However, fulfilling tasks assigned by various government departments has occupied too much time and energy of residents' committees, which should be spent on providing services to the neighborhood, said Wang Jinhua, Director of the Department of Basic-Level Governance, Ministry of Civil Affairs. He said that in extreme examples some residents' committees have rented out that part of their office area provided by the local government and used the rent to do the work assigned by government departments.

"After all, these committees are self-governing bodies of urban residents, but they have been mistakenly regarded as ‘a leg of the government,'" Wang told Beijing Review. "They are not doing what they should do."

The inconsistency between the nature and daily work of residents' committees will be solved by regulations in the amended Organic Law of Urban Residents' Committees, currently being drafted.

A draft amendment to the law released by the Ministry of Civil Affairs to the public to solicit opinions included new clauses to eliminate government interference into the affairs of residents' committees. On the relationship between government and residents' committees, it said, "Government should not interfere into affairs that are under jurisdiction of self-governing community residents." If the government assigns tasks to residents' communities, it should also provide them with a budget and create favorable conditions. As for how to implement government tasks, residents' committees will decide on implementation plans through discussion.

Wang said the adoption of the amended law will help to catalyze the reform of civil society governance in China from a government-based, work unit-based model to a community-based model.

Before the economic reform toward building a market economy started in the early 1980s, most urban residents in China were employees of work units or danwei, which often created their own housing, child nurseries, schools, clinics, even shops and post offices for their employees. A danwei, which usually employed people for life, became the center of this cradle-to-grave social welfare system in cities.

The evolution of economic reforms in cities has pushed this work unit-based hiring system to the brink of collapse over the last two decades. Most urban residents in the labor market, especially in the private economic sector and rural immigrants, now rely on the civil society to satisfy their various demands.

In response to this new situation, the Ministry of Civil Affairs issued a document on strengthening the role of communities in city administration in November 2000, encouraging residents' committees to enhance the life quality of urban residents by intensifying their services in improving the living environment, medical care and leisure facilities.

Wang said for the time being services provided by residents' committees are pretty limited and mainly confined to serving disadvantaged groups.

An independent force

The new arrangement has helped residents' committees to act as a new independent force in protecting citizens' interests. A story by newspaper the 21st Century Business Herald in January quoted a recent incident of operations at a construction site in Ningbo that caused cracks in the walls of a residents' building. When the construction company, a state-owned conglomerate, refused to pay the residents for the damage, the residents' committee hired a lawyer who went to Beijing to negotiate with the headquarters of the state-owned company. The company eventually agreed to compensate the affected residents.

Ningbo was the first city to implement changes, but other areas will follow. Wang said the Ministry of Civil Affairs has a plan to enlarge the direct election rate of urban residents' committees around the country to 50 percent by 2010. This is slow compared with civil society governance in rural areas. Almost all Chinese farmers have been able to directly elect their village heads, in many experimental cases their township heads, since the Organic Law of Villagers' Committees was enforced in 1998. Explaining the gap between cities and rural areas, he said the essential reason was that "many urban residents still have their work units to care for their welfare and well-being and they don't rely on a wise residents' committee member to improve their life quality."

Wang, who had been monitoring the practice of direct elections in rural areas as the top official for six years, believes that steps to promote democracy in China should be taken cautiously. He said people could harvest the blessings of democracy only when its enforcement could be fully supported by a complete legal system, established rule of law and education and training on democracy.

"There is nothing mysterious about democracy. You should first design flawless rules of the game that allow nobody to play outside of the court."