the Foreign Affairs Committee of the NPC to initiate cooperation on improving local people's congress deputy election regulations, empowering local congresses and training local people's deputies.
10/03	The Center and Duke University launches a three-year project to standardize urban community residential committee election procedures in China. The first-year mission is conducted by a nine-member group consisting of U.S. professors, specialists on China elections and the Center staff. In October the group visits urban communities in Shanghai, Wuhan and Guilin, meeting with officials from local civil affairs bureaus, street offices and urban communities, and scholars of China Central Normal University. In Guilin, it organizes a three-day conference on reforming the current election regulations, attended by some 20 local electoral officials and scholars from other parts of China. A Draft Election Procedures is produced after the meeting, printed and presented to the MCA which gives high evaluation on the project results
12/03	The Center monitors the country & district people's congress deputy election in Beijing and its website, China Elections and Governance, sets up a special column for the elections. Dozens of candidates carry out campaigns in order to become formal candidates. The website publishes the candidates' campaign speeches, election reports from an observer sent by the website, and comments and analyses from readers. The column promotes the elections to be held in a more democratic way and the collection provides a vast resource for researchers on Chinese elections. (For more information on the Beijing elections, visit http://www.chinaelections.org/newslist.asp?classid=184.) The Center sponsors a high level meeting on the revision of the Election Law of People's Congress Deputies at All Levels in China. The meeting is attended by scholars and election officials from the Chinese research institutions, NPC and provincial people's congresses. Proceedings of the meeting are submitted through our Chinese partners to officials of relevant government agencies and NPC committees. Dell China agrees to donate a total of 240 computers to the Joint MCA-TCC Project to Standardize Village Elections Procedures.
2004 03/04	Yawei Liu observes the presidential election in Taiwan.
04/04	In collaborating with the Department of Political Science of Zhejiang University, a meeting on the status of local people's congress is held in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province. About 60 scholars and people's congress officials attend the meeting. Officials from the Zhuolu County People's Congress in Zhangjiakou City, Hebei Province, a Project pilot, present the training of plan of all its township people's congress deputies. The Center sponsors the training of township people's congress chairmen, vice chairmen, selected deputies and county people's congress officials at Zhuolu County. The trainers are local people's congress officials, model people's congress deputies from other provinces, and scholars. The training is designed to make directly elected people's deputies more aware of their authority and responsibilities, and of the means they can apply to exercise their authority and fulfill their responsibilities.
05/04	The Center establishes a learning center for township people's deputies in Fanshan Township, Zhangjiakou City, Hebei. The purpose of the learning center is to provide a place for township people's congress deputies to see each other and meet with their constituents on regular basis. It also serves as a library that can be used by both the deputies and common residents in the town.
05/04	The MCA publishes the Elections Measures for the Urban Residential Committees drafted by the staff of the Duke China Election Study Group and the Carter Center China Elections Program.
06/04	At the invitation of the MCA, a delegation led by Dr. John Hardman, executive director of The Carter Center, observes village elections in Jilin Province and Beijing Municipality. The same group travels to Fanshan Town, Zhuolu County, Zhangjiakou to observe the training of the town people's congress deputies and visits a nearby village to examine the status of villager self-government. In collaboration with the Renmin University (Beijing), Sun Yat-sen University (Guangzhou), Jilin University (Changchun), Association of Chinese Political Scientists in the United States (ACPS) and the Association of Chinese Professors in Social Sciences in the United States (ACPSS), the Center organizes a three-day academic conference on "Advancing Political Civilization and Political Modernization in China" on the campus of the Renmin University. About 250 scholars participate in the first ever international conference on China's political reform with over 100 papers presented on such issues as political reforms, grassroots governance, democratization and legal reforms, constitutional theories, political culture and Taiwan Strait relations. The second book series (eight books) sponsored and edited by the Center on rural governance and elections are published by Northwest University Press. A seminar is held on the publication of the book series in Beijing. Authors, reporters and critics attend the seminar and many reviews on the series are written and published after the seminar. 44 computers are donated by Dell China to the Chongqing Municipal Department of Civil Affairs. The Center sponsors a training of computer operators in Chongqing.
07/04	The Center continues to cooperate with Duke China Election Study Group on revising the urban community resident committee elections. A small team works with civil affairs officials in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and Jiangsu province and conducts two pilot urban community elections based on the Draft Election Procedures produced in 2003. With help from the NPC and the Jiangsu Provincial People's Congress, the Center sponsors a training of township people's chairmen and vice chairmen in Suqian City, Jiangsu Province.
11/04	The Center invites a Chinese delegation to observe the U.S. presidential elections in Georgia and Tennessee. The 37-group consists of central and local civil affairs officials, national and local people's congress officials, scholars and NGO officers. The ten-day activities include workshops in campaign headquarters and a lobbying firm, watching rallies, visiting media, and observation at polling stations. The Chinese officials also have a chance to visit University of Chicago, Duke University, and NGOs in D.C., give speeches on Chinese local elections and democratization, and exchange views with the American China specialists.
12/04	A Center group is invited by the FAC of NPC for a fact-finding trip to China on schistosomiasis (snail fever) issues. Following the meeting with Ministry of Health officials, the four-member group travels to infected areas in Anhui and Jiangsu, receives briefings on fighting schistosomiasis, and visits local clinics and patients. Part of the group goes to Chongqing to check on collection of village elections information through the use of computers donated by Dell China. The group finds that the computers are helpful to local civil affairs officials in collecting and analyzing the election data. The China Elections & Governance web site is overhauled with new features.
2005 01/04	In collaborating with the MCA and the Research Institute of Sociology, CASS, the first national survey on village elections and villager self-government is launched.
04/05	The cumulative hits to the China Elections & Governance Web site reach 7 million. The website has become a well-known portal on politics and reform in China.
05/05	59 computers supplied by Dell China are installed in all counties in Qinghai Province to collect village election data. A Center delegation observes village elections in a Tibetan village in Qinghai Province and villager self-government training in Anshun City, Guizhou Province. The same group meets with Mr. Jiang Enzhu, chairman of FAC of the NPC in Beijing and discusses future collaboration on empowering local people's congress deputies and improving election procedures. The group then observes a training of local people's congress deputies and officials in Zhenjiang City, Jiangsu Province. The training is sponsored by the Center.
07/05	In cooperation with the Beijing Center for Policy Research (BCPR), a learning and empowerment center for villagers is established in Fanshan Town, Zhuolu County, Zhangjiakou City, Hebei.
10/05	In cooperation with BCPR, the Center launches a Democracy Information Project (DIP) which includes setting up a small library in Beijing, translating English articles on democratization into Chinese and putting Chinese abstracts of English books and essays on Chinese politics and political reform online.
11/05	The Center sponsors a training of elected village committee chairs and local civil affairs officials in Chizhou City, Anhui Province.
12/05	A small delegation led by Dr. John Hardman pays a visit to the MCA and reviews the progress of the second phase of the Joint Project to Standardize Village Elections. The group then travels to Shaanxi, checking upon the use of computers donated by the Center and examining the quality of the elections. The group meets with Mr. Lu Congmin, vice chairman of FAC of the NPC. Mr. Lu extends invitation to President Carter to visit China at his convenience. A Letter of Intent is signed with the China University of Political Science and Law to establish the Carter School of Government. According to the Letter of Intent, the Global Leadership Foundation based in Hong Kong will raise the necessary seed fund for the founding of the school. The Center begins to work with the MCA on amending the Organic Law of the Villager Committees (the Organic Law). The essay contest on revising the Organic Law begins online at www.chinaelections.org.
2006 01/06	In collaboration with the BCPR, a learning center for villagers is established in Mayu Village in Shijingshan District, Beijing.
03/06	Working together with the Duke China Election Study Group and the Guangxi Department of Civil Affairs, the Center sponsors a national meeting on the status of urban residential committee elections and improvement of the election procedures. Suggestions are made to revise the National Measures on Urban Residential Committee Elections compiled jointly by the Center and the Duke group in 2004.
04/06	The essay contest on the revision of the Organic Law is completed. A total of 70 entries are sent to the web site. The national survey on village elections and villager self-government is completed. 264 interviewers trained by the Center have interviewed 3,500 villagers and urban residents drawn from 524 villages and urban residential committees. Also interviewed are 371 village committee members.
05/06	A Carter delegation visits Wenzhou City, Zhejiang Province and examines the experiment of agricultural cooperatives that have begun to appear in Rui'an, a city under the jurisdiction of Wenzhou. The same group observes a village election in Tianjin and holds discussion with the MCA and Tianjin civil affairs officials on the improvement of village elections. The group travels to Zigong City, Sichuan and observes a training of elected village committee chairs and local civil affair officials. The training is sponsored by the Center.
06/06	In collaboration with BCPR, the China Program conducts a training seminar on rural democratic management at the Beijing Capital Normal University. It is attended by 50 local officials, people's congress deputies and research scholars. The China Program sends a small team to Vietnam on a fact-finding mission. The team tries to find out the status of political reform in Vietnam and explores the possibility of connecting reform-minded Chinese officials with innovative Vietnamese officials.

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